posted Jan 7th, 2020 - Great news are coming once again from the west coast. Josh Hall, Arizona Airspeed 4-way world champion of 2012, had announced on 18 December 2019 that the Southern California Skydiving League has scheduled three outdoor meets for the 2020 season.

Eliana Rodriguez and Michelle Karamon now followed up with a complete 2020 schedule for the Arizona Skydiving League. They had re-activated the league last year and hosted a total of eleven 4-way meets at Skydive Arizona. Most of the events featured additional Arizona Airspeed members providing coaching services that were included in the registration fees.

The 2020 schedule offers a total of ten events, all of them hosted by Skydive Arizona. The dates are posted, and one more meet will be added in October/November. This schedule offers once again a consistent opportunity for highly experienced world-class coaching at all levels of 4-way Formation Skydiving competition, with all four NSL competition categories (AAA - AA - A - Rookie) offered at the events.

Teams and competitors who attend the ASL meets on a regular basis will eventually go through the complete dive pool in a casual competition environment and get advice from some of the most experienced competitors and coaches in the world.

Eliana Rodriguez was an Arizona Airspeed member in 2001, right after she had won 4-way Women gold medals with the U.S. team Synchronicity at the FAI World Meet. She followed up with Airspeed 8-way gold medals in 2004 and 4-way gold medals with Airspeed Odyssey in 2008. She is the only Formation Skydiving competitor in the history of the sport who won FAI gold medals in three different events.

Michelle Karamon trained and competed with Ranch 2nd Generation since 2016, the shooting star team in U.S. 4-way competition. As all of her R2G team mates, she was then invited to compete at the world's top level. She and her R2G team mate Jeana Billings won gold medals at the FAI Indoor World Meet 2019 with the U.S. national 8-way team Paraclete XP8. Then they won the USPA 8-way title at the USPA Nationals 2019 and will compete for the 8-way gold medals with Airspeed XP8 at the world meet in Russia this year.

Eliana Rodriguez and Michelle Karamon both have obviously very busy schedules without the Arizona Skydiving League. However, they are ready to continue with what they started last year, as Eliana Rodriguez explained well with just a few words: "Michelle and I are excited to continue what we started in 2019. It's been very rewarding, and we hope to make it even better this year!"

The Arizona Skydiving League grew out of the Southwest Skydiving League, which was launched in 2004 and then split up into the Arizona and the Southern California leagues. The Arizona Skydiving League had its most active period in 2007 and 2008 when Arizona Divewerkz, USPA Advanced Class champion of 2006, became involved and helped to launch the new 4-way league for the 2007 season.

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ASL Valentine's Meet 2007			1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total	Avg
Rank	AAA Class		F,22,K,H	A,17,18	10,L,O,D	7,P,8	G,5,B,N	J,Q,3,1	6,19,15	14,9,C	21,16,12	20,4,M	Total	Avg
1	Airspeed Odyssey	US	24	21	24	23	26	21	18	26	18	21	222	22.2
2	Maubeuge	FR	27	15	24	23	23	21	19	23	19	18	212	21.2
3	Perris Fury	US	25	19	20	20	24	19	19	22	17	18	203	20.3
4	Eutelia Spin Team	IT	18	13	17	14	15	13	12	16	10	11	139	13.9
5	Crossroads	RU	14	11	11	14	14	14	12	11	12	13	126	12.6
6	Texas Havoc	US	13	9	12	9	12	12	9	11	9	10	106	10.6
6	Arizona Directe	US	18	16	19	17	19	17	-	-	-	-	106	17.7
8	Arizona Divewerkz	US	17	12	10	11	16	14	-	-	-	-	80	13.3
Rank	AA Class		F,22,K	A,15,18	11,L,O	7,P,8	G,2,B	J,Q,1	6,19	14,9	21,13	20,4	Total	Avg
1	Down 5	US	9	8	6	9	8	9	-	-	-	-	49	8.2
1	Black Ice	US	10	6	10	7	6	10	-	-	-	-	49	8.2
3	Ficken Chuckers	US	6	6	9	8	9	7	-	-	-	-	45	7.5
Rank	A Class		F,8	A,4	21,L	7,P	G,2	J,Q,9	6,19	K,H,O	D,B,N	C,M,E	Total	Avg
1	Donkey Punch	US	5	7	4	4	3	7	-	-	-	-	30	5.0
2	Flailspeed	US	4	3	3	2	4	4	-	-	-	-	20	3.3

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At the beginning, the Arizona Skydiving League was built around the popular Valentine's Meet that Skydive Arizona had been hosting for many years. In fact, the first meet that was recorded in the database of the current version of the NSL website was the February competition in 2007, which was still the Valentine's Meet at the same time.

The 2007 leaderboard was loaded with high-profile team names, including Crossroads from Russia and Italy's nation 4-way team, who would compete at the FAI World Meet 2008 a year later, together with Airspeed Odyssey. Eliana Rodriguez trained and competed with Airspeed Odyssey at that time and won her 4-way Open Class world championship title in Maubeuge 2008.

The French national 4-way Open Class team competed at the same event with the lineup that would end up one point behind Airspeed Odyssey on their home turf in Maubeuge. They still won the 8-way gold medals at the same world meet. Dmitri Fridman's Crossroads lineup included Valentin Ilin and Alexander Tychinskiy who are both members of the current Russian 8-way team from Tanay. Perris Fury also competed in February 2007, when they were on their way to the top of the 4-way world and the U.S. leaderboards in the following years.

Eliana Rodriguez and Michelle Karamon plan to attract the best 4-way teams to the ASL meets this year, while offering their experiences to the beginners in the sport, as well. Especially the first two competition categories (Rookie - A) offer an entry level and a gradual progression to the competition requirements at national and international events. The first ASL meet of the 2020 season is scheduled for this weekend.