01/05/2011
Here I am reporting in again after another eventful couple of weeks since my last update. I am in a pretty relaxed frame of mind, just really enjoy what might be last stages of this epic odyssey. Sat on a beautiful covered bed listening to some Bonobo and I couldn’t be more content.
The week leading upto my exams I spent a day re-acquainting myself with Norquay mountain – as I had only purchased a weekday pass for Lake Louise this was the cheapest option for me to get back on my board and get training after an incredible day off with Mandi chilling out. Loved just kicking back not doing a lot, yarning about life whilst strolling around town! Mandi Fair is a pretty awesome girl – she is definitely the hostess with the mostess – she is the kind of girl who will make sure her guests are fully taken care of and it’s a wonderful thing!
Norquay as I mentioned earlier is the hill Matt instructs at, he was working which meant I had to ride alone until 3pm. It was good to get some really focused mileage in – one of the best things about Norquay is in its smallness as a hill, it provides you with a consistent ENTIRE run of exactly what you want to snowboard. What I mean by that is if you go to the top of a chair and want to do a blue groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run, if you want to do a steep black groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run,, if you want to do a ridiculous bump run all the way down, there is always a suitable run etc...It is consistent in terms of what you want to do and ease of access is incredible. So you can imagine for training it was great – focused a couple of hours on bumps, then steeps then blues. After a day of training I played in the park for a bit whilst waiting for Matt to finish work. We took a couple of laps and filmed and as always Matts riding looked nothing short of solid. Things were starting to come together for me in terms of where my hip was placed so I was pleased.
I had sent a couple of the riding videos to various trainers from Japan and New Zealand, and the feedback I got was to then work on not so much my movements as it was going to be hard in a few days to change the way I naturally move on my snowboard, but the tactics I chose when snowboarding down bumps and steeps – turns out I was trying to snowboard to straight down steeps which was a really hard approach and instead of looking from side to side as I turn like I teach my students, this made it very difficult for me to control myself. With those subtle changes I found my riding down varied and steeper terrain got heaps better. Confidence was growing for sure!!
I was back at the Lake riding afterward and spent some time riding with Nik – this guy is soo frickin nice. I don’t know if I had covered off how we met. Kim my awesome friend from Japan worked and is very good friends with Nik. She told him whilst I was over to come and say hello – which he did during the level 3 course. He was doing his exams @ the same time I was doing my retake so we were definitely wanting to train whilst riding. He organised for me to jump in on some of the Lake Louise SBX training (snowboarder cross) which was soo good of him, but after a while and the eternal fear of riding SBX I chose to train on my own whilst he was doing that as I felt, though it was focused riding, it wasn’t on the areas I needed to work on for my exam.
I managed to get ½ day with Matt, a full day riding with Logan and Mandi, and a full day with Rich before the exams started. Riding with Matt we were aiming to do some focused riding, but after a couple of runs we were both over it and just getting frustrated with ourselves! Things just weren’t feeling right – we decided to just play around hit the park and that basically recovered the stoked factor that we were severely lacking earlier on in the day.
I didnt attend Day 1 of the exams as I was only resitting the riding portion of the exam so I spent Day 1 riding with Mandi and Logan!! I hadn’t seen Logan in soo long and it was awesome to catch up with him. I didnt hang out a huge amount with Logan in my second winter in Canada but post season we talked loads on facebook and got a long real well. It was cool to ride with Logan, we jibbed around and Mandi followed suit too! It looked like she was having fun – Logan was definitely fun to ride with so jibby agile and just solid on his board. Its amazing the amount of riders out there that don’t get the training instructors get that just ride so well without the need for anyone telling them how to ride. Even more amazing if we are taught to ride a certain way which is meant to help gain optimum performance, however you ride with someone like Logan who doesn’t do exactly what you are doing by the book, but is finding different ways of performing as optimally as you are! Thats the awesome thing about it – there is no right way – just different!
Had an awesome sunny riding day with Richie from Red also – he lives in Calgary works 4 days a week, rides 3 days a week during the winter and just loves life! We shredded Lake Louise together and it was so fun riding around with people from my past season! Everyone is major keen on just playing around having fun and not taking it too seriously – which is what it should be about! Riding with both Logan and Rich put me in a great frame of mind just before entering exams. The truth was if I hadn’t sussed out the riding at that point – it wasn’t going to happen in a couple of days.
Cue the day of the exam and nerves resonating so hard through my body it felt like there was another earthquake happening! Matt wasn’t massively confident after his first day on exams – he felt his teaches didnt go well. We fixed ourselves up for the last day of exams where I would join Matt for the latter half of the day to join in the riding!
A girl from Lake Louise called Tanya picked up Matt and I – it was her birthday and she turned 28. She works at Lake Louise snow school for Kevin, my course conductor and evaluator from my first sitting of the CASI 3 exams. She already is a Level 1 Evaluator and has her Level 2 badge – she took a sitting of the level 3 last year and didnt get anything so like me this was her second shot. What was different is she had to do everything again. It was cool to meet her she was pretty rad. We arrived at Sunshine Village and signed in. I saw Laura and Nik there and they were looking pretty happy it was the last day of exams for them.
It was my first time at Sunshine Village – it looked like a super cool hill – the place was a bit flat though – it looked like the mountain was spread over a huge surface area which led to certain areas having some seriously flat dead spots. You have to take a long gondola ride up from the carpark/base area up to the lift area – it was in the gondola we got chatting and met a rather unique character by the name of Arvind. He was the only other snowboard instructor of Indian decent that I had met – this was a pretty huge deal! Turns out he was a bit crazy in the Gondola he we discovered he was doing the riding resit like me! The only strange thing was when I looked at his board – I knew he wasn’t serious – he had a 142 cm Burton Nug – its basically the size of a skateboard and is designed purely for park! Imagine going to race in a rally car race in variable conditions in a Ferrari f1 – not going to work. His board was great for one thing – park, but not an all rounder like the rally car would be in its race. It was a bizarre choice! He was 30 yrs old from Calgary and was just pretty outlandish – he taught at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and was definitely a park rat! Instructing for about 10-15 years and this was his 5th year trying for his level 3.
Those who were doing the riding resit were told to meet up with the group @ 12.30pm so Arv and I went riding – he knew the mountain well so I thought this would be a good option. I kinda wanted to lap the exams routes but Arv had his own ideas. In all fairness it didnt matter where we rode – however at the time I was nervous and it pissed me off a little that we hardly covered the exams routes. Arv wanted to stop in a secret spot before we started the day riding so he could “smoke a bowl” he offered me some which I politely refused! Given it was the day of a friggin exam. It was at that point that I knew the guy really didnt care.
After the morning riding with Arv I got to see just how cool Sunshine was – the park was fun, the terrain was mellow where you wanted it to be and aggressive where you wanted it to be also. Met back up with the crew and went for the ride off!
I wanted to listen to Kasabian through the entire 2 hr ride off! Its music that drives me and makes me happy also – perfect for a snowboard riding exam! We top to bottom laps of the bumps, then down through the park – good exam run to hit everything in one run. The bumps took some getting used to – we did three laps and I showed consistent improvement in each lap – the first lap was terrible but as the tunes pumped I thought about my tactics for riding the bumps, used my feet well and most important I was smiling and enjoying my riding. After my 3rd lap of the bumps I got some feedback on my edging, which concerned me. In an exam I wasn’t sure whether getting feedback was a good thing as it showed you needed to improve in an area of your riding. At that point I was convinced I had failed. In the park we lapped a jump to show we could spin – this wasn’t a huge problem. What was more worrying was the group management by the 4 evaulators. It was a very busy day lots of people coming through and it wasn’t the best jump to be lapping. Even worse was the condition of the jump – firm, firm and icy – it was terrible!
We finished up the ride off and I knew Arv had failed for sure – his attitude was hilarious – he would go and hit jumps on the side of runs instead of doing the tasks we were assigned and just had a super inappropriate approach to it all.
We had to wait an hour for results, but the time came and they said they would call out successful candidates and then everyone else could grab their forms. The call outs started and all 11 candidates were waiting in anticipation (Arv was late). First name to be called out was...MINE!!! AHHHHH!! Amazing – I couldn’t believe it – I was sooo shocked – so happy – I remember as my name was called how stoked Matt, Laura, Tanya (T bone) and Christina (Matts friend from Norquay) were for me!! I walked up to collect my registration card, certificate and level 3 pin badge ! All that hard work – a year of hard work came together – though I had to have 2 bites at the cherry I was soo happy.
Tanya’s name was next and we pretty much wet ourselves with joy as she went up to collect her goodies. I got up and hugged the crap out of her! It was amazing being able to share success with someone else.
Sadly those were the only names that were called out! Matt passed 2/3, Nik passed 2/3, Laura passed 1/3! I am wishing they had an opportunity for a second bite of the cherry like I did but there are no more exams running this summer, so they have to wait until next year. Matt was happy it was over and to get 2/3 is a great effort – my success was definitely bittersweet given the others didn’t pass, but inside I was ecstatic.
I had a great chance to reflect in the car and just couldn’t believe what I had achieved! To go from no snowboard teaching experience and a level 2 teacher and rider, to riding a season in NZ and Japan teaching full time for one of those winters and part time for another one of those was amazing in itself. To progress and get my skiing level 1 certification after 2 weeks of skiing in NZ was amazing, and to finish the year progressing most importantly in my first discipline was soo satisfying. I felt during Japan I was teaching to a high level and though my riding needed work in Canada – in Japan I felt I adapted well to the terrain and rode it the best way I could. I definitely felt ready to sit the course and exams for level 3, even though at the time I wasn’t so sure.
The year has been geared toward this and it feels great to have a high level teaching cert to my name to have something massively sustainable to show for the year I took off to do the thing I love.
We spent the evening hanging out with Mandi and a few of the crew from Norquay before heading out. I managed to get rather drunk – very unintentionally. It was my one and only night out in Banff so we had the Banff town signature drinks. The most memorable was the $9 trash can drink from the burger joint. It was a radioactive blue colour and I just tasted a lot of redbull. I just remember afterwards bouncing off the walls in the nightclub Tanya got us into – fun times!
What lies ahead is a massive crossroad where I need to make some tough decisions. Each decision leads to sacrifice and isn’t easy, but you have to have faith and believe that whatever decision is made things will work out fine. I want to make sure I am the master of my own happiness and do what I can to keep the smile on my face , even if I find myself not necessarily doing what I want to be doing! We shall see!
Anyway thats it for now! Abrupt ending I know – I am just fully aware the length of this blog is ridiculous! This might be the last one for a while – we shall see!
Much love people
Sunday, 1 May 2011
And he got the CASI 3
01/05/2011
Here I am reporting in again after another eventful couple of weeks since my last update. I am in a pretty relaxed frame of mind, just really enjoy what might be last stages of this epic odyssey. Sat on a beautiful covered bed listening to some Bonobo and I couldn’t be more content.
