posted May 2nd, 2008 - The NSL News story on 23 April 2008 covered the friendly rivalry between two British teams that competed at the World Challenge 2008. UK's national 4-way team in the female category, Bodyflight Storm, and the newly formed team Satori will most likely battle it out for the British 4-way championship at the end of August this year.

The NSL News article explained the status of the two teams and provided insights from Bodyflight Storm's perspective. This time, the NSL News takes a closer look from the Satori perspective.

One interesting aspect of this promising race is the fact that both team speakers who provided the team information, Claire "Sparky" Scott for Bodyflight Storm, and Julia Foxwell for Satori, are former teammates and reigning British 4-way world champions in the female category. In addition, they both are flying the Center Outside position for their current teams.

Airkix, with Claire Scott, Julia Foxwell, Amanda Kemp, Emma Beyer and Andy Wright on camera, won the World Championship of Formation Skydiving in Germany 2006 with a 19.0 average after five rounds. Julia Foxwell had the Center Inside position with Airkix, while Claire Scott was already flying the Center Outside slot.

Claire Scott joined Bodyflight Storm in 2007 and won the British Nationals with an 18.1 average. Julia Foxwell continued with Emma Beyer and Amanda Kemp for Team Elan and joined Satori when Team Elan disbanded at the end of the 2007 season.

Bodyflight Storm and Satori both have attended one indoor and one outdoor competition this year so far. Satori started the 2008 season with an 18.9 average after eight rounds at the FSL Shamrock Showdown 2008 in March and followed up with the 22.9 average at the World Challenge 2008. Bodyflight Storm attended the indoor competition first (22.6) and then competed at the season opener of the California Skydiving League (17.7) in Elsinore.

Satori was introduced by the NSL News with the story on 9 January 2008. The team's training plan for the 2008 season is not as intense as Bodyflight Storm's. However, Satori's advantage is the continuity. Bodyflight Storm has to switch back and forth to and from the right-hand door of the Pilatus Porter, while Satori can train form a Twinotter all the time.

However, Satori is not only focused on this year's national championship, as Julia Foxwell explained: "We are all relishing in the challenge of being in a new team, and I am enjoying getting to know my new slot as Center Outside. We have a three year plan to hopefully attend the World Championships in 2010, so our main aim at the moment is to build up competition experience as much as we can, in the run up to this event."

Satori has completed 240 jumps with a the new lineup and spent a few hours in the windtunnel. The limited number of training jumps this year are according to the long-term goal. Satori was pleased with the team's performance at the World Challenge 2008 and the improvements after the Shamrock Showdown 2008, as Julia Foxwell added:

"We were pleased to gain the additional competition experience at the World Challenge and felt we had improved from our first competition together at the Shamrock Showdown in Deland."

Her team is still fully aware of the fact that the results of the indoor competition at Bodyflight Bedford do not reflect the actual freefall performance:

"Despite the close scores with teams such as Storm we are aware that this could be very different in freefall competitions due to the difference in the amount of training we are doing."

Satori is a group of experienced competitors, as the previous NSL News story already mentioned, with the exception of Point Katie Woods. Liz Matthews is a V-Max 4-way world champion of 2003, and Aaron Faith competed for the United Kingdom in 4-way at the World Meet 2006. Julia Foxwell explained how this experience works for Satori:

"Although we are mostly experienced competitors, it's sometimes harder to start a new team when everyone has their own style. To be able to combine that experience and style into a new team can sometimes be more challenging than having everyone with a clean sheet of paper. As we have such a limited amount of time together this year, we are working hard, with our coach Gary Smith, to use what we have all learned from past teams and maximise our time together most effectively."

Gary Smith was coaching Satori at the two training camps in DeLand this winter/spring season. He will continue with his work this summer when Satori trains in Spain. Gary Smith spends the summer time with his whole family in the Netherlands.