By Sam Rubenstein

You’ve heard of basketball camps that teach shooting, ball handling, playing defense, all of the elements of basketball. But the game has changed and now it is played in the air. 1991 Slam dunk champ Dee Brown has teamed up with JumpUsa to create the world’s first slam dunk workout camp.

Dee hosted the 2007 Summer Slam Camp at his facility in Orlando on August 12th with an assist from past winners and finalists from City Slam as seen on ESPN. Kevin “Bizness” Butler, Mike “Sky High” Banks, Marvin “High Rizer” Collins, and Rashaan “Snap” Barner all showed up to show off their dunking skills and pass on some tricks of the trade.

The camp provided instruction for girls and boys from ages 13 to 18, beginning with training stretches and jumping drills. Director of Performance Training Honey Brown worked with them specifically. The kids attending the camp received jump soles and jump boxes to train with, but aside from improving their own verticals, the highlight of the camps was the appearance of four former city slam players in their Team JumpUSA uniforms.

While dunking is often thought of as nothing more than getting off the ground and reacting in the air, there is a science to it, and who better to learn from then guys who spend so much of their basketball lives above the rim?

After teaching, the dunkers put on an exhibition for the kids, setting up 40-inch high poles that had to be cleared, and raising the stakes as the afternoon went on, with High Rizer clearing 65 inches. From there, a second obstacle was added, an extended foam arm used to teach shooting over the defender, in this case one that stood 7’6”. At the Summer Slam Camp, the kids took to calling it Yao Ming. A surprise pop-in by Dee Brown’s friend Dwight Howard took the camp to the next level.

The results are better seen than described, and while the August event has come and gone, there are more coming in the future. The Hustle Up Streetball tour begins in January, and while the dates and places aren’t locked in as of yet, one of their goals is to bring an exciting basketball tour to places that typically wouldn’t bee seen as basketball hotbeds, for example in Alaska and on Indian reservations. Keep an eye out for that.

Photos of the JumpUSA camp: