(September 19, 2012) — Freshman Skye Manning loves roller skating. “When I skate everything around me goes away and I can be myself,” said Manning. She practices at Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale for at least 30 hours every week. Her greatest accomplishment, over her four years of competitive skating, was winning Nationals in 2011. Although her coach choreographs the moves, Manning gets to choose the music. Most of the time the songs she chooses are Pop songs, but her favorite songs are slow ones. She said that she likes to use slow songs for the more creative pieces. “On the slower pieces, you have to be more precise on the moves,” said Manning, “or else the judges will mark you down.” Manning said that the bigger the competition the tougher the judges are. “At big competitions, they make you write down all the moves you’re planning to do,” Manning said. Her favorite trick to do is called the traveling camel, which, she said, is basically a cartwheel into the splits.