Robert Vervloet says he's come up with a better way to skate.
The problem is, almost nobody wants to listen.
Vervloet learned how to skate by watching a praying mantis
climb up a stick.
That's not strictly accurate--the fitness-center employee
learned how to balance himself better on his inline skates
by watching the mantis. He improved his power stroke by
observing a grasshopper.
"I think humans are lousy athletes," Vervloet says. "If
I'm going to make skating better, I have to look at teachers
who aren't human."
Vervloet's rationale may not be as far-fetched as it seems.
Researchers at Oregon State and Northeastern, among other
universities, are studying the physiology of insects and
animals, trying to understand, for instance, whether the
way grasshoppers land can help planes land on aircraft carriers,
why frogs are such good jumpers and how turkeys can run
so fast.
Even Nike has jumped on the zoomorphic bandwagon, introducing
last month the Air Terra Goatek, a running shoe with soles
modeled on a goat's hoof.
With his shock of Brillo-like hair, spring-heeled gait
and halogen eyes, the 6'4" Vervloet looks the part of the
eccentric inventor. Still, he isn't exactly the obvious
candidate to overhaul the 150-year-old technique that dominates
both ice and inline skating.
First of all, the 37-year-old Beaverton native has no academic
or athletic credentials. By his own admission, Vervloet's
way of approaching the world has always been unconventional.
After graduating near the bottom of his class at Sunset
High, Vervloet bounced through a series of jobs ranging
from manning the till at Fantasy Video to peddling futons
to his current position in a hotel fitness center. An avid
video-game player, he contributed unsolicited research papers
to the Defense Department for years and spent much of his
spare time in libraries and bookstores acquiring an eclectic
education.
Vervloet began skating in 1992. A divorce left him broke,
and he sold his car in order to qualify for food stamps.
"I needed some transportation to get to work, and with what
I had left, all I could buy was an old bike or some skates.
I chose the skates."
Soon he found himself spending winter evenings whizzing
around the esplanade at Memorial Coliseum with Portland's
best inline skaters--some of whom were world-class. Frustrated
with his inability to keep up with the better skaters, Vervloet
followed them and tried to spot inefficiencies in their
technique. He identified three: The traditional skater's
arm swing wastes energy and increases drag; bending forward
is uncomfortable and limits leg extension; and the cross-over
cornering technique is difficult to perfect.
A weapons-technology buff, Vervloet consulted a manual
on high-performance planes. The Grumman X-29A, an experimental
fighter that had wings angled forward rather than backward,
intrigued him. Forward-pointing wings gave the plane unparalleled
efficiency and maneuverability--but they also made it highly
unstable.
He altered his skating posture to mimic the plane's aerodynamics
but had difficulty with balance. Then one day, on a break
from selling futons, he found himself observing a caged
praying mantis in the pet store next door. The grace of
the unwieldy insect inspired him to skate more upright.
Having solved his balance problems, he strove to increase
his power and speed. That quest led him to copy the grasshopper's
leg motion because, he says, no other insect has such a
proportion of leaping ability to body weight.
The resulting technique looks completely different from
the forward-leaning, arm-flapping standard. Vervloet skates
with his arms pulled together in front of his face, which
he claims saves energy and cuts drag. Rather than leaning
forward, he sits back on his haunches, his spine nearly
straight and his weight on his heels. He pushes forward
rather than backward, pedaling his feet furiously like a
cartoon figure slipping on ice.
Over the past four years, the national skating establishment
has shown a marked lack of interest in Vervloet's technique.
Officials from U.S. Speed Skating, the U.S. Olympic Office
of Science and Technology and just about everybody connected
to the sport have rejected or ignored his approaches.
"My problem has always been with the 'experts' who refuse
to accept what I've done," Vervloet says. "But you have
to remember it was the experts who said the world was flat
and the earth was the center of our solar system."
He hopes to get a grant to prove the efficiency of his
technique in a wind tunnel and to have the opportunity to
teach leading skaters. Vervloet believes that if he persists
long enough doubters will come to appreciate his work, as
happened to his heroes Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison.
More than anything, Vervloet wants to prove to his family,
from whom he's estranged, that he's not a nut. At the time
of his divorce, Vervloet and his wife had a son. He says
his parents and wife convinced the judge that he was an
unfit father. Under the terms of the divorce, he says, he's
not allowed to see his son except at his parents' house,
and they've told him he'll be arrested if sets foot on their
property.
Recently, at WW's request, Jonathan Seutter, a Portland
resident and world-record-holder in ultramarathon inline
skating, skated with Vervloet at Memorial Coliseum. Seutter
suggests that Vervloet's zeal and unconventional way of
thinking have hampered his efforts to spread the word.
"I've talked to people Robert has talked to," Seutter says.
"They think he's from another planet."
Although Seutter remains skeptical about whether Vervloet
can help top-flight skaters, he came away from the two-hour
session willing to concede that Vervloet's method isn't
complete madness. "There are a lot of elements of his technique
that are really useful," Seutter says.
Vervloet remains optimistic. As he is quick to point out,
sports abound with innovations once considered wacky, from
the Fosbury flop (the technique that revolutionized high
jumping) to snowboards. In fact, the example of snowboarding--a
clear case of simplifying a complicated sport for recreational
athletes--may offer Vervloet his greatest chance of acceptance.
Two weeks ago, Vervloet flew to Detroit to give a clinic
to a group of skaters who will be competing in America's
longest inline skate race, which runs 86 miles from Athens,
Ga., to Atlanta. The man who invited Vervloet to Detroit,
David Cooper, is an official of the International Inline
Skating Association.
Cooper also happens to suffer from a ruined fifth lumbar
vertebra and, fortunately for Vervloet, has found the praying
mantis position to be the only way he can skate comfortably.
After watching Vervloet teach his technique in Detroit,
Cooper was cautious but impressed. "Will his method be a
revolution? Not for racers, only because they're as myopic
as all elite groups," Cooper says. "I believe if anyone
would adopt it, it would be new skaters and folks who had
serious issues with their backs."
In Cooper's opinion, Vervloet needs to improve his marketing
skills, not his technique. "If Robert learns the correct
presentation and chooses to either look like a bug or talk
about bugs but not both," he says, "then we could have an
evolution that might very well drive a change in skate technology."
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 7, 1999
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