29th Sept 2010
Yo people its me again for another quick update...
From my last blog for a few days after the mountain was closed and it was pretty dull, we didnt do a lot because there wasn’t a lot to do. The most memorable events were going to Taupo and eating loads of junk food, winning poker, losing poker and one huge event, we went Rafting!! It was incredible, the adrenaline rush riding down water falls and rapids is insane...we did a 7 metre waterfall drop that was insane, and after rafting we jumped off cliffs into the river. I dropped a 30ft cliff into the river and the first time i landed on the water it killed!! After I did a safe pike to make sure I would break the water with my feet, not my entire back.
I havent been working much at all, I have been pretty much focused on teaching and getting better at skiing for my ski level 1. It has been an insane last few days where I crammed in 4 days of skiing with various instructors and am confident in my skiing now and getting to a level where I think I can pass level 1. I am pretty excited at the thought of getting a 2nd instructing discipline, this will hopefully make me much more employable!! Memories of the skiing so far has been Matt B telling me to ski my heart out to have any hope of me passing my exam, and me actually skiing my heart out. I have had amazing lessons from Toby, Matt R, Matt B, Grant, Heather, Harold and their hard work along with Matt Alocks and Ali’s dedication to staff development will hopefully get me my level 1.
We had our last training session with Rob G a couple of days ago and it was a beautiful fine sunny day to just rip around the mountain. It was a pretty epic day and the riding felt really good. It was amazing to do some really hard out riding after 10 days of not being on our boards! It was incredible!! It was sad to finish up, but he said to all of us our riding is pretty much there so that was a good thing.
Other things have been Chloe’s turned 20! She is a good person and I have tried to help her so much with getting a job as a snowie instructor for the NZ summer. She hadn’t heard back from a few places so I got in touch with all of the places in Japan and Canada that I got jobs and re-referred her. It was awesome to do that because the following day she got an interview with Cypress, we find out soon whether she gets it but I really hope she does.
Since Chris and Hannah havent been around I have been cooking for Tony a lot which has been mean! We having been getting some serious feedage on.
Thats pretty much been the last few days.
Chur,
Koo
Tuesday, 28 September 2010
Saturday, 18 September 2010
Closed days SUCK!
18th September
Jeez, time is flying i honestly thought my blog was up to date and I had only completed one a couple of days ago! But here we are a week later and its that time again...To be fair not a lot has gone on since last week.
Training has been mainly indoors due to the real crappy weather we have had this week – I find given the way I learn is quite analytical I get a lot out of the indoor sessions. The times we were on snow we were focused on freestyle Level 3 teaching. We explored tactics for teaching and the various freestyle lesson goals and the indoor session s helped reinforce what we had learnt on snow. I went out skiing with the TSI (Turoa Snow Sport Institute) guys. They are training for their ski level 2 so ran through some level 3 and level 4 lessons which really helped me because I was like a real student in these lessons. I really enjoyed heading out with Matt Britton. He is the TSI ski trainer and he style of teaching and training is really encouraging and sets you at ease whilst still being really developmental. I definitely had fun, but it sucked because I was so average at skiing. I must do it again only better J. My level 1 is in less that 4 weeks and I am nowhere near ready!
I haven’t done any teaching this week because the days (Friday and Saturday) I have been on rosta the mountain has been closed! We have had a severe storm cycle apparently the size of the land mass of Australia and its not going anywhere. We have had some serious wind and the closed days are getting slightly boring! During the closed day madness I have been to Taupo – 2 hrs north of Ohakune and we spent the day walking around this Lake town where Toby is from and ate loads of junk food – it was fun but an unnecessary amount of money was spent. Other than that the closed days have been pretty monotonous.
I havent been out at all!! So I am going to go out and be social tonight for sure – pretty excited. I missed out on a fun Tuesday staff night and the ball on Wednesday but I am pretty much over it.
