Senior American Dance 1977 US Roller Skating Championships - Ft Worth, Tex

In the early 1970's, Sony introduced a portable video tape recorder. It used 1/2" video tape that was recorded from one reel to another. referred to as "reel to reel". This recording sat for over 40 years as the Sony units failed, grew old and disappeared. Due to the genius of Rick Thomas of Arizona, Rick was able to repair a Sony "VTR" unit, use a procedure of "baking" the tape so that the playback would not destroy the brittle tape, then copy the tape and convert it to 720p.
This may be the only video recording of the Senior Dance event from 1976.
For those Artistic Competitive Roller Skaters past and present, enjoy this step back in time in competitive roller skating history.
For those who stumbled across this video, enjoy seeing the sport roller dance skating, a close relative to competitive ice dance skating. Be sure to subscribe to this channel as there will be many more recently uncovered tapes of the past posted here.

[@genealley9794]

My Pro, Eddie Howard bought one of those 1/2" VTR's in 1973. Him & his wife used it primarily as a teaching tool. I may be wrong, but, I believe he paid around $15,000 for it, and it recorded in B&W only. As a teaching tool, it was excellent. Being able to see yourself immediately after performing a jump, spin or to check posture alignment, definitely shorten the learning curve. I competed in Figures, Pairs, and Freestyle, and to quickly see your mistakes, meant getting another 50% value out of a private lesson. I really miss those days as a Rink "Rat"! Thanks for sharing this video.

[@BasicYTHandle]

I wish that EVERYONE who has old footage (probably actual videotapes) of roller dance, freestyle and - yes - even figures, could do whatever necessary to upload on KZbin. This is SO enjoyable to watch. I skated dance & figures while in high school (as an "A" skater - USARSA) & college/beyond from the late '60's through 70's, then resumed in mid-80's til ~1990 as an Esquire solo dancer & figure skater. I was also a lower-level judge, referee and even passed my first test as tabulator. I last helped at Junior Olympic Nationals in late '80's (I think) in Denton, TX. Good memories to watch!

[@unnyc914]

The Carroll Tango, Viennese Waltz, Pacifica Foxtrot & the Killian done beautifully. Too bad this kind of skating died. My wife & I were at that Nationals. Anybody have more memories? The team in white is Debra Coyne & John Labriola. They are superb! They won in 1974, 1975 & 1976.

[@christopherdrago3022]

This is such a treat and thank you so much for this great post and sharing with all of us past and present Competetive Roller Skaters!!!!Love watching and remembering this beautiful and once highly competetive and prestigious event!!Again thanks for these memories!!

[@unnyc914]

Were you a competitive skater, Chris?

[@christopherdrago3022]

I was a competitive skater in the Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale area.Some of my coaches over the years were Pam and Jerry Gherig, Eddie Nilson, Richie Veliko , Darlene and Idalee Barille.I skated out of Hollwywood Skating Center, Galixy Skateway, Gold Coast in Fort Lauderdale.

[@unnyc914]

@@christopherdrago3022 Rich Veliko was at Levittown when we were. We won Sophomore Int. Dance in 1974. We're on KZbin u nder Capozzo, Joann. What year did you skate?

[@christopherdrago3022]

1974 to 1996 and I'm thinking if comming back to skate again to skate figures which was Definetly my forte! Congrats btw on all your placements!!😀

[@christopherdrago3022]

Oh almost forgot.....skated for Robin and Richard Dion when they were married and teaching in Fla.My Sig.otger and I both took our Gold Medal Amer.Dance test with Robin at Regionals in Pensacola FL.

[@user-gl5lc7pe6k]

Thank you for posting, lovely to see the dances again, they're so elegant.

[@YiddishMoment]

The Carroll Tango is the hardest roller dance there is! It was written by the ice pro Joseph Carroll for ice. It's forgotten on ice and survives on roller because Gladys and George Werner (of the Werner Tango) were students of Joseph Carroll and carried it over from the ice. I skate the Carroll Tango on ice here in London, but the ice dancers have trouble with it!

[@dallas_red904]

Sending to others to see...so many times when telling people used to skate they think roller derby...LOL Now they can see American that we did. TY so much for sharing these...hugs, honey.

[@grewdan58]

Such a great record of when skating was at it's height. I had a bunch of Super8 movies converted over but they're no where as good as yours. Thank you for making the investment in maintaining the history of our sport.

