posted Jun 25th, 2011 - The NSL News recently reported how former Satori member Katie Woods had a busy weekend in DeLand. She is also traveling back and forth between Florida and Europe for her coaching jobs.

In the meantime, her former team Satori, UK 4-way champion of the past years, has moved on. Satori with the new lineup competed at the World Challenge 2011. UK's national team did not attend the first two 2011 meets of the United Kingdom Skydiving League. However, Center Outside Julia Foxwell helped the other teams with engineering and coaching.

Satori also has another personnel change. Dave Head is now on the Satori camera and will help to put scores on this year's leaderboard at the outdoor meets.

Satori is running the Satori Academy, a coaching project, and recently held a highly successful training camp for five of the Academy's six farm teams in perfect weather at Skydive Spain. The team has a light training year after an intensive 3-year back-to-back period and gives the Satori Academy more time in 2011.

The new lineup did a couple of training days before the farm camp started leaving little rest for the coaches who worked hard with one Rookie Class team (Satori Blue/Fox Fource), one A Class team (Satori Yellow/Toushi), two AA Class teams (Satori Red and Satori Purple) and one AAA Class team (Satori Green). The Satori Academy was set up to enable people at all levels to have dedicated coaching from the most current and progressive coaches, at an affordable budget. The Academy targets individuals trying to progress in Formation Skydiving but struggle to find like-minded team mates to train and compete with. The Academy is open to everyone who has enthusiasm and passion for Formation Skydiving competition. There are farm teams now in all categories, and they all follow the same training program preparing for the UK Nationals 2011.

The five farm teams completed well over 200 training jumps together during the 6-day camp. The more experienced teams made up to four jumps per hour at times. Satori's Center Inside John McIver said that "no other drop zone in the world can do this turnaround".

The drop zone is a popular venue for team training as it shares a pool fleet of fast-climbing Dornier turbine aircraft with British sister DZ Skydive Hibaldstow, host of the UK Nationals for 14 of the last 15 years. Hibaldstow set a record at the UK Nationals 2009 when all 47 teams completed all ten rounds on a single day.

New videographer Dave Head reported that the Satori farm teams were unanimous in how successful and enjoyable the recent training week was for them. Julia Foxwell added: "All teams made great progress and improvements and were pleased with the results they had achieved in such a small amount of time."

The Academy teams and competitors were put together through a selection process, and many hadn't actually met until the first tunnel camp. The participants also enjoy the social side of being part of something bigger.

Dave Head said that there were amazing vibes during the training week "despite many being strangers at the start".

Some teams had already crossed paths while training with the Academy project in the British wind tunnels, however, this was the first time many participants really met:

"They all enjoyed relaxing together and following each other's progress", Dave Head added.

UKSL 2011 - May Meet		Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Round 4	Round 5	Round 6	Total	Avg
Rank	A Class	7,O	2,P	E,Q,4	19,A	C,21	B,N,J	Total	Avg
1	UK Raykipo	7	8	7	8	5	11	46	7.7
2	UK Army Apex	10	8	8	5	3	11	45	7.5
3	UK Team Toushi	6	7	7	8	7	7	42	7.0
4	UK RAFSPA Phoenix	9	4	6	6	5	11	41	6.8
4	UK Enigma Nom	7	7	6	7	5	9	41	6.8
6	UK RAFSPA Typhoon	7	6	7	2	6	7	35	5.8

The teams will now go back to indoor training and then attend the next Academy camp at Skydive Hibaldstow at the end of June. The teams are looking forward to the first 2011 competition for most of them on July 16 - 17. Only A Class Satori Yellow (aka Toushi) has competed so far this year and won a bronze medal at the UKSL 2011 season opener in May. The July meet is traditionally a popular one for the British teams as it is only a month before the UK Nationals and held at the same DZ with the same competition aircraft.

The Satori Academy farm team project has been a great success so far, and the Satori members are looking forward to building on it next year. Satori is unable to attend the World Cup 2011 but the team has set sights firmly on the World Championship of Formation Skydiving 2012 in Dubai.

Satori is hoping to train more intensively again next season as well as continue the Academy project. The defending UK champion added some extra training dates in preparation for this year's UK Nationals.