The week leading upto my exams I spent a day re-acquainting myself with Norquay mountain – as I had only purchased a weekday pass for Lake Louise this was the cheapest option for me to get back on my board and get training after an incredible day off with Mandi chilling out. Loved just kicking back not doing a lot, yarning about life whilst strolling around town! Mandi Fair is a pretty awesome girl – she is definitely the hostess with the mostess – she is the kind of girl who will make sure her guests are fully taken care of and it’s a wonderful thing!
Norquay as I mentioned earlier is the hill Matt instructs at, he was working which meant I had to ride alone until 3pm. It was good to get some really focused mileage in – one of the best things about Norquay is in its smallness as a hill, it provides you with a consistent ENTIRE run of exactly what you want to snowboard. What I mean by that is if you go to the top of a chair and want to do a blue groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run, if you want to do a steep black groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run,, if you want to do a ridiculous bump run all the way down, there is always a suitable run etc...It is consistent in terms of what you want to do and ease of access is incredible. So you can imagine for training it was great – focused a couple of hours on bumps, then steeps then blues. After a day of training I played in the park for a bit whilst waiting for Matt to finish work. We took a couple of laps and filmed and as always Matts riding looked nothing short of solid. Things were starting to come together for me in terms of where my hip was placed so I was pleased.
I had sent a couple of the riding videos to various trainers from Japan and New Zealand, and the feedback I got was to then work on not so much my movements as it was going to be hard in a few days to change the way I naturally move on my snowboard, but the tactics I chose when snowboarding down bumps and steeps – turns out I was trying to snowboard to straight down steeps which was a really hard approach and instead of looking from side to side as I turn like I teach my students, this made it very difficult for me to control myself. With those subtle changes I found my riding down varied and steeper terrain got heaps better. Confidence was growing for sure!!
I was back at the Lake riding afterward and spent some time riding with Nik – this guy is soo frickin nice. I don’t know if I had covered off how we met. Kim my awesome friend from Japan worked and is very good friends with Nik. She told him whilst I was over to come and say hello – which he did during the level 3 course. He was doing his exams @ the same time I was doing my retake so we were definitely wanting to train whilst riding. He organised for me to jump in on some of the Lake Louise SBX training (snowboarder cross) which was soo good of him, but after a while and the eternal fear of riding SBX I chose to train on my own whilst he was doing that as I felt, though it was focused riding, it wasn’t on the areas I needed to work on for my exam.
I managed to get ½ day with Matt, a full day riding with Logan and Mandi, and a full day with Rich before the exams started. Riding with Matt we were aiming to do some focused riding, but after a couple of runs we were both over it and just getting frustrated with ourselves! Things just weren’t feeling right – we decided to just play around hit the park and that basically recovered the stoked factor that we were severely lacking earlier on in the day.
I didnt attend Day 1 of the exams as I was only resitting the riding portion of the exam so I spent Day 1 riding with Mandi and Logan!! I hadn’t seen Logan in soo long and it was awesome to catch up with him. I didnt hang out a huge amount with Logan in my second winter in Canada but post season we talked loads on facebook and got a long real well. It was cool to ride with Logan, we jibbed around and Mandi followed suit too! It looked like she was having fun – Logan was definitely fun to ride with so jibby agile and just solid on his board. Its amazing the amount of riders out there that don’t get the training instructors get that just ride so well without the need for anyone telling them how to ride. Even more amazing if we are taught to ride a certain way which is meant to help gain optimum performance, however you ride with someone like Logan who doesn’t do exactly what you are doing by the book, but is finding different ways of performing as optimally as you are! Thats the awesome thing about it – there is no right way – just different!
Had an awesome sunny riding day with Richie from Red also – he lives in Calgary works 4 days a week, rides 3 days a week during the winter and just loves life! We shredded Lake Louise together and it was so fun riding around with people from my past season! Everyone is major keen on just playing around having fun and not taking it too seriously – which is what it should be about! Riding with both Logan and Rich put me in a great frame of mind just before entering exams. The truth was if I hadn’t sussed out the riding at that point – it wasn’t going to happen in a couple of days.
Cue the day of the exam and nerves resonating so hard through my body it felt like there was another earthquake happening! Matt wasn’t massively confident after his first day on exams – he felt his teaches didnt go well. We fixed ourselves up for the last day of exams where I would join Matt for the latter half of the day to join in the riding!
A girl from Lake Louise called Tanya picked up Matt and I – it was her birthday and she turned 28. She works at Lake Louise snow school for Kevin, my course conductor and evaluator from my first sitting of the CASI 3 exams. She already is a Level 1 Evaluator and has her Level 2 badge – she took a sitting of the level 3 last year and didnt get anything so like me this was her second shot. What was different is she had to do everything again. It was cool to meet her she was pretty rad. We arrived at Sunshine Village and signed in. I saw Laura and Nik there and they were looking pretty happy it was the last day of exams for them.
It was my first time at Sunshine Village – it looked like a super cool hill – the place was a bit flat though – it looked like the mountain was spread over a huge surface area which led to certain areas having some seriously flat dead spots. You have to take a long gondola ride up from the carpark/base area up to the lift area – it was in the gondola we got chatting and met a rather unique character by the name of Arvind. He was the only other snowboard instructor of Indian decent that I had met – this was a pretty huge deal! Turns out he was a bit crazy in the Gondola he we discovered he was doing the riding resit like me! The only strange thing was when I looked at his board – I knew he wasn’t serious – he had a 142 cm Burton Nug – its basically the size of a skateboard and is designed purely for park! Imagine going to race in a rally car race in variable conditions in a Ferrari f1 – not going to work. His board was great for one thing – park, but not an all rounder like the rally car would be in its race. It was a bizarre choice! He was 30 yrs old from Calgary and was just pretty outlandish – he taught at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and was definitely a park rat! Instructing for about 10-15 years and this was his 5th year trying for his level 3.
Those who were doing the riding resit were told to meet up with the group @ 12.30pm so Arv and I went riding – he knew the mountain well so I thought this would be a good option. I kinda wanted to lap the exams routes but Arv had his own ideas. In all fairness it didnt matter where we rode – however at the time I was nervous and it pissed me off a little that we hardly covered the exams routes. Arv wanted to stop in a secret spot before we started the day riding so he could “smoke a bowl” he offered me some which I politely refused! Given it was the day of a friggin exam. It was at that point that I knew the guy really didnt care.
After the morning riding with Arv I got to see just how cool Sunshine was – the park was fun, the terrain was mellow where you wanted it to be and aggressive where you wanted it to be also. Met back up with the crew and went for the ride off!
I wanted to listen to Kasabian through the entire 2 hr ride off! Its music that drives me and makes me happy also – perfect for a snowboard riding exam! We top to bottom laps of the bumps, then down through the park – good exam run to hit everything in one run. The bumps took some getting used to – we did three laps and I showed consistent improvement in each lap – the first lap was terrible but as the tunes pumped I thought about my tactics for riding the bumps, used my feet well and most important I was smiling and enjoying my riding. After my 3rd lap of the bumps I got some feedback on my edging, which concerned me. In an exam I wasn’t sure whether getting feedback was a good thing as it showed you needed to improve in an area of your riding. At that point I was convinced I had failed. In the park we lapped a jump to show we could spin – this wasn’t a huge problem. What was more worrying was the group management by the 4 evaulators. It was a very busy day lots of people coming through and it wasn’t the best jump to be lapping. Even worse was the condition of the jump – firm, firm and icy – it was terrible!
We finished up the ride off and I knew Arv had failed for sure – his attitude was hilarious – he would go and hit jumps on the side of runs instead of doing the tasks we were assigned and just had a super inappropriate approach to it all.
We had to wait an hour for results, but the time came and they said they would call out successful candidates and then everyone else could grab their forms. The call outs started and all 11 candidates were waiting in anticipation (Arv was late). First name to be called out was...MINE!!! AHHHHH!! Amazing – I couldn’t believe it – I was sooo shocked – so happy – I remember as my name was called how stoked Matt, Laura, Tanya (T bone) and Christina (Matts friend from Norquay) were for me!! I walked up to collect my registration card, certificate and level 3 pin badge ! All that hard work – a year of hard work came together – though I had to have 2 bites at the cherry I was soo happy.
Tanya’s name was next and we pretty much wet ourselves with joy as she went up to collect her goodies. I got up and hugged the crap out of her! It was amazing being able to share success with someone else.
Sadly those were the only names that were called out! Matt passed 2/3, Nik passed 2/3, Laura passed 1/3! I am wishing they had an opportunity for a second bite of the cherry like I did but there are no more exams running this summer, so they have to wait until next year. Matt was happy it was over and to get 2/3 is a great effort – my success was definitely bittersweet given the others didn’t pass, but inside I was ecstatic.
I had a great chance to reflect in the car and just couldn’t believe what I had achieved! To go from no snowboard teaching experience and a level 2 teacher and rider, to riding a season in NZ and Japan teaching full time for one of those winters and part time for another one of those was amazing in itself. To progress and get my skiing level 1 certification after 2 weeks of skiing in NZ was amazing, and to finish the year progressing most importantly in my first discipline was soo satisfying. I felt during Japan I was teaching to a high level and though my riding needed work in Canada – in Japan I felt I adapted well to the terrain and rode it the best way I could. I definitely felt ready to sit the course and exams for level 3, even though at the time I wasn’t so sure.
The year has been geared toward this and it feels great to have a high level teaching cert to my name to have something massively sustainable to show for the year I took off to do the thing I love.
We spent the evening hanging out with Mandi and a few of the crew from Norquay before heading out. I managed to get rather drunk – very unintentionally. It was my one and only night out in Banff so we had the Banff town signature drinks. The most memorable was the $9 trash can drink from the burger joint. It was a radioactive blue colour and I just tasted a lot of redbull. I just remember afterwards bouncing off the walls in the nightclub Tanya got us into – fun times!
What lies ahead is a massive crossroad where I need to make some tough decisions. Each decision leads to sacrifice and isn’t easy, but you have to have faith and believe that whatever decision is made things will work out fine. I want to make sure I am the master of my own happiness and do what I can to keep the smile on my face , even if I find myself not necessarily doing what I want to be doing! We shall see!
Anyway thats it for now! Abrupt ending I know – I am just fully aware the length of this blog is ridiculous! This might be the last one for a while – we shall see!
Much love people
Here I am reporting in again after another eventful couple of weeks since my last update. I am in a pretty relaxed frame of mind, just really enjoy what might be last stages of this epic odyssey. Sat on a beautiful covered bed listening to some Bonobo and I couldn’t be more content.
The week leading upto my exams I spent a day re-acquainting myself with Norquay mountain – as I had only purchased a weekday pass for Lake Louise this was the cheapest option for me to get back on my board and get training after an incredible day off with Mandi chilling out. Loved just kicking back not doing a lot, yarning about life whilst strolling around town! Mandi Fair is a pretty awesome girl – she is definitely the hostess with the mostess – she is the kind of girl who will make sure her guests are fully taken care of and it’s a wonderful thing!
