posted Feb 5th, 2011 - The judges have caught up to Round 6, which is also the next NSL-TV video, while most of the 4-way teams are now competing in 8-way.

The NSL News mentioned earlier that the sequence of Round 6 will get special attention, as it includes the new version of Block 13, Offset - Spinner. Only two of the five US top teams rotated the center piece backwards (Arizona Airspeed and Perris Fury). Paraclete XP4, Golden Knights Gold and SDC Rhythm XP had the center piece spin forwards.

Airspeed and Fury members had strong reasons why they decided to rotate backwards. Thomas Hughes explained on Facebook: "Block 13, we found that backward spinning with both right and left hand compressed worked out a lot better than forward spinning it... If the piece goes forwards the solo's end up doing a sheer move. We tried this and although the finish was easier to see the piece was hard to stop. With the backwards move, everyone has a blind finish but we can control the piece easier and stop it faster, while maintaining balance to the next point. We are going to use the backwards for this meet, put it on the list for researching and testing different ideas when we have some training time that we can dedicate to it."

The three other teams decided to do it the other way, and it turned out that the Golden Knights Gold seemed to have the best technique. The videos from the judging perspective will show much better details of the technique for the new Block 13.

The well performed Block 13 in Round 6 paid back for the US Army team. It was the first time in this meet that the Golden Knights tied Airspeed in a round with this 20-pointer. Perris Fury's backward rotation in this sequence resulted in a 17-pointer. Paraclete XP4 scored 19 with the Golden Knights forward technique.

It will still take a while until the Block 13 contest will be decided. The NSL News puts the money on the forward technique. However, Airspeed is the only team after six rounds that has posted scores of 20 points and higher. Round 6 was a close call...