[@avtek2293]

Thank you so much for these videos. They are awesome. Good camera work too. I also have some videos from the 70"s on the old Sanyo V-Cord format that looks like an 8 Track. I have the machines also and I need to repair them. I'm familiar and owned one of the 1970's Sony 2 piece camera/recorder. I suspect Rick baked the tapes like we had to do with Scotch/3M audio tapes. I love Dominic's organ music. That's when Dance Skating was Elegant. Brings back a lot of memories.

[@donaldwarren463]

everybody that has films from back then needs to get them repaired and up on youtube, this is a treasure ...

[@chetsir]

Fantastic job saving these old videos. I'm from that era of time. I stopped skating in 1978 as rinks in my area closed one by one. Seeing these dances showed just how we were all taught looking stiff and robotic. No feel for the music for the most part. Today, roller skating competition is so much better. Wish I could go back in time!!!

[@leagriggs7935]

Brings back so many good memories.

[@micmccann1315]

Thanks Mike. Brings back many fine memories and reminds me what skating used to be.

[@larrymackie9276]

Wonderful old footage. Happy it could be recovered successfully.

[@dennisbelkofer1311]

These are some of the finest senior teams I've ever seen in one event. Compare these with Senior Dance 1963, 1980, 1990 and 1991; only Curt Crayton and Ellen Phillips were in the same league as these teams.

[@nellgrill3845]

Wonderful!!!!!

[@kathyferreira2293]

Back when you had to skate a 3 minute flight and sometimes more. When it was a real sport, not this 2 times around stuff! Great skating and great organist!

[@JanetUVideos]

Thank You!

[@patricklaporte6453]

In my opinion Team 142 should have won. Better edges than the winning team. Much better timing on the runs in the Viennese Waltz. Skated closer together. Cleaner stroking - winners repeatedly placed two feet on the floor when transitioning from one foot to another. Winning team's lady has her hip up on the right foot three turn in the Pacifica. For sure, the winners were stunning cosmetically - but not technically.

[@jcawly1]

I judged this event at the national championships that year (among others). This was the semifinal round, i believe. In this portion of the contest, The ordinals split between teams 142 and 257. 142 had three victories while 257 had two. However, in the final final, and I believe that 142 did win this portion of the contest with a split decision.

[@kathleenhuntsman1507]

yes brings back alot of memories, i used to do all of this but am now 68 , nice video

[@BasicYTHandle]

Ditto - and I'm 72. It's hard to believe that this is 55 years ago!

[@dennisbelkofer1311]

Who was the lady who fell on the Killian. It must have hurt big time!

[@guso90210]

Please post some footage about Compulsory Figures. Thank You.

[@BasicYTHandle]

I have always felt that the only thing more boring than skating figures is watching someone skate figures. And to think that, for competition, we got to the rink ~5:00am and, depending on the schedule and one's event, warm-up started as early as 5:15am! I have a clear memory of my pro once saying to me that I should have worn more make-up - to which I responded that I was there and had my skates & outfit on, that was all that he could expect at that hour.

[@stephawesome2128]

​@@BasicYTHandlewhether or not they're boring to watch, I very much want to learn from watching compulsory figure videos. I love all these skating videos. Would love more figures and loops, though.

[@dennisbelkofer1311]

Can someone check out the finals for this event? I was a skater in the 1960's and 70's...passed the gold medal dance test in 1964 with Linda Mace...quit to go to school and then placed 7th at nationals in 1975 with Beth Finnegan coached by Adolph Wacker. Does anyone else agree that other teams than the two that placed 3rd and 4th were stronger in the semi-finals? And the judge who gave the 2nd place team 4th should have had their judges commission revoked.

[@jcawly1]

Dennis Belkofer - i think you have the ordinals for the wrong year. In 1976 (this is mis-labeled - this is 1977) there were 2 and 4 swapped, but not in 1977.

[@jcawly1]

www.susan-a-miller.com/skate/1977pg18.JPG

[@oyoakum]

The quality makes this extremely errie.

[@dennisbelkofer1311]

I hater to harp about my opinion that the teams placing 3rd and 4th in the finals, as shown on another video, were not as strong as the teams that didn't make the finals. Does anyone agree? The 3rd place team, the Whites, had sloppy footwork and poor free-leg extensions.

[@rayninness6303]

I never Mastered that Dance, and Never liked Skating it!!😞