Norquay as I mentioned earlier is the hill Matt instructs at, he was working which meant I had to ride alone until 3pm. It was good to get some really focused mileage in – one of the best things about Norquay is in its smallness as a hill, it provides you with a consistent ENTIRE run of exactly what you want to snowboard. What I mean by that is if you go to the top of a chair and want to do a blue groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run, if you want to do a steep black groomer all the way down, there is always a suitable run,, if you want to do a ridiculous bump run all the way down, there is always a suitable run etc...It is consistent in terms of what you want to do and ease of access is incredible. So you can imagine for training it was great – focused a couple of hours on bumps, then steeps then blues. After a day of training I played in the park for a bit whilst waiting for Matt to finish work. We took a couple of laps and filmed and as always Matts riding looked nothing short of solid. Things were starting to come together for me in terms of where my hip was placed so I was pleased.
I had sent a couple of the riding videos to various trainers from Japan and New Zealand, and the feedback I got was to then work on not so much my movements as it was going to be hard in a few days to change the way I naturally move on my snowboard, but the tactics I chose when snowboarding down bumps and steeps – turns out I was trying to snowboard to straight down steeps which was a really hard approach and instead of looking from side to side as I turn like I teach my students, this made it very difficult for me to control myself. With those subtle changes I found my riding down varied and steeper terrain got heaps better. Confidence was growing for sure!!
I was back at the Lake riding afterward and spent some time riding with Nik – this guy is soo frickin nice. I don’t know if I had covered off how we met. Kim my awesome friend from Japan worked and is very good friends with Nik. She told him whilst I was over to come and say hello – which he did during the level 3 course. He was doing his exams @ the same time I was doing my retake so we were definitely wanting to train whilst riding. He organised for me to jump in on some of the Lake Louise SBX training (snowboarder cross) which was soo good of him, but after a while and the eternal fear of riding SBX I chose to train on my own whilst he was doing that as I felt, though it was focused riding, it wasn’t on the areas I needed to work on for my exam.
I managed to get ½ day with Matt, a full day riding with Logan and Mandi, and a full day with Rich before the exams started. Riding with Matt we were aiming to do some focused riding, but after a couple of runs we were both over it and just getting frustrated with ourselves! Things just weren’t feeling right – we decided to just play around hit the park and that basically recovered the stoked factor that we were severely lacking earlier on in the day.
I didnt attend Day 1 of the exams as I was only resitting the riding portion of the exam so I spent Day 1 riding with Mandi and Logan!! I hadn’t seen Logan in soo long and it was awesome to catch up with him. I didnt hang out a huge amount with Logan in my second winter in Canada but post season we talked loads on facebook and got a long real well. It was cool to ride with Logan, we jibbed around and Mandi followed suit too! It looked like she was having fun – Logan was definitely fun to ride with so jibby agile and just solid on his board. Its amazing the amount of riders out there that don’t get the training instructors get that just ride so well without the need for anyone telling them how to ride. Even more amazing if we are taught to ride a certain way which is meant to help gain optimum performance, however you ride with someone like Logan who doesn’t do exactly what you are doing by the book, but is finding different ways of performing as optimally as you are! Thats the awesome thing about it – there is no right way – just different!
Had an awesome sunny riding day with Richie from Red also – he lives in Calgary works 4 days a week, rides 3 days a week during the winter and just loves life! We shredded Lake Louise together and it was so fun riding around with people from my past season! Everyone is major keen on just playing around having fun and not taking it too seriously – which is what it should be about! Riding with both Logan and Rich put me in a great frame of mind just before entering exams. The truth was if I hadn’t sussed out the riding at that point – it wasn’t going to happen in a couple of days.
Cue the day of the exam and nerves resonating so hard through my body it felt like there was another earthquake happening! Matt wasn’t massively confident after his first day on exams – he felt his teaches didnt go well. We fixed ourselves up for the last day of exams where I would join Matt for the latter half of the day to join in the riding!
A girl from Lake Louise called Tanya picked up Matt and I – it was her birthday and she turned 28. She works at Lake Louise snow school for Kevin, my course conductor and evaluator from my first sitting of the CASI 3 exams. She already is a Level 1 Evaluator and has her Level 2 badge – she took a sitting of the level 3 last year and didnt get anything so like me this was her second shot. What was different is she had to do everything again. It was cool to meet her she was pretty rad. We arrived at Sunshine Village and signed in. I saw Laura and Nik there and they were looking pretty happy it was the last day of exams for them.
It was my first time at Sunshine Village – it looked like a super cool hill – the place was a bit flat though – it looked like the mountain was spread over a huge surface area which led to certain areas having some seriously flat dead spots. You have to take a long gondola ride up from the carpark/base area up to the lift area – it was in the gondola we got chatting and met a rather unique character by the name of Arvind. He was the only other snowboard instructor of Indian decent that I had met – this was a pretty huge deal! Turns out he was a bit crazy in the Gondola he we discovered he was doing the riding resit like me! The only strange thing was when I looked at his board – I knew he wasn’t serious – he had a 142 cm Burton Nug – its basically the size of a skateboard and is designed purely for park! Imagine going to race in a rally car race in variable conditions in a Ferrari f1 – not going to work. His board was great for one thing – park, but not an all rounder like the rally car would be in its race. It was a bizarre choice! He was 30 yrs old from Calgary and was just pretty outlandish – he taught at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and was definitely a park rat! Instructing for about 10-15 years and this was his 5th year trying for his level 3.
Those who were doing the riding resit were told to meet up with the group @ 12.30pm so Arv and I went riding – he knew the mountain well so I thought this would be a good option. I kinda wanted to lap the exams routes but Arv had his own ideas. In all fairness it didnt matter where we rode – however at the time I was nervous and it pissed me off a little that we hardly covered the exams routes. Arv wanted to stop in a secret spot before we started the day riding so he could “smoke a bowl” he offered me some which I politely refused! Given it was the day of a friggin exam. It was at that point that I knew the guy really didnt care.
After the morning riding with Arv I got to see just how cool Sunshine was – the park was fun, the terrain was mellow where you wanted it to be and aggressive where you wanted it to be also. Met back up with the crew and went for the ride off!
I wanted to listen to Kasabian through the entire 2 hr ride off! Its music that drives me and makes me happy also – perfect for a snowboard riding exam! We top to bottom laps of the bumps, then down through the park – good exam run to hit everything in one run. The bumps took some getting used to – we did three laps and I showed consistent improvement in each lap – the first lap was terrible but as the tunes pumped I thought about my tactics for riding the bumps, used my feet well and most important I was smiling and enjoying my riding. After my 3rd lap of the bumps I got some feedback on my edging, which concerned me. In an exam I wasn’t sure whether getting feedback was a good thing as it showed you needed to improve in an area of your riding. At that point I was convinced I had failed. In the park we lapped a jump to show we could spin – this wasn’t a huge problem. What was more worrying was the group management by the 4 evaulators. It was a very busy day lots of people coming through and it wasn’t the best jump to be lapping. Even worse was the condition of the jump – firm, firm and icy – it was terrible!
We finished up the ride off and I knew Arv had failed for sure – his attitude was hilarious – he would go and hit jumps on the side of runs instead of doing the tasks we were assigned and just had a super inappropriate approach to it all.
We had to wait an hour for results, but the time came and they said they would call out successful candidates and then everyone else could grab their forms. The call outs started and all 11 candidates were waiting in anticipation (Arv was late). First name to be called out was...MINE!!! AHHHHH!! Amazing – I couldn’t believe it – I was sooo shocked – so happy – I remember as my name was called how stoked Matt, Laura, Tanya (T bone) and Christina (Matts friend from Norquay) were for me!! I walked up to collect my registration card, certificate and level 3 pin badge ! All that hard work – a year of hard work came together – though I had to have 2 bites at the cherry I was soo happy.
Tanya’s name was next and we pretty much wet ourselves with joy as she went up to collect her goodies. I got up and hugged the crap out of her! It was amazing being able to share success with someone else.
Sadly those were the only names that were called out! Matt passed 2/3, Nik passed 2/3, Laura passed 1/3! I am wishing they had an opportunity for a second bite of the cherry like I did but there are no more exams running this summer, so they have to wait until next year. Matt was happy it was over and to get 2/3 is a great effort – my success was definitely bittersweet given the others didn’t pass, but inside I was ecstatic.
I had a great chance to reflect in the car and just couldn’t believe what I had achieved! To go from no snowboard teaching experience and a level 2 teacher and rider, to riding a season in NZ and Japan teaching full time for one of those winters and part time for another one of those was amazing in itself. To progress and get my skiing level 1 certification after 2 weeks of skiing in NZ was amazing, and to finish the year progressing most importantly in my first discipline was soo satisfying. I felt during Japan I was teaching to a high level and though my riding needed work in Canada – in Japan I felt I adapted well to the terrain and rode it the best way I could. I definitely felt ready to sit the course and exams for level 3, even though at the time I wasn’t so sure.
The year has been geared toward this and it feels great to have a high level teaching cert to my name to have something massively sustainable to show for the year I took off to do the thing I love.
We spent the evening hanging out with Mandi and a few of the crew from Norquay before heading out. I managed to get rather drunk – very unintentionally. It was my one and only night out in Banff so we had the Banff town signature drinks. The most memorable was the $9 trash can drink from the burger joint. It was a radioactive blue colour and I just tasted a lot of redbull. I just remember afterwards bouncing off the walls in the nightclub Tanya got us into – fun times!
What lies ahead is a massive crossroad where I need to make some tough decisions. Each decision leads to sacrifice and isn’t easy, but you have to have faith and believe that whatever decision is made things will work out fine. I want to make sure I am the master of my own happiness and do what I can to keep the smile on my face , even if I find myself not necessarily doing what I want to be doing! We shall see!
Anyway thats it for now! Abrupt ending I know – I am just fully aware the length of this blog is ridiculous! This might be the last one for a while – we shall see!
Much love people
Saturday, 16 April 2011
Soo retakes it is :( DOH!
16/04/2011
So here I am reporting in from a day off the hill, after some exhausting days of snowboarding. So I reported in after day 1 of the course, and I remember that being not such a happy day. The next few days weren’t that great to be honest – day 2 was freestyle and that was the funnest day – we spent the entire day in the park doing sample lessons and learning new manoeuvres – it was a lot of fun. No pressure to do any teaches just being taught how to teach in the park and park concepts.
The following day was spent freeriding, and this is where I struggled, the feedback on my snowboarding is that my hips were too open which made it difficult for me to achieve a stable balanced position on the board. I hadn’t really done much high end riding in Japan down variable bumps or steeps given the snow conditions were epic in Japan. I never really got much feedback or training on my riding either – not that this is an excuse – I should have seeked it out and worked on it.
The last day was spent doing practise teaches – The night before I didnt prepare at all and it showed in my teaches. My freestyle teach was way too focused on theory instead of actually teaching the manoeuvre. What I had to understand was that we were teaching a manoeuvre which would develop one of the 5 snowboardin skills, therefore i didnt need to go into detail around the skill development aspect but more around how to complete the manoeuvre. I completely crumbled in my freeride teach and didnt deliver a lesson. By the end of the day I was over the course and over level 3 I just wanted to go home. Matt, Nancy and Darrel all delivered lessons and all needed work apart from Darrels – his was pretty spot on.
