Im ALIVE

11th August 2010
Its been a while since I have blogged, however I was started to feel like i was writing for the sake of writing and the blog was getting way to day to day’ish. I have left a decent gap between the last blog and the way I see it, the stuff thats most memorable over the week will be written here and the other stuff can just float away into insignificance. To trigger memories I might structure this in a work, training, riding, work after NZ, social and other stuff way...here goes!
So work has been pretty quiet to be honest, since the last time I blogged I worked over the weekend and Saturday was a crappy weather day, so we just went up to the mountain only to be sent down with a 2 hour morning minimum pay. Sunday was much better I got 3 hours of teaching, 1hr with 2 boys teaching them how to turn, 1 with a 24 year old lady and it was her birthday. I got her turning and she was sooo stoked on life, and so was I...it was so rewarding seeing her turn really well! I was stoked. I then had a lesson for another hour with 8 year old Sophie and we had some good fun just boogying on our boards, she was fun and awesome. Working with kids is like soo much fun, I think its partly because I have struggled to grow up and can really let the inner child in me come out!! J I was pretty stoked on teaching after Sunday – to the point where I wrote about how much I loved my job on my facebook status! Teaching people the sport I love it something I am starting to take great pleasure in and I feel like I am getting a little better. I got a bit of acceptable constructive criticism from Mr Hazeldine and it should really help get some of the bad habits out of my teaching. This week I taught skiing for the first time which wasn’t too bad, luckily I only had an 8 yr old kid called Taylor to take care of. Managed to get her stopping and a little bit of turning but I felt like as I was teaching her I was teaching myself...hahahah! It was a guided discovery for both of us, but it actually worked and we had a pretty fun lesson. I definitely have a lot of fun teaching kids for sure!!
So that was work...socially I have been a bit reclusive recently and just stayed at home, partly because I just get really tired, but also I havent been 100% and find it more appealing just relaxing at home. I have been very lazy but should really venture out soon! Its been ages! I have popped over to Miro street a few times and they guys over there are always doing good.
Training has been super intense, and I am starting to get a little overwealmed by it all. I am really struggling to process all the information and actually transfer it into my riding without another thing going wrong. Its massively frustrating and I find myself stressing out during training sessions and not really enjoying it. Instead of displaying any emotion or getting involved and participating i find though i listen to everything being said I remove myself from the class and get in my own world of just frustration. Its not a condusive state to be in to learn and I need to snap out of it, absorb and perform. I feel like I am probably one of the worst riders in my group but I just need to work hard. The teaching aspect always scares me, I find I have lost the battle of being able to teach before I have even been asked to teach because I am so nervous at the thought of delivering a level 3 lesson in front of my peers. I know the information and could deliver the lesson in my head and I feel like I know what I am talking about, I just let nerves get the better of me and its massively frustrating. I am hoping after the full set of training I will have enough information to go into an exam and pass but we just have to see how it goes. One thing I recognise I need to do is clear my head of frustration and not get nervous and believe in myself and my knowledge.
Riding itself has been good we had some incredible powder days this week. Luckily on Monday we had the day off and the mountain had 15cm of fresh snow, so we went up at mid day (me Chris, Toby, Adam) and just had some Wye Street pow day fun, only the lower mountain was open but it was still great and it meant the next day the upper mountain would be sick and full of fresh pow!! The Monday started of well, we thought we were driving home at the chaining point because tobys chains were too big for his wheels, but luckily the roadie hooked us up with a free rental of chains to get us upto the hill. That combined with some sweet powder and a whole load of monkey’ing around on the chairs and a snowflake burger led to an incredible day. Snowflake burgers are immense, I don’t know if I have gone into how amazing these are in one of my blogs. Snowflake is a mountain cafe that make burgers. Their burgers are just immense, foccacia, chicken breast breaded and deep fried, bacon, aioli (garlic mayo), lettuce and onion....take a good day put it in a burger and thats a snowflake burger...Amazing.
Even more amazing was the day after when we got to ride the upper mountain, the powder was like being in the northern hemisphere. Chucking in sweet pow slashes and turns was just awesome!! In terms of freestyle I am trying to make my frontside 3’s more solid with a blind landing and a more horizontal rotation and my backside 3’s are becoming more and more consistent, we need to start chucking off kickers now though for sure!!
In terms of work after NZ I have heard nothing from anyone in Canada, the US have stopped hiring anyone foreign needing a VISA. I am yet to hear from Niseko Base around my interview but he said 3 weeks so we will see. I literally just had an interview with Evergreen Outdoor centre in Hakuba Japan and it went well, I should hear from them in a week but the interviewer said my chances were decent. We shall see. I would much prefer to work in Niseko just because the school sounds more organised and I should get more work.
In terms of other stuff I almost died on the pow day, long story but i went off a 15ft cliff upside down...the worst thing was the rock band came out instead of in, so I was sooo close to landing head first in a rock bed, but just missed it. I scared the shit out of my trainer Rob and to be honest the whole day of training was wasted because I just couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I was soo stupid and out of control. I feel like I am not demonstrating the control and composure a level 3 rider should. I felt lucky to be alive.
My bindings are in the process of being warranteed but its taking a while I should have some brand new ride SPIs tomorrow though all things going well!!
I suppose the other thing I was thinking about was how good the setup is at Mt Turoa snow school. There is a 100 staff and we have an incredible supervisor who organises things so well. There are people who help but its a big effort and the guy does really well – props to Matt. Not only does he organise staff well, but the development and training of staff and general care about how staff are doing is awesome. He has a bunch of senior senior snow school instructors who are there to pretty much develop the staff and nothing else. The training setup is awesome and I am pretty grateful to be working at such an awesome school.
Thats all I have been thinking about over the past week – I best bounce – peace and love people.