Amazing other news is Toby got a job at Whistler and I got another Job in Japan, that is now 3 interviews 3 jobs – POW! Whilst I was in Taupo Cypress mountain called me mid pizza slice for an interview. It went well we shall just see how it goes. I booked my flight and formally accepted my job in Japan. I am now in the process of booking flights for Canada to take my level 3 certifications.
Other than that not much else has been going on – josh is leaving which is a shame and i feel bad for him but he seems like regardless of the injury he has had a good time!
Peace and love people.
Jeez, time is flying i honestly thought my blog was up to date and I had only completed one a couple of days ago! But here we are a week later and its that time again...To be fair not a lot has gone on since last week.
Training has been mainly indoors due to the real crappy weather we have had this week – I find given the way I learn is quite analytical I get a lot out of the indoor sessions. The times we were on snow we were focused on freestyle Level 3 teaching. We explored tactics for teaching and the various freestyle lesson goals and the indoor session s helped reinforce what we had learnt on snow. I went out skiing with the TSI (Turoa Snow Sport Institute) guys. They are training for their ski level 2 so ran through some level 3 and level 4 lessons which really helped me because I was like a real student in these lessons. I really enjoyed heading out with Matt Britton. He is the TSI ski trainer and he style of teaching and training is really encouraging and sets you at ease whilst still being really developmental. I definitely had fun, but it sucked because I was so average at skiing. I must do it again only better J. My level 1 is in less that 4 weeks and I am nowhere near ready!
I haven’t done any teaching this week because the days (Friday and Saturday) I have been on rosta the mountain has been closed! We have had a severe storm cycle apparently the size of the land mass of Australia and its not going anywhere. We have had some serious wind and the closed days are getting slightly boring! During the closed day madness I have been to Taupo – 2 hrs north of Ohakune and we spent the day walking around this Lake town where Toby is from and ate loads of junk food – it was fun but an unnecessary amount of money was spent. Other than that the closed days have been pretty monotonous.
I havent been out at all!! So I am going to go out and be social tonight for sure – pretty excited. I missed out on a fun Tuesday staff night and the ball on Wednesday but I am pretty much over it.
Amazing other news is Toby got a job at Whistler and I got another Job in Japan, that is now 3 interviews 3 jobs – POW! Whilst I was in Taupo Cypress mountain called me mid pizza slice for an interview. It went well we shall just see how it goes. I booked my flight and formally accepted my job in Japan. I am now in the process of booking flights for Canada to take my level 3 certifications.
Other than that not much else has been going on – josh is leaving which is a shame and i feel bad for him but he seems like regardless of the injury he has had a good time!
Peace and love people.
Friday, 10 September 2010
Windy City
11th Sept 2010
Hey Hey hey!! Here’s koo providing your weekly update on the good times I have been having. So I ended up spending a few days resting my knee as the mountain was closed on Monday and Tuesday, we did some indoor training looking at Pedagogy again writing session plans etc..etc.. It was really good. Didnt do much else on the closed days apart from hang with Josh and chill with other people.
The training commensed on Wednesday with a full on day of freeriding it was good but I am getting increasingly worried about my standard. I am consistently doing the same things wrong, I will correct them short term but my old habits start creeping into my riding...I need to focus and practise more when I get the opportunities, however with the closed days the opportunities to consolidate and freeride on my own are few and far between. I need to learn how to ski properly as well as I am fully booked for my ski level 1 examination at the end of this winter. We shall see how that goes, it will be a great achievement coming out of this winter with a certification to my name. On Thursday we spend the day training doing our on snow pedagogy sessions. I got some good feedback from my session and found out it was at level 3 standard and would have passed! I was pretty stoked. The only thing that tainted it, was I picked an easy method of presentation as subject matter for my session, and Rob had to steer me into doing a couple of things into doing the session but all in all my delivery worked well and I got to where I needed to be. I now need to nail level 3 riding and teaching and practise other sections of pedagogy.