After the course we were all pretty exhausted – I got feedback and as it stood I wasn’t at standard on any of the 3 components for level 3 which was concerning given my exams were in 3 days time. Cue the hard work I always have to put in for exams – they can never be easy!! I took one day off the hill to write up lesson plans, and spent the following 2 days on the hill sussing out terrain for each and every lesson plan. I feel like when I have planned and am prepared I can deliver a good exam lesson with a little more confidence, that just thinking of it on the fly on the chairlift. That didnt work so well for me on the course so I learnt from it.
Darryl and I were taking exams and because Matt wasn’t driving us up – I had to take the staff bus at 6.15am!! I turned up at the bus stop – and the bus was 30 minutes late. It arrived and the driver asked if I was staff, I said no and he said I was probably waiting for the fresh trax bus and I should wait. I let the bus go only to realise that fresh trax was probably a service run by lake louise for guests wanting to get up the hill early. They would pay for a spot on the early bus, the only problem was there was no one else waiting for a bus, and I didnt pre book as I only wanted to head up early to make it for exams. I stressed out and went back to Matts place – the last thing I wanted to do was be late for my first day – Matt kindly drove me around town to find the bus, we ended up going to the Banff Park Lodge where a staff bus would pick me up. Darryl was waiting and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Day 1 of the exams was a teaching day. I taught a freeride lesson first and it went relatively well. I taught on pivot and steering down varied terrain, and I literally did a lesson keeping the group moving the entire time with revolutions of the training cycle and good feedback. The issues highlighted in my lesson were safety related as I didnt do a demo at the beginning. So I thought that was enough to mess up and fail. My second lesson was a freestyle teach on stance and balance – so I taught backside 180’s with a lookback blind landing. It went really well and I felt was pretty flawless and my feedback at the end of the lesson was positive – I just wasn’t sure it was enough to redeem myself. I remember just being happy that the first day of teaching was over. The following day I was assigned a pedagogue session (instructor training) on Theme. I had the night to plan it and decided to go first in the morning. All was going fairly well until a run I was going to use was closed, I panicked and did the stupidest thing to adapt. I did a development tactic down a cat track – which was SOOO dangerous. It was the dumbest move ever and I was just thrown off. It was highlighted by the examiner at the end of the lesson and I again thought I had failed that section also! I was really down for the rest of the day and still had the last section, the ride off – just snowboarding. I cleared my head over lunch and went out riding with the examiners – it was really challenging and I struggled. By the end of the day I thought I had failed everything.
There was a long wait for results, but they were delivered and to my utter disbelief I had passed teaching, and pedagogue and failed riding! I was soo happy to have passed 2 modules, and if I had to work on any I would have preferred it to be my riding. The feedback I got from the examiners was similar to the feedback I got from course – I need to work on my hips. I immediately booked retests on April 22nd at Sunshine and I will work hard to correct my riding!
Correction has been going on since the 12th since I got my results. I have taken a day off today but the 13th, 14th and 15th were spent riding. I rode the 13th and did some work on keeping my hips forward, and got a little bored – bumped into Charlotte Kierle and rode park with her and her friends in the morning which was awesome. She has such a solid base of freestyle crew friends it was awesome. She pushed me into trying the XL jump in the park which scared me so much but I made it! In the afternoon I rode with Nik and just worked on following his line. I got some video analysis of my riding to send to my trainers which really has helped also. I rode the lake on the 14th a little with Nik and a little on my own, I felt my alignment was getting there, I just need to do it without thinking about it now!
After riding the lake on the 14th we drove to Kicking Horse in Golden BC. The resort had been closed all week and accumulated 30cm of fresh snow! Matt, Mandi, Matts Dad and I set off and I immediately fell asleep. Before that I just remember the drive being oh so beautiful! Such epic scenary, the part of Canada I was in, and where we were going was sooo beautiful.
We arrived at our apartments, they were slope side and were soo nice! It was high roller living for the small price of $99 – for one nights accommodation and a lift pass to ride the mountain! Bargain! Unfortunately there was no food in the hotel and as the resort was shut only to open the next day we had to drive down to Golden, the little town at the base of kicking horse mountain to get dinner. We had a super nice feed and drove back up to play a game of beanie before heading to bed.
Riding kicking horse was nothing short of epic, I didnt really think much about my hip, just enjoying my riding – the fresh snow was oh so nice! Matt made a great call coming to the horse for sure. Never have I seen a mountain with so much steep in bounds terrain! Soo knarly! This was a big mountain with lots of good terrain available to have fun in when there was a lot of snow. We had such a fun time riding steep fresh snow! We got some awesome shots too!!
I took a day off the hill today to run some errands and relax my legs after some hardcore riding! Spending the day with Mandi was most excellent. We did a whole lot of nothing but it was great – good for the mind.
Socially I havent been upto much other than hanging out with Mandi and Matt which has been awesome – we’ve done lots of eating out – every night in Banff there is always somewhere nice to eat at affordable prices. We’ve had some incredible pizza at the bison! $10 a pizza and they are soo good, I especially liked the Donair – lamb doner meat with lettuce and onion and a sweet garlic sauce – delicious. We’ve been for some epic ribs too!! – AHH I love Ribs!
Thats about it from my update – over the next few days ill just be riding hard training for my retake – at least I only have one focus – I’ll keep you updated on how it goes –
Much love people
So here I am reporting in from a day off the hill, after some exhausting days of snowboarding. So I reported in after day 1 of the course, and I remember that being not such a happy day. The next few days weren’t that great to be honest – day 2 was freestyle and that was the funnest day – we spent the entire day in the park doing sample lessons and learning new manoeuvres – it was a lot of fun. No pressure to do any teaches just being taught how to teach in the park and park concepts.
The following day was spent freeriding, and this is where I struggled, the feedback on my snowboarding is that my hips were too open which made it difficult for me to achieve a stable balanced position on the board. I hadn’t really done much high end riding in Japan down variable bumps or steeps given the snow conditions were epic in Japan. I never really got much feedback or training on my riding either – not that this is an excuse – I should have seeked it out and worked on it.
The last day was spent doing practise teaches – The night before I didnt prepare at all and it showed in my teaches. My freestyle teach was way too focused on theory instead of actually teaching the manoeuvre. What I had to understand was that we were teaching a manoeuvre which would develop one of the 5 snowboardin skills, therefore i didnt need to go into detail around the skill development aspect but more around how to complete the manoeuvre. I completely crumbled in my freeride teach and didnt deliver a lesson. By the end of the day I was over the course and over level 3 I just wanted to go home. Matt, Nancy and Darrel all delivered lessons and all needed work apart from Darrels – his was pretty spot on.
After the course we were all pretty exhausted – I got feedback and as it stood I wasn’t at standard on any of the 3 components for level 3 which was concerning given my exams were in 3 days time. Cue the hard work I always have to put in for exams – they can never be easy!! I took one day off the hill to write up lesson plans, and spent the following 2 days on the hill sussing out terrain for each and every lesson plan. I feel like when I have planned and am prepared I can deliver a good exam lesson with a little more confidence, that just thinking of it on the fly on the chairlift. That didnt work so well for me on the course so I learnt from it.
Darryl and I were taking exams and because Matt wasn’t driving us up – I had to take the staff bus at 6.15am!! I turned up at the bus stop – and the bus was 30 minutes late. It arrived and the driver asked if I was staff, I said no and he said I was probably waiting for the fresh trax bus and I should wait. I let the bus go only to realise that fresh trax was probably a service run by lake louise for guests wanting to get up the hill early. They would pay for a spot on the early bus, the only problem was there was no one else waiting for a bus, and I didnt pre book as I only wanted to head up early to make it for exams. I stressed out and went back to Matts place – the last thing I wanted to do was be late for my first day – Matt kindly drove me around town to find the bus, we ended up going to the Banff Park Lodge where a staff bus would pick me up. Darryl was waiting and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Day 1 of the exams was a teaching day. I taught a freeride lesson first and it went relatively well. I taught on pivot and steering down varied terrain, and I literally did a lesson keeping the group moving the entire time with revolutions of the training cycle and good feedback. The issues highlighted in my lesson were safety related as I didnt do a demo at the beginning. So I thought that was enough to mess up and fail. My second lesson was a freestyle teach on stance and balance – so I taught backside 180’s with a lookback blind landing. It went really well and I felt was pretty flawless and my feedback at the end of the lesson was positive – I just wasn’t sure it was enough to redeem myself. I remember just being happy that the first day of teaching was over. The following day I was assigned a pedagogue session (instructor training) on Theme. I had the night to plan it and decided to go first in the morning. All was going fairly well until a run I was going to use was closed, I panicked and did the stupidest thing to adapt. I did a development tactic down a cat track – which was SOOO dangerous. It was the dumbest move ever and I was just thrown off. It was highlighted by the examiner at the end of the lesson and I again thought I had failed that section also! I was really down for the rest of the day and still had the last section, the ride off – just snowboarding. I cleared my head over lunch and went out riding with the examiners – it was really challenging and I struggled. By the end of the day I thought I had failed everything.
There was a long wait for results, but they were delivered and to my utter disbelief I had passed teaching, and pedagogue and failed riding! I was soo happy to have passed 2 modules, and if I had to work on any I would have preferred it to be my riding. The feedback I got from the examiners was similar to the feedback I got from course – I need to work on my hips. I immediately booked retests on April 22nd at Sunshine and I will work hard to correct my riding!
Correction has been going on since the 12th since I got my results. I have taken a day off today but the 13th, 14th and 15th were spent riding. I rode the 13th and did some work on keeping my hips forward, and got a little bored – bumped into Charlotte Kierle and rode park with her and her friends in the morning which was awesome. She has such a solid base of freestyle crew friends it was awesome. She pushed me into trying the XL jump in the park which scared me so much but I made it! In the afternoon I rode with Nik and just worked on following his line. I got some video analysis of my riding to send to my trainers which really has helped also. I rode the lake on the 14th a little with Nik and a little on my own, I felt my alignment was getting there, I just need to do it without thinking about it now!
After riding the lake on the 14th we drove to Kicking Horse in Golden BC. The resort had been closed all week and accumulated 30cm of fresh snow! Matt, Mandi, Matts Dad and I set off and I immediately fell asleep. Before that I just remember the drive being oh so beautiful! Such epic scenary, the part of Canada I was in, and where we were going was sooo beautiful.
We arrived at our apartments, they were slope side and were soo nice! It was high roller living for the small price of $99 – for one nights accommodation and a lift pass to ride the mountain! Bargain! Unfortunately there was no food in the hotel and as the resort was shut only to open the next day we had to drive down to Golden, the little town at the base of kicking horse mountain to get dinner. We had a super nice feed and drove back up to play a game of beanie before heading to bed.
Riding kicking horse was nothing short of epic, I didnt really think much about my hip, just enjoying my riding – the fresh snow was oh so nice! Matt made a great call coming to the horse for sure. Never have I seen a mountain with so much steep in bounds terrain! Soo knarly! This was a big mountain with lots of good terrain available to have fun in when there was a lot of snow. We had such a fun time riding steep fresh snow! We got some awesome shots too!!
