Posts from — February 2008

Now that half the planet watched the NFL’s Superbowl, check out the real superbowl! Thanks to Jason Kerr for the find!

All footage taken at Kicking Horse in Golden, B.C. If you haven’t been yet, add it to your top 3 list. The terrain featured in this quick vid are all chairlift accessible…as are over 70 other chutes!

The past week has been a great experience.

We were lucky to have not only a fun group, but a talented one too.

For the first time I really understand our new learning methodology (AICRCv) and how it applies to different skiers who are at different stages of incorporating changes into their own skiing. I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned to our sessions at Alpine for the balance of this season and going forward.

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Our day, and course, finished on the ‘S;’ a gnarly, steep bump run covered in fluffy snow down skiers right on the south face of the mountain.  As a group we charged down the run, all feeling super confident and charged at the end.

Again today we were guided by Emerson Brooks.  His relaxed, efficient style was even more evident today.  He kicked off our day with a top to bottom cruiser; today there was no messing around!  It was going to be a maximum vertical day.

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Today was a typical Quebec ski day; -20C, a haze of clouds, and a thick frost on your windshield.

We were on snow at Le Massif by 9:00am with our new course conductor, Emerson Brooks.  Originally from Montreal, Emerson moved to Lake Louise 18 years ago.  He is your typical west coast skier, extremely relaxed and fluid, but his performance in this relaxed mode is matched by few. 

For the past four days he has been skiing in short bursts, usually about 100ft of vertical at a time.  What he didn’t realize was how energized our group was.

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What an awesome day on snow.

We woke up this morning to a couple of light flurries and grey skies.  With the unfortunate injury of course conductor, Donald LaCasse, we wondered who would fill his boots.  Our whole group secretly wished that it would be J.F. Beaulieu and our wish came true. 

Today was one of the best instructional days we’ve ever had.  Not only was it great individual ski improvement, but his instruction was also about how to teach a great lesson.

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None of us were looking forward to day three.

It wasn’t the fact that we were going to spend the majority of our day skiing moguls (we liked that part), it was the fact the forecast was calling for pouring rain and 8 degrees.

The temperature did get a bit warmer – but it stayed below zero which resulted in 15 lovely cm of snow instead of 15 cm of pouring rain. What was looking like a miserable day turned out to be another epic day on snow.

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 Day two at Mont Sainte Anne was much like the first – sunny with fantastic snow.

The focus of our day was short radius on the steeps while working on our own teaching methods. Looking to incorporate the new IACRCv development model which is very student / athlete focused, we worked on refining each other’s techniques through tactics and two-way feedback.

One of the themes of the day was keeping things simple. As Instructors we have a lot of technical knowledge and often talk too much and keep things too complex. It’s like telling somebody with the sniffles that that have an upper respiratory infection instead of just saying they have a cold.  Next time you are going up the chairlift, make note of who are the slowest skiers on the hill… it’s usually the instructors.

By keeping the feedback simple and specific you’ll spend more time skiing and less time talking. The last time I checked, you get better at skiing by skiing

We spent the last few runs in the moguls again today as a warm-up to day three where we’ll be spending our entire day in them.

We can hardly wait!

Sasha & I are in Mont Sainte Anne this week taking our level 4 Instructors course. Located about 8 hours north-east of Toronto or about 3 hours north of Montreal, Ste Anne is a great proving ground for instructors looking to achieve skiing’s equivalent of a kung fu black belt – the level 4.

We spent our first day working on ski improvement and skiing mostly on the front side (or the steep side) of the mountain. With over 2 feet of fresh snow on the ground from the last 24hrs, the conditions were fantastic.

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