posted Jul 4th, 2010 - The NSL News mentioned a special technique of the Founding Fathers' jump preparation in the story on 23 June 2010. It was actually an observation by meet judge Steve Miller who provided the meet story for the SCSL June meet:

"Founding Fathers John Hamilton and Dan BC recruited Todd Hawkins from Eloy/Paraclete and 2008 world champion in the female category, Hanna Betts, with a promise of no creeping for the day."

It was obviously coincidence that the same meet weekend featured two teams with the same technique for jump preparations, Founding Fathers on the west coast, Teiwaz on the east coast. The synchronization of the competition draw was planned, the same method of jump preparation was not coordinated.

Teiwaz had a new lineup, as former Sebastian Tempest member Gilles Dutrisac accepted the Teiwaz invitation for the first time. He had joined the Tempest lineup when Ari Perelman left the Florida team at the end of the 2008 season.

Tempest followed up on the very intense 2008 season with a lot of training and attendance at eight meets. The busy 2008 included a 7th place at the USPA Nationals 2008 with a 17.1 average where Tempest outscored the winner of USPA's Advanced Class, CSC Rhythm XP.

The 2009 season with new member Gilles Dutrisac in the Center Outside slot was just as intense for Tempest as the 2008 season. The Sebastian team competed at five meets and finished in 9th place at the USPA Nationals 2009 with a 16.6 average, tied with Spaceland Blue, the US national team in the female 4-way category.

The Sebastian Tempest members all needed a break after two busy years and stepped back in 2010. This, of course, did not apply for Thiago Muradas who joined SDC Rhythm XP and even picked up the pace. It also changed for Kris Peterson when she accepted a player coach position with DeLand Dunamis.

However, Gilles Dutrisac had neither trained nor competed this year before he had his comeback with Teiwaz on the June 19 weekend. Teiwaz is well known for a very casual approach to 4-way competition. The lineups are open for any new members, and the slots are usually open until the team members for the meet day get together Saturday morning and pick their positions.

Some Teiwaz lineups of the past have skipped certain parts of the jump preparation that do not fit perfectly to a 4-way vacation day. The Teiwaz lineup at the June meet decided to avoid the hard work on the creepers, as the Founding Fathers did at the same time at the SCSL meet in Perris. Maybe this strategy has something to do with age or years in the sport, however, the missing physical exercise did not seem to have a serious impact on performance and scores.

The casual Teiwaz approach was also helpful for Center Inside Bob Byrne who had a player coach position with the new Rookie Class lineup Dropouts at the same time. He did not have much time for the Teiwaz preparations, as the new FSL competitors from Skydive Miami needed more attention and coaching.

Rich Richmond had competed for the first time with the Teiwaz Rookies (5.5) at the FSL May meet in Z-Hills. He liked it and came back with two friends from Homestead (Ferreira, Brian Goodkind) to join the FSL June meet in DeLand.

Bob Byrne guided the new FSL 4-way fans through the 6-round meet, and the Dropouts finished with almost exactly the same meet average (5.3) as the Teiwaz Rookies in May. This was rewarded with the 4th place on the 9-team Rookie Class leaderboard that weekend.

Teiwaz could not keep up with the top competitors of the Founding Fathers who finished in 3rd place of 15 AAA Class teams with a 17.2 average. However, only the zero in Round 5, due to a video failure, kept the FSL team away from finishing right behind the Founding Fathers. Creeping seems to be well over-rated...