I took a day off the hill today to run some errands and relax my legs after some hardcore riding! Spending the day with Mandi was most excellent. We did a whole lot of nothing but it was great – good for the mind.
Socially I havent been upto much other than hanging out with Mandi and Matt which has been awesome – we’ve done lots of eating out – every night in Banff there is always somewhere nice to eat at affordable prices. We’ve had some incredible pizza at the bison! $10 a pizza and they are soo good, I especially liked the Donair – lamb doner meat with lettuce and onion and a sweet garlic sauce – delicious. We’ve been for some epic ribs too!! – AHH I love Ribs!
Thats about it from my update – over the next few days ill just be riding hard training for my retake – at least I only have one focus – I’ll keep you updated on how it goes –
Much love people
Monday, 4 April 2011
And so the madness begins - level 3...ugh!!
04/04/2011
So here I am reporting from Matt and Mandi’s lovely apartment in beautiful Banff, Alberta Canada. I cannot express how amazing it is to be back in Canada.
With the time difference being 7 hrs behind the UK I suffered with a little bit of jet lag and was up at 4.30am. Matt rose up at 7.30am to go to work, and I headed up to Norquay mountain with him. There are 3 lift operated mountains around the Banff area – Norquay, Sunshine and Lake Louise. Given Matt had spoken to his manager at Norquay Ski School about me being available for some snowboarding work I headed up with him. In exchange I would get lift tickets to ski the quay.
We drove up and arriving at the resort reminded me very much of my winter at Red Mountain. Small hill, everyone knows everyone and just really friendly times. I was pretty stoked to be there. We went to speak to Gord the ski school director at Norquay and there was no work for me but I got a free lift ticket anyway which was great. Matt had work all day as did Mandi so I pretty much rode on my own. In the morning I did some training with a ski instructor called John who was training for his level 1 snowboard. After the training was done I went off and explored the mountain. I took it as an opportunity to get used to riding steeps again – I hadn’t really done much steep riding at Japan and it took a bit of getting used to. I loved the fact that within an hour I was comfortable with the mountain at Norquay – its a small hill but has everything you need in terms of Terrain – good bumps, good steeps and a good park! All very accessible and easy to get to! Loved it.
Getting home Matt, Mandi and I ate a lovely Pork dinner and called it a night! Matt was working all weekend, but amazingly Mandi wasn’t so we agreed to do some snowboarding together over the weekend.
On Saturday we were up on a fairly cold overcast day at Norquay – I managed to score another free ticket and Mandi and I did some runs together! There was a save the melons drive – breast cancer awareness! As a result an airbag and rail jam was set up. I decided to pay the $20 donation to hit the airbag, and I had such a fun afternoon sessioning it.
There were local riders doing some amazing aerial tricks, back double cork 10’s and general insane trickery. I managed to do a couple of 360 spins, I failed on my underflip attempts, but was massively proud of nailing a couple of nollie front flips onto the bag – it was very awesome. I remember having a delicious $9 rib lunch with Mandi which was lovely, before heading home to chill.
The following day was spent riding with Mandi in the morning, and then some of the Norquay ski school staff in the afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day so it was perfect for getting some really good shots. The amazing thing was 10cm of fresh snow fell so it was a bluebird pow day!! Soo good. Managed to get some sweet fresh snow! I was spoilt in Japan because a pow day was a 30cm dump, whereas here its more like a 10cm dump. But I am surprised we are even getting snow in April! So its all good. The season in Canada appears to have been a good one with lots of snow!
Matt Mandi & I had an epic Pizza dinner before heading home to watch the Bourne Identity and hit bed, ready for our first day of CASI 3 pre-course...
Matt and I woke early to make it to Lake Louise for 8.30am. From Banff its a 45min drive. We picked up one of Matts friends Darrel and made our way. The course got underway in the morning, our trainer Kevin is a really nice guy. Banff local, married with a child and has been in the business for 14 years. He works at the Lake as the assistant director for the ski school. Conditions weren’t amazing, it was pretty cold and visibility wasn’t great. In terms of the course I don’t really want to go into the day too much other than it flipped everything I knew about the level 3 pedagogue section on its head! Matt, Darrel and I were pretty confused by it all but we’ve got time till the exams. There were 2 other participants Mitch from Oz – currently working at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and Nancy. Nancy worked for Kevin at the Lake , however took a winter off teaching to focus on enjoying riding again! I know the feeling! I hate exams, and the feeling that I am being watched and told I am not good enough.
That brings me up to the here and now – I am just chilling with Matt and Mandi getting ready for another day on course tomorrow – I am really hoping that it will be a better day – but we shall see!
I better roll out – feeling pretty frustrated by the whole course situation thing but hopefully things will work out!
Take care people – much love and respect!
So here I am reporting from Matt and Mandi’s lovely apartment in beautiful Banff, Alberta Canada. I cannot express how amazing it is to be back in Canada.
With the time difference being 7 hrs behind the UK I suffered with a little bit of jet lag and was up at 4.30am. Matt rose up at 7.30am to go to work, and I headed up to Norquay mountain with him. There are 3 lift operated mountains around the Banff area – Norquay, Sunshine and Lake Louise. Given Matt had spoken to his manager at Norquay Ski School about me being available for some snowboarding work I headed up with him. In exchange I would get lift tickets to ski the quay.
We drove up and arriving at the resort reminded me very much of my winter at Red Mountain. Small hill, everyone knows everyone and just really friendly times. I was pretty stoked to be there. We went to speak to Gord the ski school director at Norquay and there was no work for me but I got a free lift ticket anyway which was great. Matt had work all day as did Mandi so I pretty much rode on my own. In the morning I did some training with a ski instructor called John who was training for his level 1 snowboard. After the training was done I went off and explored the mountain. I took it as an opportunity to get used to riding steeps again – I hadn’t really done much steep riding at Japan and it took a bit of getting used to. I loved the fact that within an hour I was comfortable with the mountain at Norquay – its a small hill but has everything you need in terms of Terrain – good bumps, good steeps and a good park! All very accessible and easy to get to! Loved it.
Getting home Matt, Mandi and I ate a lovely Pork dinner and called it a night! Matt was working all weekend, but amazingly Mandi wasn’t so we agreed to do some snowboarding together over the weekend.
On Saturday we were up on a fairly cold overcast day at Norquay – I managed to score another free ticket and Mandi and I did some runs together! There was a save the melons drive – breast cancer awareness! As a result an airbag and rail jam was set up. I decided to pay the $20 donation to hit the airbag, and I had such a fun afternoon sessioning it.
There were local riders doing some amazing aerial tricks, back double cork 10’s and general insane trickery. I managed to do a couple of 360 spins, I failed on my underflip attempts, but was massively proud of nailing a couple of nollie front flips onto the bag – it was very awesome. I remember having a delicious $9 rib lunch with Mandi which was lovely, before heading home to chill.
The following day was spent riding with Mandi in the morning, and then some of the Norquay ski school staff in the afternoon. It was a beautiful sunny day so it was perfect for getting some really good shots. The amazing thing was 10cm of fresh snow fell so it was a bluebird pow day!! Soo good. Managed to get some sweet fresh snow! I was spoilt in Japan because a pow day was a 30cm dump, whereas here its more like a 10cm dump. But I am surprised we are even getting snow in April! So its all good. The season in Canada appears to have been a good one with lots of snow!
Matt Mandi & I had an epic Pizza dinner before heading home to watch the Bourne Identity and hit bed, ready for our first day of CASI 3 pre-course...
Matt and I woke early to make it to Lake Louise for 8.30am. From Banff its a 45min drive. We picked up one of Matts friends Darrel and made our way. The course got underway in the morning, our trainer Kevin is a really nice guy. Banff local, married with a child and has been in the business for 14 years. He works at the Lake as the assistant director for the ski school. Conditions weren’t amazing, it was pretty cold and visibility wasn’t great. In terms of the course I don’t really want to go into the day too much other than it flipped everything I knew about the level 3 pedagogue section on its head! Matt, Darrel and I were pretty confused by it all but we’ve got time till the exams. There were 2 other participants Mitch from Oz – currently working at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary and Nancy. Nancy worked for Kevin at the Lake , however took a winter off teaching to focus on enjoying riding again! I know the feeling! I hate exams, and the feeling that I am being watched and told I am not good enough.
That brings me up to the here and now – I am just chilling with Matt and Mandi getting ready for another day on course tomorrow – I am really hoping that it will be a better day – but we shall see!
I better roll out – feeling pretty frustrated by the whole course situation thing but hopefully things will work out!
Take care people – much love and respect!
Thursday, 31 March 2011
And he's in BANFF baby
31st March 2011
So here I am reporting from an aeroplane of all places. With 20 minutes left before I land in Calgary I was trying to think of ways to kill the time – so a blog seemed like the best idea. Sleeping would be ideal however it will be 2pm in the afternoon when I land, better to save all that tiredness to sync up with the Canadian time zone!! – Oh Joy! In the 10 days I was back in the UK I just managed to get the sleeping pattern back for there, now I need to re-adjust yet again! I hope I am ok for my exams. They start on the 4th April.
So I am currently going through that nervous/excited feeling of yet another adventure! This one in a new part of Canada – I have never been to the state of Alberta and am certainly looking forward to Snowboarding in the Rockies. I have exams in Lake Louise and Sunshine Villiage so I will get to see 2 amazing resorts. I am really looking forward to picturesque beauty and tranquillity for sure!!
I had to close the laptop down as the plane was landing. However to continue after landing, going through customs was not as painful as it normally is and Matt was there in his Toyota Corolla to pick me up. It was good to see him and I was so grateful for everything he was doing for me. It was amazing driving through from Calgary to Banff, I loved out of nowhere, the horizon changed from and before you knew it you could see this epic mountain range in front of you. It was truly beautiful. I tried to get pictures to capture the beauty but unfortunately they didn’t do it justice. Matt and I were catching up on the journey home and stopped off at Costco to do some shopping. I managed to organise a bank account card for my Canadian Savings Account and dumped a load of cash into the account so I wouldn’t have to carry it. I converted all of the yens I had saved from Japan into Canadian Dollars – there looks like there might be enough for me to survive but its going to be tough not earning in the mountains. Matt was telling me how slammed Norquay Mountain Ski School were, and suggested I could do a couple of hours of lessons for a free pass for the mountain. I gratefully accepted the offer so I could get some free snowboarding in and check out Norquay. I am up early tomorrow to start with the school. The thought of working for the school does amuse me a little given I know nothing about the mountain or the products the school sells etc... but it should work out.
When we arrived into Banff I settled into Matts lovely little place, we had some dinner and then went for a stroll around Banff town. It is a typical ski town and I absolutely love being back in the small Canadian ski town scene. It is soo nice to be around friendly people and just those who share the same passion as you!
As we were strolling through some of the shops, I bumped into a friend from Hemel Snowdome – Charlotte Kierle! It was so random I didnt even know she was here – we caught up and she seems to be living the dream in Canada doing winter after winter and just enjoying life – sounds familiar . It was great to see a friendly face for sure!
