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Nothinbutsnow Snowboard Instructor Course Diary - Big White 2012 |
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 Posted by sneakerfreaker on Wednesday 8th February, 2012 @ 12:49 GMT |
News Category: Camps/Courses | Visited 423 times |
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If you thinking of doing a gap year course then check out what the guy's at nothinbutsnow have been up to this winter in Big White!
http://www.nothinbutsnow.com/ |
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Arriving at the airport early, as I find it’s best to be when leaving home for a long time, waiting for the others was fairly nerve racking. But as soon as they arrived, and we met up with NothinButSnow Sam, he gave us our hoodies and tees and we all started chatting about the snow. We checked in, headed though security and chilled before the flight.
Well, here I am at the airport sitting in a business class lounge, looking forward to 11 weeks of pure champagne pow, immense snowboard training and good times. From the moment Sam met us at the airport and myself and Laura got upgraded, I knew it was going to be a good winter.
As soon as we got to Big White we got taken to our accommodation by NothinButSnow Leigh, which is super pimp! Already we’re living like kings having some beers in the hot tub! Then it was time to hit the snow.
The first 2 days we spent shredding around the mountain, getting to know the hill and each other, which was easy. Everyone has common interests and after a few (or more than a few) pitchers of beer at Snowshoe Sam’s I kept feeling like I’d been here for months - and it’s only the first week!
First day of training arrives and a jolly Welsh man who happens to be called Alyn meets us. He’s just stoked to snowboard everyday as a job. This is a very good sign and he’s our instructor. We spent the first few days learning the 5 main skills of snowboarding, shredding the mountain and getting into the swing of things. Under the mindful eye of Alan, our group started to ride better than we ever have before and it’s the only first week of our snowboard instructor course!!
Now I’m off up the mountain peace out!
I roll out of bed Monday to a glorious morning for shredding we all head down to the Village to meet our new snowboard instructor Cody, an ex boarder cross racer and all around nice guy we spend most of the day just riding all over the mountain so Cody can check our riding out look at weaknesses / strengths we also chat a little about the quick ride program which is the 5 steps you should use to bring a complete novice snowboarder to being able to link turns after a nice day on the mountain we head home for some dinner Fred whacks his cocktail jazz on and we sit around talking about tomorrow as its started to snow again!
Wake up Tuesday morning to a dump of powder the atmosphere around the mountain is buzzing as it always does when there's new snow we meet Cody and there's no time wasting we're straight up the mountain to find fresh tracks in the trees and up the t-bar to get the best of the snow in the afternoon we head over to the cliff (steepest run in resort) for the first time everyone’s stoked as we make it to the bottom. We get home and everyone's absolutely shattered after the first deep powder day of the season, an early night all round.
Wednesday we spent all day down at happy valley (beginners slope) after yesterdays excitement Cody seems keen to get us back on track with our knowledge of quick ride so we get to teach each other for the first time, he gives us demo's and explanations of how we would teach the 5 steps (basics, sliding , control , turning , linking) then we spend the afternoon giving mock lessons to each other everyone's still in high sprits from the powder day so even with the huge amount of snowballs thrown everyone learned a lot.
Thursday Pascal has an ingrown toenail so cant ride today has he had it removed and its causing him some pain. we're down at happy valley in the morning again and everyone misses our crazy German team mate. More mock lessons followed by some really good feedback from Cody, everyone is starting to get a lot more confident with the teaching aspect now so in the afternoon Cody thinks we need a break from happy valley and is anxious not to cover to much without Pascal so we head over to gem lake and just go shred. Evening rolls around and the first of the NothinButSnow outings involves going tubing! Everyone is stoked for it as it give us a chance to hangout with the skiers for once which is good for team bonding. We start with some pre drinks which may or may not have been a good idea as go ride rubber rings down the snow. It was so much fun everyone was laughing and joking around after the tubing we headed to Sam’s for some well deserved drinks!
Friday morning everyone's suffering a little from the immense amount of pitchers consumed last night and a weeks worth of riding but everyone's still firing on all cylinders. Today we're doing some video feedback so we spend the morning just riding and Cody’s filming us, in the afternoon we spend time watching the video back and talking about how to improve our technique, this is really good for our teaching also as we start to learn how to analyse peoples riding so we can pick one skill for them to work on to benefit the whole of the riding! Everyone heads home after a good day until around 6.30 when we meet up at the Swiss Bear for a meal out everyone's in high spirits and the food is good I head home and have an early night.
Saturday morning most people meet up with our rep Sam and we spend a good morning hitting Gem Lake and some little jumps / drops and lots of tree runs, we all have good day! Then its a lazy afternoon in front of the fire letting our muscles chill before heading to Sam’s for a Saturday night out on the town with the whole NBS crew!!
