posted Jul 22nd, 2004 - The recent NSL-TV coverage of the Malevsky Cup 2004 took away a lot of attention from the usual NSL-TV coverage of the NSL meets. After a little reminder from the audience, it is now time to continue with meets that have been on a hold for a while. The Malevsky Cup coverage is almost at the end anyway, only round ten is missing, which will be added later today.

Round five of the Southwest Skydiving League's May meet has replaced round four. All three sequences for the three competition classes that weekend were different, each of them was a technical challenge for the teams. The AAA Class sequence (18-A-12) and the AA Class sequence (18-A-8) both included Block 18 (Zircon - Zircon). The viewer will find three different techniques for the execution of this block. Only two of the eleven AAA and AA Class teams, Elsinore GT and Elsinore Satori, used the theoretically fastest technique where point and tail make the first vertical move.

Eight other teams of these two classes applied the slower but safer technique where the center positions pass each other vertically at the beginning of the block move. This group included the SSL top team, Arizona Blade, with Mark Kirkby and Thomas Hughes. Both player coaches used to apply the faster technique with their former teams, Airspeed Vertical and Sebastian XL where they had the outside positions. Blade still outscored the other SSL teams by far in this round. It will be interesting to see if and when Blade will switch to the faster technique. The third technique was shown by the Perris-Ites who were cogging the two pieces to avoid any vertical maneuver.

The AAA Class sequence also included the much discussed and disputed Block 12 (Zipper - Star). The audience has another opportunity to look at this "trouble-maker" and check how the AAA Class teams in Perris mastered the vertical technique and the rule requirements. Block 12 was replaced by Block 8 (Canadian T - Canadian T) in the AA Class where the dive pool does not include slot switchers or mirror images.

Giftwrap was the only A Class team that weekend in Perris and had to perform a shorter sequence including Block 8 in round five. The participation in the A Class was slow at the beginning of the season. This has changed with the northern leagues now in the middle of the 2004 season. 21 A Class teams are currently listed in the national ranking. M4.1 of the Georgia Skydiving League is the leader at this point.