I met Matts lovely girlfriend Mandii in the evening after she finished work and we talked for a while about stuff and now after being awake for 24hrs I am tucked up in my little sofa bed just waiting to put my head down. I will report further later but for now its sleepy time.
Much love
Koo
So here I am reporting from an aeroplane of all places. With 20 minutes left before I land in Calgary I was trying to think of ways to kill the time – so a blog seemed like the best idea. Sleeping would be ideal however it will be 2pm in the afternoon when I land, better to save all that tiredness to sync up with the Canadian time zone!! – Oh Joy! In the 10 days I was back in the UK I just managed to get the sleeping pattern back for there, now I need to re-adjust yet again! I hope I am ok for my exams. They start on the 4th April.
So I am currently going through that nervous/excited feeling of yet another adventure! This one in a new part of Canada – I have never been to the state of Alberta and am certainly looking forward to Snowboarding in the Rockies. I have exams in Lake Louise and Sunshine Villiage so I will get to see 2 amazing resorts. I am really looking forward to picturesque beauty and tranquillity for sure!!
I had to close the laptop down as the plane was landing. However to continue after landing, going through customs was not as painful as it normally is and Matt was there in his Toyota Corolla to pick me up. It was good to see him and I was so grateful for everything he was doing for me. It was amazing driving through from Calgary to Banff, I loved out of nowhere, the horizon changed from and before you knew it you could see this epic mountain range in front of you. It was truly beautiful. I tried to get pictures to capture the beauty but unfortunately they didn’t do it justice. Matt and I were catching up on the journey home and stopped off at Costco to do some shopping. I managed to organise a bank account card for my Canadian Savings Account and dumped a load of cash into the account so I wouldn’t have to carry it. I converted all of the yens I had saved from Japan into Canadian Dollars – there looks like there might be enough for me to survive but its going to be tough not earning in the mountains. Matt was telling me how slammed Norquay Mountain Ski School were, and suggested I could do a couple of hours of lessons for a free pass for the mountain. I gratefully accepted the offer so I could get some free snowboarding in and check out Norquay. I am up early tomorrow to start with the school. The thought of working for the school does amuse me a little given I know nothing about the mountain or the products the school sells etc... but it should work out.
When we arrived into Banff I settled into Matts lovely little place, we had some dinner and then went for a stroll around Banff town. It is a typical ski town and I absolutely love being back in the small Canadian ski town scene. It is soo nice to be around friendly people and just those who share the same passion as you!
As we were strolling through some of the shops, I bumped into a friend from Hemel Snowdome – Charlotte Kierle! It was so random I didnt even know she was here – we caught up and she seems to be living the dream in Canada doing winter after winter and just enjoying life – sounds familiar . It was great to see a friendly face for sure!
I met Matts lovely girlfriend Mandii in the evening after she finished work and we talked for a while about stuff and now after being awake for 24hrs I am tucked up in my little sofa bed just waiting to put my head down. I will report further later but for now its sleepy time.
Much love
Koo
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
The end of an Amazing Winter in Japan
21st March 2011
Here I am a week on from my last blog and I can safely say I didnt expect to be writing it from where I am currently sitting. I am back home in the UK having cut my trip short by 12 days. I was due to leave Japan on the 30th March and do some travelling from the 23rd to the 30th – however I changed my flights and departed Niseko on the 18th March.
I received calls and messages of concern from family and friends in regard to the Fukishima Nuclear Power plant leakage resulting from the Earthquake. Since the disaster the power plant was damaged and as a result there have been serious radiation leaks from the plant. A 30km radius around Fukishima has been evacuated and there has been all sorts of news regarding the rise in radiation levels.
Hearing this news on a daily basis and constantly receiving calls and messages of concern struck fear in the visitors to Japan. However we needed to bear in mind this was all happening on the South Island of Japan of Honshu not Hokkaido. The fear of radiation being sent our way via the wind was enough to convince people to leave early.
Cue the mass exodus of a lot of staff from the NBS Ski School. I didnt want to leave but saw it only fair given I had a lot of people worried for me at home to return – so here I am. I will work in reverse and tell you about my journey and then the few days leading up to me leaving as well as my overall thoughts on my winter in Japan .
So my journey was nothing short of painful! I did a lot of sleeping – it started from Niseko to Sapporo on a bus – no real dramas, and then the flight from Sapporo to Tokyo was also pretty painless. I transferred from Haneda airport to Narita International airport in Tokyo. It was in Tokyo I was expecting madness but it seemed like it was very much business as usual. I was expecting hazmat suits but though the radiation levels have increased slightly in Tokyo there was no panic as the levels are not at a point which could affect human health. People forget how dignified and proud Japanese people are, the press internationally seems to be blowing the problem massively out of proportion which as a result has meant people have left. The Japanese press cannot do that as it will cause widespread panic. I don’t think there is a need to either the situation is contained and being handled in the best way possible.
My transfer from airports was spent snoozing again. I arrived at Narita International and the airport was calm and steady – I got into my check in queue and got speaking to a couple from Dorking, their son lives in Tokyo and they were here on a visit. They mentioned to me that our flight was being re-routed through Hong Kong as the pilots were located there. This meant my journey was going to be a 5 hr flight from Tokyo to Honkers, then a 9 hr layover in Honkers before flying from there to London which is a 12 hr flight – total journey time 26 hrs – this wasn’t even including the journey I had made from Niseko to get to Narita Airport...
I got to a check in desk and weighed in my bags only to find my board bag was 30kg and my other bag was 18. The check in lady was nice and patient as I asked to move things from one bag to another to avoid the 6000 Yen charge for overweight baggage. I made one attempt and managed to get the 18k up to 23k (the limit) however my board bag was still 2 k over having re-weighed it. At this point the people in the check in queue were laughing at me as I was in my snowboard gear with my beanie over my eyes as I was frantically trying to make the bags lighter. I shifted more weight from my board bag to my carry on and managed to get it down to the 23k limit. When she said it was ok I cried out “YESS!!” and jumped in the air – she laughed and the entire queue behind me were all laughing and smiling! It was hilarity. As she finished up checking me in I gave her a hi5 to the amusement of the onlooking crowd and as I turned away I got a few smiles!
After checking in I made use of the 2000yen dinner voucher with a pretty mean feed consisting of Carbonara and fried chicken with naan – interesting but very satisfying combo for sure! The airline gave us a meal ticket to use in the departure area as the flight was meant to leave @ 11am but was rescheduled for 9pm. As I waited at my departure gate I was on the web killing time, as I was on skype another quake struck! It started small and I was like – ahh must be a plane landing but it got stronger and stronger to the point where I got up and got away from the window – so scary! It calmed down after a minute and the panic was over. I checked the web again for news of another quake and sure enough there was one that hit Tokyo at that moment 6.1 on the scale and shook up most of the buildings in Tokyo but luckily no damage was reported. An airport announcement came through saying the quake wasn’t going to affect the ongoing services of the airport and all flights were still all good!
A couple of hours before the flight was to take off I noticed a guy from Niseko sat a couple of chairs away from me. I hadn’t spoken to him in Niseko but we got chatting. Rob Buchanan was his name and he was a friend of Becs and he worked for Pro Powder this season. We had a good old chat about the snow and what our plans were and how our seasons were and it was good to have company for the journey.
We boarded the plane for our first flight to Hong Kong – 5 hrs and I pretty much slept through the entire journey! We arrived at Honkers for our 9 hr layover – NOT IDEAL. We got another meal voucher so we had some Ramen which was damn tasty. Honkers airport was pretty immaculate. It really gave a good impression to me of China however it didnt surprise me given economic powerhouse that is China.
Jumped on the plane to the uk from Hong Kong and with Rob pretty much out the whole trip I watched 4 movies – going the distance – a movie about long distance relationships it was rubbish – love and other drugs – also pretty crap, RED and Convicted – the best of which was convicted.
After the flight I was picked up by my happy father and taken home! Was an epic journey that started @ 9am Friday morning Japan time and finished 5pm at home in London on Sunday. 41 hrs in total – killer!
The days leading up to me leaving Japan were spent doing a little bit of work a lot of riding and a lot of eating. I had basically shopped for 3 weeks when in fact I only had 3 days left, because when I went shopping I thought I would be in Japan for a few more weeks. So Kimmy reaped the benefit of all this food and I ended up pretty much cooking for her each night before I left. As well as that she got lunch too and before I left she got all the leftovers – lucky girl!
The riding was fun I remember riding loads with Kim and did loads of fun freestyle riding, and my last day was spent riding with Teruko and her friend Yoku – Teruko wasn’t too happy with riding and wasn’t into it so I was determined to get her stoke factor back. We did a couple of runs down strawberry and blue berry fields and the hits were so much fun i was whooping away and teruko would follow my line hitting the stupid hits I was just having a great time. We went to the park and had loads of fun in the pipe and trying out tricks we knew how to do on newer features. I was spinning front 3’s of the 30ft kicker which was scary but once I understood how to do it it was fun! Teruko was trying new things and doing some super cool stuff – she definitely got her stoke back for sure. In the evening I rode with Manny and Kimmy and that too was a super fun time.
Summing up my winter, I have to say it was pretty incredible – there were ups and downs as there are in any season, however being in Japan the eutopia of powder snowboarding and being able to experience the snow I have ridden is something very special and I think I will take these memories to the grave with me. In terms of the snow school I couldn’t have worked with a better group of people and for a better school – NBS really take care of their staff and employ good people with amazing personalities. I lived in pretty much ski in ski out accommodation, we had a lot of people living together which led to quarrels and mess however on the whole it was a great place to be. Japan is the home of some of the most dignified, humble, honest, kindest people I have met. They make the place what it is and its this culture and behaviour I would like to keep with me as I move on to other places. I could go on and get really melodramatic but I wont – it might make me cry .
Top memories from the season
- Snowboarding the annapuri back bowls
- CAT Skiing with Kay
- Working in Rusutsu for a week
- Snowboarding in Moiwa cornice dropping
- The countless incredible Miharashi/Super Ridge/Strawberry fields/Gates powder runs
- The never ending game of horse with Mo
- Bec and I’s birthdays – the hangovers brutal
- Meeting Angela Ashby
- Riding gentemsticks
- Watching signatures the movie about Japanese pow riding
- January and March powder
- Back 1’s of a 40 ft kicker in Hano
- The numerous tree hits
- Watching j-crew kill it
- Trying to spread the art of jibbing
- Kimmys bail down the steep section on the backside of miharashi toward Rob Roy
- Kimmys tail spins and that day in the park and pipe with Kimatron
- Getting stuck in super ridge buried for ½ hr
- Tony’s 360 on his last day of riding
- Tony’s penguin slide on the garmish jib
- Becs 27 to face smash
- Toms mad butter box skills
Its been incredible – next stop Canada for exams – will keep you posted!
Much love people
Here I am a week on from my last blog and I can safely say I didnt expect to be writing it from where I am currently sitting. I am back home in the UK having cut my trip short by 12 days. I was due to leave Japan on the 30th March and do some travelling from the 23rd to the 30th – however I changed my flights and departed Niseko on the 18th March.