Josh managed to break his ankle on Thursday which sucked, because he has another 2 weeks here with not alot to do and its going to make getting home very difficult in terms of carrying things!! On the plus side he has integrated really well in Ohakune and made some good friends, he is going out and meeting people and generally having a good time. Socially I havent been out much I have been super tired. There was a night on Wednesday where a producer called Dick Johnson was in town and he was playing some really good elektro! We had a good throw down and I called it quits early.
Teaching has been going good, I was on schedule on Friday and was released with no lessons today because of high winds. I got 3 hours on Fri which was cool. 2 really good hours with South Wellington School kids – 5 of them, and 1 hour private lesson with a kid called Ethan. Both were really progressive and fun, I am starting to really enjoy the teaching side of things for sure.
Not much else going on really, I got my contract through for Japan and I am getting paid really good, started looking into flights which I must book soon as the BA sale ends in a few days. Toby has a friend over called Anna and she is pretty rad, definitely good at Baking and is a lot of fun to have around the house.
My knee is worrying me, I am in a bit of pain a lot I went to the physio and its a meniscus problem, I should really lay off the crazy gym programme, but I am really feeling good results from the training I have been doing and I feel so much stronger. Its not massively severe I just need to keep it moving, I reckon the time between here and Japan I can get it fixed and sussed!!
My new board has arrived in the UK – Ride society UL 154 – very excited its going to be my destroyer in Japan!
Thats all folks
Hey Hey hey!! Here’s koo providing your weekly update on the good times I have been having. So I ended up spending a few days resting my knee as the mountain was closed on Monday and Tuesday, we did some indoor training looking at Pedagogy again writing session plans etc..etc.. It was really good. Didnt do much else on the closed days apart from hang with Josh and chill with other people.
The training commensed on Wednesday with a full on day of freeriding it was good but I am getting increasingly worried about my standard. I am consistently doing the same things wrong, I will correct them short term but my old habits start creeping into my riding...I need to focus and practise more when I get the opportunities, however with the closed days the opportunities to consolidate and freeride on my own are few and far between. I need to learn how to ski properly as well as I am fully booked for my ski level 1 examination at the end of this winter. We shall see how that goes, it will be a great achievement coming out of this winter with a certification to my name. On Thursday we spend the day training doing our on snow pedagogy sessions. I got some good feedback from my session and found out it was at level 3 standard and would have passed! I was pretty stoked. The only thing that tainted it, was I picked an easy method of presentation as subject matter for my session, and Rob had to steer me into doing a couple of things into doing the session but all in all my delivery worked well and I got to where I needed to be. I now need to nail level 3 riding and teaching and practise other sections of pedagogy.
Josh managed to break his ankle on Thursday which sucked, because he has another 2 weeks here with not alot to do and its going to make getting home very difficult in terms of carrying things!! On the plus side he has integrated really well in Ohakune and made some good friends, he is going out and meeting people and generally having a good time. Socially I havent been out much I have been super tired. There was a night on Wednesday where a producer called Dick Johnson was in town and he was playing some really good elektro! We had a good throw down and I called it quits early.
Teaching has been going good, I was on schedule on Friday and was released with no lessons today because of high winds. I got 3 hours on Fri which was cool. 2 really good hours with South Wellington School kids – 5 of them, and 1 hour private lesson with a kid called Ethan. Both were really progressive and fun, I am starting to really enjoy the teaching side of things for sure.
Not much else going on really, I got my contract through for Japan and I am getting paid really good, started looking into flights which I must book soon as the BA sale ends in a few days. Toby has a friend over called Anna and she is pretty rad, definitely good at Baking and is a lot of fun to have around the house.
My knee is worrying me, I am in a bit of pain a lot I went to the physio and its a meniscus problem, I should really lay off the crazy gym programme, but I am really feeling good results from the training I have been doing and I feel so much stronger. Its not massively severe I just need to keep it moving, I reckon the time between here and Japan I can get it fixed and sussed!!
My new board has arrived in the UK – Ride society UL 154 – very excited its going to be my destroyer in Japan!