Rich
Monday morning and we are back on the hill with instructor Alyn and we head over to Gem Lake and powder chair to make the most of the weekends snow. Everyone's hitting the trees and loving the moguls its according to Alyn, riding steeper and bumpier terrain will keep us stacked over the board and in a centered body position. The afternoon was a joyous one as Laura has returned to our class after a fractured wrist on the first day up the mountain she brings a well needed female perspective to an other wise male dominated group. We spend the afternoon riding and helping Laura catch up on the things she missed.
Tuesday its happy valley again working on our teaching skills. Alyn is a really experienced instructor so has a lot of good points of view for us to try. We spend a lot of time working on our demos so they’re technically correct for the exam. We all chip in helping Laura and Alyn gives us a really extensive list of teaching techniques.
Wednesday we spend the morning out and about on the hill. The last couple of runs of the morning we spend practicing the tripod, a trick where you balance on the nose of the board and place both hands on the snow and slide down the run. This was loads of fun, face slides all-round apart from Kevin who picked it up first time, must be the Canadian in him! In the afternoon we went down to happy valley and worked on our teaching skills again. Everyone’s picking it up well now and confident demos and explanations are going down all round. Wednesday night everyone headed to Sam’s to pre celebrate Aussie day with the ridiculous amount of Aussies in the resort everyone has a few too many, the atmosphere is unreal!
Hung-over is never the best way to start your Aussie day unless your in Big White! In the afternoon we all headed out to happy valley to do some more demo teaches luckily for us Alyn had used his charm to get us a rookie snowboarder who had only had one lesson. We took it in turns teaching her the snowboarding ropes. This was really useful to help us be able to spot the one skill which can benefit the beginner the most.
Friday is feedback day and as its our second week with Alyn, he can really pick out how we've improved. We do some filming in the morning for our video review. Its a white out pretty much all day so we just worked on what exercises we can use to help improve a clients turning. In the afternoon we had our feedback session in the VCM. I was pretty stoked with my feedback! In the evening we headed out to Carvers bar and grill where Fred one of the skiers played a few tunes on the piano. One of the ski instructors joined us for dinner and a few drinks to round off another superb week.
Saturday morning my head thanks me for not over doing the beverages as its yet another POWDER DAY! There’s nothing better than waking up in the morning to find fresh snow on the ground and we all met up with one of our reps and a guy called Jamie at the VCM for some powder shredding. We started off at the Rabbit Hole (secrete spot), and then over to Easter Chutes, but after shed loads of riding all week by 2pm everyone’s energy was fading, so off we all went to sit in font of the fire after a perfect day riding!
Peace out! Rich
It’s Monday again and time is flying past here in Big White. We roll up to the village to meet Nikki our instructor for the next two days. The snow conditions are great and it snows all day. We spend the morning lapping ‘Powder Chair’ a 3 seater chair lift that offers a great variety of terrain, fresh pow, trees, bumps and some nice drops. Nikki delivers feedback really well and we are all riding better by the end of the day, especially after a few cheeky park runs as the day started to end.
Tuesday POWDER DAY! It has been snowing all night and we're loving the powder Big White keeps throwing at us. I am generally in love with life here. On the chairlifts we chat about the teaching practice that has to be done in the afternoon to get ready for our exam next week. Every one is cracking on and the nerves don't seem to be affecting anyone. After a quick lunch back at the house everyone heads off to Happy Valley for teaching practice. It is still snowing and whilst we are on the chair lift we notice the morning’s tracks are already filling up, talk about perfect. Everyone gets a section from the 5 main CASI building blocks that are used to teach a beginner how to snowboard and we set to work fine tuning our teaching skills with group feedback and tips from Nikki, all in all a very good day.
Wednesday and time to ride with Riley. She is our instructor for the next three days and has a relaxed chilled style on the board and is a pretty sick coach. She spends the morning letting us ride and picks up little tweaks that make a huge change to our riding. Everyone is riding solid and the variation of coaching techniques are really starting to help us fully understand all the principals we need to know for our exam. We get to ride a lot of trees and in the afternoon and then it was off to the happiest place on earth, Happy Valley, to show Riley our by now epic teaching skills (that still need work). She gave us a few great ways to put our personality into our teaching and how to vary styles for different clients.
Thursday we had work to do so we plowed on ahead and filmed some video for our review on Friday. We spent most of the morning working on our riding and rounded off with hiking a short section of Easter chutes (one of the tighter tree runs on the mountain). In the afternoon it was back to working on our teaching and by now we are all banging the lessons out with some good feedback from Riley.
Friday, thank God it’s Friday. Everyone is feeling tired after a long week and nerves are beginning to set in for next weeks exams, but after a nice ride in the morning with Riley everyone's feeling confident and happy. We spend the afternoon watching our video footage of our riding and giving group feedback so we can learn how to analyse other riders (a skill we will need for our Level 2). We head home to get ready for dinner at the ‘Gun Barrel Grill’ for a nice roast dinner with apple crisp desert then it was off for some cheeky beers to put an end to a very good week. Peace out till next time.
Rich |
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