I received calls and messages of concern from family and friends in regard to the Fukishima Nuclear Power plant leakage resulting from the Earthquake. Since the disaster the power plant was damaged and as a result there have been serious radiation leaks from the plant. A 30km radius around Fukishima has been evacuated and there has been all sorts of news regarding the rise in radiation levels.
Hearing this news on a daily basis and constantly receiving calls and messages of concern struck fear in the visitors to Japan. However we needed to bear in mind this was all happening on the South Island of Japan of Honshu not Hokkaido. The fear of radiation being sent our way via the wind was enough to convince people to leave early.
Cue the mass exodus of a lot of staff from the NBS Ski School. I didnt want to leave but saw it only fair given I had a lot of people worried for me at home to return – so here I am. I will work in reverse and tell you about my journey and then the few days leading up to me leaving as well as my overall thoughts on my winter in Japan .
So my journey was nothing short of painful! I did a lot of sleeping – it started from Niseko to Sapporo on a bus – no real dramas, and then the flight from Sapporo to Tokyo was also pretty painless. I transferred from Haneda airport to Narita International airport in Tokyo. It was in Tokyo I was expecting madness but it seemed like it was very much business as usual. I was expecting hazmat suits but though the radiation levels have increased slightly in Tokyo there was no panic as the levels are not at a point which could affect human health. People forget how dignified and proud Japanese people are, the press internationally seems to be blowing the problem massively out of proportion which as a result has meant people have left. The Japanese press cannot do that as it will cause widespread panic. I don’t think there is a need to either the situation is contained and being handled in the best way possible.
My transfer from airports was spent snoozing again. I arrived at Narita International and the airport was calm and steady – I got into my check in queue and got speaking to a couple from Dorking, their son lives in Tokyo and they were here on a visit. They mentioned to me that our flight was being re-routed through Hong Kong as the pilots were located there. This meant my journey was going to be a 5 hr flight from Tokyo to Honkers, then a 9 hr layover in Honkers before flying from there to London which is a 12 hr flight – total journey time 26 hrs – this wasn’t even including the journey I had made from Niseko to get to Narita Airport...
I got to a check in desk and weighed in my bags only to find my board bag was 30kg and my other bag was 18. The check in lady was nice and patient as I asked to move things from one bag to another to avoid the 6000 Yen charge for overweight baggage. I made one attempt and managed to get the 18k up to 23k (the limit) however my board bag was still 2 k over having re-weighed it. At this point the people in the check in queue were laughing at me as I was in my snowboard gear with my beanie over my eyes as I was frantically trying to make the bags lighter. I shifted more weight from my board bag to my carry on and managed to get it down to the 23k limit. When she said it was ok I cried out “YESS!!” and jumped in the air – she laughed and the entire queue behind me were all laughing and smiling! It was hilarity. As she finished up checking me in I gave her a hi5 to the amusement of the onlooking crowd and as I turned away I got a few smiles!
After checking in I made use of the 2000yen dinner voucher with a pretty mean feed consisting of Carbonara and fried chicken with naan – interesting but very satisfying combo for sure! The airline gave us a meal ticket to use in the departure area as the flight was meant to leave @ 11am but was rescheduled for 9pm. As I waited at my departure gate I was on the web killing time, as I was on skype another quake struck! It started small and I was like – ahh must be a plane landing but it got stronger and stronger to the point where I got up and got away from the window – so scary! It calmed down after a minute and the panic was over. I checked the web again for news of another quake and sure enough there was one that hit Tokyo at that moment 6.1 on the scale and shook up most of the buildings in Tokyo but luckily no damage was reported. An airport announcement came through saying the quake wasn’t going to affect the ongoing services of the airport and all flights were still all good!
A couple of hours before the flight was to take off I noticed a guy from Niseko sat a couple of chairs away from me. I hadn’t spoken to him in Niseko but we got chatting. Rob Buchanan was his name and he was a friend of Becs and he worked for Pro Powder this season. We had a good old chat about the snow and what our plans were and how our seasons were and it was good to have company for the journey.
We boarded the plane for our first flight to Hong Kong – 5 hrs and I pretty much slept through the entire journey! We arrived at Honkers for our 9 hr layover – NOT IDEAL. We got another meal voucher so we had some Ramen which was damn tasty. Honkers airport was pretty immaculate. It really gave a good impression to me of China however it didnt surprise me given economic powerhouse that is China.
Jumped on the plane to the uk from Hong Kong and with Rob pretty much out the whole trip I watched 4 movies – going the distance – a movie about long distance relationships it was rubbish – love and other drugs – also pretty crap, RED and Convicted – the best of which was convicted.
After the flight I was picked up by my happy father and taken home! Was an epic journey that started @ 9am Friday morning Japan time and finished 5pm at home in London on Sunday. 41 hrs in total – killer!
The days leading up to me leaving Japan were spent doing a little bit of work a lot of riding and a lot of eating. I had basically shopped for 3 weeks when in fact I only had 3 days left, because when I went shopping I thought I would be in Japan for a few more weeks. So Kimmy reaped the benefit of all this food and I ended up pretty much cooking for her each night before I left. As well as that she got lunch too and before I left she got all the leftovers – lucky girl!
The riding was fun I remember riding loads with Kim and did loads of fun freestyle riding, and my last day was spent riding with Teruko and her friend Yoku – Teruko wasn’t too happy with riding and wasn’t into it so I was determined to get her stoke factor back. We did a couple of runs down strawberry and blue berry fields and the hits were so much fun i was whooping away and teruko would follow my line hitting the stupid hits I was just having a great time. We went to the park and had loads of fun in the pipe and trying out tricks we knew how to do on newer features. I was spinning front 3’s of the 30ft kicker which was scary but once I understood how to do it it was fun! Teruko was trying new things and doing some super cool stuff – she definitely got her stoke back for sure. In the evening I rode with Manny and Kimmy and that too was a super fun time.
Summing up my winter, I have to say it was pretty incredible – there were ups and downs as there are in any season, however being in Japan the eutopia of powder snowboarding and being able to experience the snow I have ridden is something very special and I think I will take these memories to the grave with me. In terms of the snow school I couldn’t have worked with a better group of people and for a better school – NBS really take care of their staff and employ good people with amazing personalities. I lived in pretty much ski in ski out accommodation, we had a lot of people living together which led to quarrels and mess however on the whole it was a great place to be. Japan is the home of some of the most dignified, humble, honest, kindest people I have met. They make the place what it is and its this culture and behaviour I would like to keep with me as I move on to other places. I could go on and get really melodramatic but I wont – it might make me cry .
Top memories from the season
- Snowboarding the annapuri back bowls
- CAT Skiing with Kay
- Working in Rusutsu for a week
- Snowboarding in Moiwa cornice dropping
- The countless incredible Miharashi/Super Ridge/Strawberry fields/Gates powder runs
- The never ending game of horse with Mo
- Bec and I’s birthdays – the hangovers brutal
- Meeting Angela Ashby
- Riding gentemsticks
- Watching signatures the movie about Japanese pow riding
- January and March powder
- Back 1’s of a 40 ft kicker in Hano
- The numerous tree hits
- Watching j-crew kill it
- Trying to spread the art of jibbing
- Kimmys bail down the steep section on the backside of miharashi toward Rob Roy
- Kimmys tail spins and that day in the park and pipe with Kimatron
- Getting stuck in super ridge buried for ½ hr
- Tony’s 360 on his last day of riding
- Tony’s penguin slide on the garmish jib
- Becs 27 to face smash
- Toms mad butter box skills
Its been incredible – next stop Canada for exams – will keep you posted!
Much love people
Monday, 14 March 2011
Disaster Strikes - Sad Times
14/03/2011
So here is another instalment of the madness that is my life here in Niseko Japan. I am currently in a 5 star hotel called the Vale lying on a bed next to bec farrar (just chilling by the way) on my laptop just relaxing. She basically won a competition at the beginning of the season for coming up with the best acronym for VBG. I wont tell as its not ideal for public exposure but it was worthy of the victory. The prize was a night in the Vale hotel which I am currently reaping the benefit of along with her. Its nice to be in a luxiourious place for sure!!
As I lye here I think about how recently I have been wrestling with my mind about what to do. IT has been causing me to feel so uneasy and stressed and is really affecting my mood – however the mountain seems to be the form of escapism I need. Its incredible! Over the last few days I have been more and more content with the idea that “everything will work out” and I am going to let my time run its course and not worry so much. I need to enjoy the here and now I am in Japan and it deserves my happiness.
Currently Japan is in devestation due to the recent Easthquake and Tsunami, as well as this a volcano has erupted today and nuclear reactors are melting down. Disaster after disaster has left coastal towns in ruins, people are missing or dead and the aftermath is devastating. I was in the lounge eating my lunch as the quake hit and even tho it was on the south island of Honshu and I am in Hokkaido – the north Island I felt the tremors. I immediately checked the news only to find out the Tsunami and Earthquake had devastated the north eastern coast of Southern Japan. The following day was a powder day on a Saturday, these days are normally relished by locals and travellers on a weekend trip, however when I went out at 8am to join the lift line, instead of the 100 people you would see excited and waiting for the lift to open, there were about 20 people all deadly silent. I was snowboarding and no one was on the hill. In any other circumstance this would be great because I was getting fresh lines and no one was around, but it was lonely – it almost felt like the mountain was mourning it was soo sad.
In terms of my time here socially I havent been upto much – I havent been going out in the evenings much just relaxing and getting ready for the following day of riding. That has pretty much taken priority over anything else just because the riding has been nothing short of epic. We have had SOOO much snow! Mo was a very lucky boy when he got here because he got an incredible amount of powder days mornings and evenings. When snow is like that you have to ride, you feel obliged to therefore you find yourself riding in the morning working and then riding in the evening. The fatigue and exhaustion kicks in but its a good feeling.
The powder riding has been soo deep and epic – it makes you realise why you are here in Japan! The unfortunate thing is I think I am some sort of super hero in the pow and end up going way harder than I should I have had a couple of serious tree knocks and an incident with a cornice that could have seriously damaged me.
The first of the tree incidents was snowboarding down the gates. Recently as there has been lots of snow I have discovered the gates – these are roped off areas where there is an opening into the backcountry of Niseko – there are expensive consequences if you need to be rescued in these areas and you should be wearing backcountry avalanche gear to be safe – but we assume if patrol are opening these gates then it should be safe enough right? Stupid really! Better to be safe than sorry! Basically out of gate 4 or 5 you can access some amazing fresh open snow terrain dropping into the hanazono area of Niseko! It is incredible. I was heading down a run on the gates going through amazing open trees and was snowboarding under a low lying tree branch and hit a bump just before the branch we elevated me up and i smashed my head on the thick branch hard enough to clothes line me to the floor – insane impact – so hard a mark was left on my helmet. I was lucky 1 I wasn’t elevated up to my eyes or face otherwise i would have seriously damaged myself! I was also thankful for my amazing helmet – had i not had that on I would have been knocked out cold and without Mo around me as we were riding I would have needed rescuing – it is so important to stay close to your friends when riding in those areas so straight after the incident i got up shook it off and looked for Mo – madness!