Thats all folks
Saturday, 4 September 2010
Boom Boom Pow!! Lots of Pow
05th Sept 2010
I cant believe how much time flies between each blog. I seem to think I have only just written a blog and I check my website and its been a week – the time is literally flying by here at the moment!!
Since last week not much has gone on, we have been training pretty hard this week on snow, we had a beautiful bluebird day where we freerode all day training on carving and our free riding. It seems like we are in the consolidation stage of our freeriding, we just need to refine the skills by practising more and generally thinking more about our riding. Everything is on our riding we just need make sure we refine and make it better. When we have fun and freeride we don’t have to think about all the things we have been taught they are just there. They need refining though for sure. We need to stop letting our trainer get in our head and just really focus on enjoying the ride.
I was told that I let myself get too tense and frustrated and I need to get out of that mindset and more into the enjoyment mindset and thinking ahead to how i am going to make each run better.
That was the most memorable day of training however we had an indoor session focusing on pedagogy, the art of teaching other instructors how to teach snowboarding. This is more the trainers side of the course and is something i find I am relatively comfortable with.
The other training day was spent teaching freestyle lessons in whiteouts and then doing a little bit of freeriding. We’ve had two closed days this week which allow us to relax, catch up on life, and we had our indoor session on one of those days.
Been training real hard at the gym and this new programme is intense for sure!! I am definitely feeling stronger but I am also feeling hungry like all the time!! Its all good though, I have moved from a maximum deadlift of 55kg to 90kg in about 3 weeks, backsquats have gone from 50kg to 80kg. Its definitely the novice effect of never having trained my legs which is why I am jumping up so high for sure.
What else has been going on? Josh has settled in well at Miro St – He has had a couple of days snowboarding and is in some pain. I feel bad as I havent been able to snowboard with him yet, its either been closed, I have been training or I have been working...hopefully we can get something sorted soon. He is making a good impression amongst all of the people he has met and its good prep for uni for sure!! He is cooking dinner for 4 people tonight including himself. He is going for a Roast Lamb Dinner which I have no idea on how to do but I will help – definitely going to be a challenge.
Work has been going ok, not getting huge hours of teaching time to be honest, just getting minimum and today I took a day off which doesn’t help the bank balance at all!! I taught for an hour yesterday a pair of kids called Ben and Daniel, we had some serious fun! It was cool they were both 8 and had no real idea of speed control and their toe edge turns were both shocking, but using imagery and guided discovery I managed to help with their lower body steering and using their knees to turn. They looked so much better I was happy with the outcome after an hour of teaching them.
Today I have taken the day off work because my knee feels pretty sore which sucks, its been niggling me all season but its not the normal pain its right at the back of the knee which makes me think its a strain to the PCL. I am treating it and will be going to the physio for a diagnosis later on today hopefully its not too bad. When I rest it feels ok, its just when its at its extremes, like hyperextended or hyperflexed.
There have been a few crazy nights out this week! Tuesday night was the standard Turoa night out, I ended up having a fiar bit of fun and staying till quite late then Thursday night it was Rob G’s birthday celebrations at suitcase, which was another fun night out. The social scene is real good here and Josh has really got in the swing of things here which is pretty cool.
Other things that have been on my mind are Accenture and recent promotions and however the more time away from them I spend the more my career vesilates whilst others blossoms. I found out 2 of my peers in my start group made Manager which is huge and 2 Managers I worked for on a previous project made Senior Manager which I struggled to believe for various reasons – oh well! It seems the whole promo cycle is all about playing games, and not actually done on merit, you cant do just an amazing job anymore and get the rating you want. Struggling to believe I will return as I think the transition back to work will be so hard.
Lastly, I have signed up to do my NZSIA Ski Level 1 which means I will be a qualified ski instructor only able to teach beginners how to ski but thats still pretty handy for increased hours and pay rates so its all good. I am talking like I have already passed, still need to get better at skiing and learn the progression, which I will be spending the day doing today.
Also just ordered a new board - ahhh yeah - Ride Society UL 154 for £235!! Its a £440 board!!
