We felt super prepared going into Bodyflight World Challenge 2014. We'd just had our tunnel camp and two evening sessions the week before, not to mention our practice round on the Thursday evening before went incredibly well. You can imagine how great we were feeling after Round 1 on the Friday morning kicking the competition off in second place!
Nearly half of the Single A draw this year was full random rounds. Nice and easy yes, but also likely to be high scoring rounds for all teams. Some teams might find block x easier than block y meaning more varied results. Randoms are randoms. So we just had to go in and give our all. We had slipped down a couple of places as the day went on, some teams must have had a first bad round (maybe because they weren't all random rounds)! We came out of round 2 with a horrid feeling that we might not have done as well as we could have but had a pleasant surprise watching the live scoring and reaching 20 points. So far this had been one of our highest scoring rounds ever... until round 3. We sat and watched the video in the Flowhouse, being scored live. "...10, 11, 12..." By the end of the round we were scoring a point per second. 27! TWENTY SEVEN! I can still picture the surprise and joy on the faces of the rest of the girls. It had felt like a good round but we had no idea how we managed that. So morals were high and we soon realised that we might actually be getting somewhere with this. Not in terms of prizes or medals but the fact that we were currently in 4th place behind 3 professional teams from all over the world. But, there's a but.
Saturday morning did not get off to a good start. We knew it would be sheer luck to compete and not have a single bad round. But truth is, round 6 was not awful. Round 6 involved block 6. A block we had probably been practicing the longest but only up until recently, when we started to actually break the block down and study discipline and technique that they have been somewhat hit-or-miss for us. It wasn't awful, just not as good as some previous times. So we felt a little deflated at the start of the day knowing we could have performed a little better and that we have done in the past. At this point we had slipped down into fifth place but next came another all random round so it was a chance to get the points back up.
Later that day we had another one of our favourite rounds of the competition. An all block round we knew we could fly well, but the likelyhood was that everyone else probably could too. We ended up flying our best block 19s to date, scoring a clean 18 points, the second highest score, which took us into the last round one point behind the Italian team Sardegna who were fourth. The final round we knew would be a bit slower due to the two blocks but we were thinking, with the scores so close, it would be good to at least match the Italians total score. However, they were just that bit more polished and we finished the competition in fifth place, 2 points behind fourth, but the top UK team in Single A.
But do not get me wrong. For a team whose only goal was to finish in the top half of the table (in this case, top 10 - 19 Single A teams in total), we literally could not be more overjoyed and relieved with our performance at the competition. We competed last year for the first time in Rookie. It was also our first competition as a team and we ended up placing 2nd from last - 10 teams in total as I recall. In one year we have managed to progress through Single A (and already training for AA for the rest of the season) and not only that but go from the bottom of one table to the top of the next class up.
Our average from this years World Challenge was 17.4, a massive 3 points higher than our previous (from a practice session the week before the meet). I feel the need to point out that we also competed at this years meet without relying on any coaching for the weekend. We had taken it upon ourselves to make sure our formations and pictures were all in place and yes, if we had a coach with us then we may have performed a little better but it really does go to show just what we're capable of. I'd like to apologise for blowing our own trumpet(s) but the truth is this is our blog and our write up and if you're reading it, you will no doubt be impressed to know. And frankly, we could not be more proud of ourselves this weekend, as most teams should be too.
We would of course like to thank Paul Mayer and everyone at Bodyflight not only for this weekend but for all the times we come and trained at the tunnel. Also Yo, our coach who got us going and those who have provided us with tips and coaching in the past. And of course, Pete Allum. We've only had 1.5 hours coaching with Pete so far (also with input from Steve Hamilton) but without feeling like we've really done anything, our flying has improved vast amounts. We have just booked in for some more tunnel before Sarah has her operation, with coaching from the great Steve Hamilton. We're very much looking forward to flying together again - we're feeling somewhat determined after this weekend.
Saturday morning did not get off to a good start. We knew it would be sheer luck to compete and not have a single bad round. But truth is, round 6 was not awful. Round 6 involved block 6. A block we had probably been practicing the longest but only up until recently, when we started to actually break the block down and study discipline and technique that they have been somewhat hit-or-miss for us. It wasn't awful, just not as good as some previous times. So we felt a little deflated at the start of the day knowing we could have performed a little better and that we have done in the past. At this point we had slipped down into fifth place but next came another all random round so it was a chance to get the points back up.
Later that day we had another one of our favourite rounds of the competition. An all block round we knew we could fly well, but the likelyhood was that everyone else probably could too. We ended up flying our best block 19s to date, scoring a clean 18 points, the second highest score, which took us into the last round one point behind the Italian team Sardegna who were fourth. The final round we knew would be a bit slower due to the two blocks but we were thinking, with the scores so close, it would be good to at least match the Italians total score. However, they were just that bit more polished and we finished the competition in fifth place, 2 points behind fourth, but the top UK team in Single A.
But do not get me wrong. For a team whose only goal was to finish in the top half of the table (in this case, top 10 - 19 Single A teams in total), we literally could not be more overjoyed and relieved with our performance at the competition. We competed last year for the first time in Rookie. It was also our first competition as a team and we ended up placing 2nd from last - 10 teams in total as I recall. In one year we have managed to progress through Single A (and already training for AA for the rest of the season) and not only that but go from the bottom of one table to the top of the next class up.
Our average from this years World Challenge was 17.4, a massive 3 points higher than our previous (from a practice session the week before the meet). I feel the need to point out that we also competed at this years meet without relying on any coaching for the weekend. We had taken it upon ourselves to make sure our formations and pictures were all in place and yes, if we had a coach with us then we may have performed a little better but it really does go to show just what we're capable of. I'd like to apologise for blowing our own trumpet(s) but the truth is this is our blog and our write up and if you're reading it, you will no doubt be impressed to know. And frankly, we could not be more proud of ourselves this weekend, as most teams should be too.
We would of course like to thank Paul Mayer and everyone at Bodyflight not only for this weekend but for all the times we come and trained at the tunnel. Also Yo, our coach who got us going and those who have provided us with tips and coaching in the past. And of course, Pete Allum. We've only had 1.5 hours coaching with Pete so far (also with input from Steve Hamilton) but without feeling like we've really done anything, our flying has improved vast amounts. We have just booked in for some more tunnel before Sarah has her operation, with coaching from the great Steve Hamilton. We're very much looking forward to flying together again - we're feeling somewhat determined after this weekend.
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