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

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!