Thats about it guys – peace and love
I cant believe how much time flies between each blog. I seem to think I have only just written a blog and I check my website and its been a week – the time is literally flying by here at the moment!!
Since last week not much has gone on, we have been training pretty hard this week on snow, we had a beautiful bluebird day where we freerode all day training on carving and our free riding. It seems like we are in the consolidation stage of our freeriding, we just need to refine the skills by practising more and generally thinking more about our riding. Everything is on our riding we just need make sure we refine and make it better. When we have fun and freeride we don’t have to think about all the things we have been taught they are just there. They need refining though for sure. We need to stop letting our trainer get in our head and just really focus on enjoying the ride.
I was told that I let myself get too tense and frustrated and I need to get out of that mindset and more into the enjoyment mindset and thinking ahead to how i am going to make each run better.
That was the most memorable day of training however we had an indoor session focusing on pedagogy, the art of teaching other instructors how to teach snowboarding. This is more the trainers side of the course and is something i find I am relatively comfortable with.
The other training day was spent teaching freestyle lessons in whiteouts and then doing a little bit of freeriding. We’ve had two closed days this week which allow us to relax, catch up on life, and we had our indoor session on one of those days.
Been training real hard at the gym and this new programme is intense for sure!! I am definitely feeling stronger but I am also feeling hungry like all the time!! Its all good though, I have moved from a maximum deadlift of 55kg to 90kg in about 3 weeks, backsquats have gone from 50kg to 80kg. Its definitely the novice effect of never having trained my legs which is why I am jumping up so high for sure.
What else has been going on? Josh has settled in well at Miro St – He has had a couple of days snowboarding and is in some pain. I feel bad as I havent been able to snowboard with him yet, its either been closed, I have been training or I have been working...hopefully we can get something sorted soon. He is making a good impression amongst all of the people he has met and its good prep for uni for sure!! He is cooking dinner for 4 people tonight including himself. He is going for a Roast Lamb Dinner which I have no idea on how to do but I will help – definitely going to be a challenge.
Work has been going ok, not getting huge hours of teaching time to be honest, just getting minimum and today I took a day off which doesn’t help the bank balance at all!! I taught for an hour yesterday a pair of kids called Ben and Daniel, we had some serious fun! It was cool they were both 8 and had no real idea of speed control and their toe edge turns were both shocking, but using imagery and guided discovery I managed to help with their lower body steering and using their knees to turn. They looked so much better I was happy with the outcome after an hour of teaching them.
Today I have taken the day off work because my knee feels pretty sore which sucks, its been niggling me all season but its not the normal pain its right at the back of the knee which makes me think its a strain to the PCL. I am treating it and will be going to the physio for a diagnosis later on today hopefully its not too bad. When I rest it feels ok, its just when its at its extremes, like hyperextended or hyperflexed.
There have been a few crazy nights out this week! Tuesday night was the standard Turoa night out, I ended up having a fiar bit of fun and staying till quite late then Thursday night it was Rob G’s birthday celebrations at suitcase, which was another fun night out. The social scene is real good here and Josh has really got in the swing of things here which is pretty cool.
Other things that have been on my mind are Accenture and recent promotions and however the more time away from them I spend the more my career vesilates whilst others blossoms. I found out 2 of my peers in my start group made Manager which is huge and 2 Managers I worked for on a previous project made Senior Manager which I struggled to believe for various reasons – oh well! It seems the whole promo cycle is all about playing games, and not actually done on merit, you cant do just an amazing job anymore and get the rating you want. Struggling to believe I will return as I think the transition back to work will be so hard.
Lastly, I have signed up to do my NZSIA Ski Level 1 which means I will be a qualified ski instructor only able to teach beginners how to ski but thats still pretty handy for increased hours and pay rates so its all good. I am talking like I have already passed, still need to get better at skiing and learn the progression, which I will be spending the day doing today.
Also just ordered a new board - ahhh yeah - Ride Society UL 154 for £235!! Its a £440 board!!
Thats about it guys – peace and love
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