The second tree incident was in in the Super Ridge backside trees. It was fresh and fast and epic I was bouncing between powder tree turns going super fast, a turn bucked me too high and I couldn’t turn – I knew I was heading straight toward a tree full speed so just before I hit the tree I got into a recovery position on my board and smashed the hell out of my left hip/pelvis and bum i was down for a couple of mins screaming in pain, but it wore off and I ended up carry on riding. The pain was more bruising and soreness as opposed to any damage the next couple of days were sore sleeping and lying on my left bum cheek but its getting much better.
The cornice incident was stupid. I was riding with Mo on an epic pow day and we were lapping Gate 4 for some mad fresh open powder turns and on the laps I saw a friend from Demo rental shop called Tomas from France. We had always talked about riding together but never got round to it so we did a lap on Gate 4 – he made us traverse hard left right into the back country and before we knew it we didnt know where we were going – we decided to head back right and as we were traversing right without knowing it we were on top of a 25 ft cornice and were traversing lower and lower – Tomas and I went over the lip broke the top of the cornice and dropped 25 ft into powder – the first thing i did because i didnt realise what was happening was look up at the cornice and check to see if it was collapsing – luckily it didnt but I was so lucky. Mo followed up over the cornice with our guidance – only after did we realise how stupid that was! We could have been buried quite easily.
Mo has now left and had an epic time – I had a great time riding with him – such good memories shredding powder with him, watching him put in amazing turns and watching him progress with us was awesome. He is an amazing rider and I am eternally grateful for him introducing me to this sport! I find riding with him the collaborative learning and progression was amazing we both learnt tricks off each other, as well as new ones together. One more memorable run was playing horse – where you call a trick and both of you have to do it – we must have done about 20 tricks in a whole run exhausting but soo much fun! Amazing!
We managed to demo the Gentem sticks and they were incredible its like having a piece of art on ur feet! Amazing unfortunately it wasn’t a pow day but it was still pretty amazing – the boards epitomise the beauty of riding Japanese pow, we didnt have fresh snow but we took it through some soft chopped up deep snow and it just blasted through. I don’t think I was ready for it – it was soo lively! It was like a teenager about to get involved with a pornstar – just wasn’t ready to ride it – like I wasn’t ready to ride the Gentem – one day I feel like I will have done enough riding and achieved enough on my board to shred a gentem – amazing!
Another memorable riding day was with Kimmy today – it was raining in the morning and started snowing late morning. I met up with Kimmy for her 4 hr ride break at 12 and we had some amazing fresh wet heavy pow turns and she took my down runs I have never been down – its awesome to ride with people to learn new runs. But more importantly Kimmy is just awesome fun to ride with! We hit a cornice and it was the biggest she’d hit – I was so stoked to push her riding but at the same time keep it within her limits and progressive. I took her into the Kings Park for the first time this winter, and she killed it hit the first jump nose and tail slid the box and smashed up the flat down – she was super stoked as was I. Hit the 30ft and managed a front 3 indy and front 5! Was soo happy because its a big booter – landed clean with confidence too! Amazing! We hit the mini pipe and it was the first time I felt comfortable in the pipe getting air out of it! Amazing times!
Nothing really else to report – we had a end of season staff party however I was more interested in snowboarding the following day so I just ate the free food and left – it was fun – 80’s theme and I wore the most ridiculous outfit – pink velor track pants and a wifebeater – disgusting!
In the house a lot of people have moved out – with Mo leaving I had to vacate my room and am now living upstairs with Pablo – all good! Really enjoyed Mo’s company we had many good conversations about snowboarding – he described the personality traits I have that are reflected in my snowboarding include – power, determination, happiness and control – I couldn’t have put it better myself and it was 4 words which really helped me shape the way I should continue to ride! Gosh I love this sport its amazing!
Anyway I better get going – much love to all
So here is another instalment of the madness that is my life here in Niseko Japan. I am currently in a 5 star hotel called the Vale lying on a bed next to bec farrar (just chilling by the way) on my laptop just relaxing. She basically won a competition at the beginning of the season for coming up with the best acronym for VBG. I wont tell as its not ideal for public exposure but it was worthy of the victory. The prize was a night in the Vale hotel which I am currently reaping the benefit of along with her. Its nice to be in a luxiourious place for sure!!
As I lye here I think about how recently I have been wrestling with my mind about what to do. IT has been causing me to feel so uneasy and stressed and is really affecting my mood – however the mountain seems to be the form of escapism I need. Its incredible! Over the last few days I have been more and more content with the idea that “everything will work out” and I am going to let my time run its course and not worry so much. I need to enjoy the here and now I am in Japan and it deserves my happiness.
Currently Japan is in devestation due to the recent Easthquake and Tsunami, as well as this a volcano has erupted today and nuclear reactors are melting down. Disaster after disaster has left coastal towns in ruins, people are missing or dead and the aftermath is devastating. I was in the lounge eating my lunch as the quake hit and even tho it was on the south island of Honshu and I am in Hokkaido – the north Island I felt the tremors. I immediately checked the news only to find out the Tsunami and Earthquake had devastated the north eastern coast of Southern Japan. The following day was a powder day on a Saturday, these days are normally relished by locals and travellers on a weekend trip, however when I went out at 8am to join the lift line, instead of the 100 people you would see excited and waiting for the lift to open, there were about 20 people all deadly silent. I was snowboarding and no one was on the hill. In any other circumstance this would be great because I was getting fresh lines and no one was around, but it was lonely – it almost felt like the mountain was mourning it was soo sad.
In terms of my time here socially I havent been upto much – I havent been going out in the evenings much just relaxing and getting ready for the following day of riding. That has pretty much taken priority over anything else just because the riding has been nothing short of epic. We have had SOOO much snow! Mo was a very lucky boy when he got here because he got an incredible amount of powder days mornings and evenings. When snow is like that you have to ride, you feel obliged to therefore you find yourself riding in the morning working and then riding in the evening. The fatigue and exhaustion kicks in but its a good feeling.
The powder riding has been soo deep and epic – it makes you realise why you are here in Japan! The unfortunate thing is I think I am some sort of super hero in the pow and end up going way harder than I should I have had a couple of serious tree knocks and an incident with a cornice that could have seriously damaged me.
The first of the tree incidents was snowboarding down the gates. Recently as there has been lots of snow I have discovered the gates – these are roped off areas where there is an opening into the backcountry of Niseko – there are expensive consequences if you need to be rescued in these areas and you should be wearing backcountry avalanche gear to be safe – but we assume if patrol are opening these gates then it should be safe enough right? Stupid really! Better to be safe than sorry! Basically out of gate 4 or 5 you can access some amazing fresh open snow terrain dropping into the hanazono area of Niseko! It is incredible. I was heading down a run on the gates going through amazing open trees and was snowboarding under a low lying tree branch and hit a bump just before the branch we elevated me up and i smashed my head on the thick branch hard enough to clothes line me to the floor – insane impact – so hard a mark was left on my helmet. I was lucky 1 I wasn’t elevated up to my eyes or face otherwise i would have seriously damaged myself! I was also thankful for my amazing helmet – had i not had that on I would have been knocked out cold and without Mo around me as we were riding I would have needed rescuing – it is so important to stay close to your friends when riding in those areas so straight after the incident i got up shook it off and looked for Mo – madness!
The second tree incident was in in the Super Ridge backside trees. It was fresh and fast and epic I was bouncing between powder tree turns going super fast, a turn bucked me too high and I couldn’t turn – I knew I was heading straight toward a tree full speed so just before I hit the tree I got into a recovery position on my board and smashed the hell out of my left hip/pelvis and bum i was down for a couple of mins screaming in pain, but it wore off and I ended up carry on riding. The pain was more bruising and soreness as opposed to any damage the next couple of days were sore sleeping and lying on my left bum cheek but its getting much better.
The cornice incident was stupid. I was riding with Mo on an epic pow day and we were lapping Gate 4 for some mad fresh open powder turns and on the laps I saw a friend from Demo rental shop called Tomas from France. We had always talked about riding together but never got round to it so we did a lap on Gate 4 – he made us traverse hard left right into the back country and before we knew it we didnt know where we were going – we decided to head back right and as we were traversing right without knowing it we were on top of a 25 ft cornice and were traversing lower and lower – Tomas and I went over the lip broke the top of the cornice and dropped 25 ft into powder – the first thing i did because i didnt realise what was happening was look up at the cornice and check to see if it was collapsing – luckily it didnt but I was so lucky. Mo followed up over the cornice with our guidance – only after did we realise how stupid that was! We could have been buried quite easily.
Mo has now left and had an epic time – I had a great time riding with him – such good memories shredding powder with him, watching him put in amazing turns and watching him progress with us was awesome. He is an amazing rider and I am eternally grateful for him introducing me to this sport! I find riding with him the collaborative learning and progression was amazing we both learnt tricks off each other, as well as new ones together. One more memorable run was playing horse – where you call a trick and both of you have to do it – we must have done about 20 tricks in a whole run exhausting but soo much fun! Amazing!
We managed to demo the Gentem sticks and they were incredible its like having a piece of art on ur feet! Amazing unfortunately it wasn’t a pow day but it was still pretty amazing – the boards epitomise the beauty of riding Japanese pow, we didnt have fresh snow but we took it through some soft chopped up deep snow and it just blasted through. I don’t think I was ready for it – it was soo lively! It was like a teenager about to get involved with a pornstar – just wasn’t ready to ride it – like I wasn’t ready to ride the Gentem – one day I feel like I will have done enough riding and achieved enough on my board to shred a gentem – amazing!
Another memorable riding day was with Kimmy today – it was raining in the morning and started snowing late morning. I met up with Kimmy for her 4 hr ride break at 12 and we had some amazing fresh wet heavy pow turns and she took my down runs I have never been down – its awesome to ride with people to learn new runs. But more importantly Kimmy is just awesome fun to ride with! We hit a cornice and it was the biggest she’d hit – I was so stoked to push her riding but at the same time keep it within her limits and progressive. I took her into the Kings Park for the first time this winter, and she killed it hit the first jump nose and tail slid the box and smashed up the flat down – she was super stoked as was I. Hit the 30ft and managed a front 3 indy and front 5! Was soo happy because its a big booter – landed clean with confidence too! Amazing! We hit the mini pipe and it was the first time I felt comfortable in the pipe getting air out of it! Amazing times!
Nothing really else to report – we had a end of season staff party however I was more interested in snowboarding the following day so I just ate the free food and left – it was fun – 80’s theme and I wore the most ridiculous outfit – pink velor track pants and a wifebeater – disgusting!
In the house a lot of people have moved out – with Mo leaving I had to vacate my room and am now living upstairs with Pablo – all good! Really enjoyed Mo’s company we had many good conversations about snowboarding – he described the personality traits I have that are reflected in my snowboarding include – power, determination, happiness and control – I couldn’t have put it better myself and it was 4 words which really helped me shape the way I should continue to ride! Gosh I love this sport its amazing!
Anyway I better get going – much love to all
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