Whitehall PA Clinic Recap

I love teaching camps where everyone wants to learn and has fun doing it- this was one of those. The weather was cold and today was mostly rainy, but despite the bad weather, the people were incredible; i felt very welcommed and everyone was just really nice.

The Ristines were responsible for organizing the clinic and did a phenominal job with everything. They were great to hang out with, they made me feel like part of the family. The kids were a blast to be around; as with the family in Colombia, it's the people like them that make me love doing clinics.

The turn out was great, we had 2 days of the clinic- each day was from 7am to noon. The first day we started off with start work, straight away technique, and a little bit of static dry lands. They had me hooked up with a wireless micrphone that just clipped onto my shirt which ended up working perfect; I was able to critique people and explain drills as i was doing them with everyone in the building able to hear what i was saying.

We had a pretty wide variety of ages at the camp, which for me doesnt make much of a difference because i dont teach any kind of super special secret drills that make you fast over night- i teach stuff that you can do no matter how hold you are or what your skill level is. Everyone did great with the exercises and i felt like everyone was able to take something away that will help improve their skating, regardless if they want to be a world champion or just skate for fun.

On the second day we focused on corner technique, hawks, dynamic dry lands, mental toughness and goal setting. I enjoy explaining to skaters what they should be feeling when they skate and what they need to work towards, because many don't know exactly what that is. Personally, i believe that understanding WHY you do something helps motivate you to do it, because now there is reason behind doing a drill that otherwise seemed kind of pointless.

Everyone attending the clinic got a tee shirt and a disk that has videos of all the drills i was instructing in the camp. I want to say thank you very much to everyone who attended, i had a great time and look forward to coming back for another one before too long.

Above you can see on my right foot my prototype stock shoe that ive been working with dave to make called the M1. I've been developing a new shape of the footbed that i call the Edge Control Platform- essentially what it does is gives you a much bigger and more reliable surface to push off for each stroke... this maximizes efficiency and just makes the whole skating experience 'feel like it should'. Like i was saying before, many people dont know what a boot is supposed to feel like, this will show you exactly what you've been missing. The shoe should be available before long... I cant wait.


If anyone is interested in organizing a clinic, feel free to contact me -  JoeyMantia@gmail.com

A lot of people have been asking what im doing for my sponsor next year, i am signing 2 years with simmons/schankel, thats a done deal... and am seriously considering working with hyper as my wheel brand, but nothing is set in stone yet.