2011 Fall Camp Has Arrived for the Development and Am Teams. Thanks to Shuttle help from Ross and Ian SMS snowboarding made bradley airport in two hours. We easily rolled through check-in and security to board our nonstop to Denver. Nobody lost a bag but Alamo gave away a couple of our trucks so we were forced to suffer the upgrade to four 2012 suburbans. Not so bad. We look like the secret service rolling through Eisenhower tunnel and all over Summit county. It did set us back twenty minutes though and this time loss was increased when we were given a slightly confused lodging list to accompany our slew of keys. We had just enough time to figure out our answers, match athletes to keys and keys to accomodations and get into Woodward@ Copper for our 4-6 session...Dave was getting a little tired by now but the kids were stoked.
 |
| tail press. Petey D |
 |
| nose press to... |
Four snowboarders and one coach plus two freeskiers and a coach filled up the one hit wonder orientation program. That would be Jay Belanger and Jesse Mallis attending with Evan Werner, Peter Dimitriou, Kiersten Edwards Rakai Tait, Finn Kennedy and Nikita. The rest of our crew out here has all been through the intro. Trampoline and Foam Pit hucking was enjoyed by the rest of us: athletes Julia Marino, Mike Boylan, Owen Barth, Jack Griffin, Mason Geils, Josh Cohen, Xander and Benji Raith, Andrew (Chewey) Tousignant and John Patrick (JP) McArdle and Gideon LeGros. Scottie J, Dwaine Tait, Greg Raith and myself were just as fired up as the kids if a little less Bouncy. Woodward is an amazing facility. Five tramps and a tumble track as well as some portable mini tramps on one side of a foam pit, a springy soft gymnastic tumbling floor on the other side. Another, larger pit is surrounded by the snowflex surfaced jumps. Skateboard pool, two mini ramps and a street course round out the options. This place is inspiring copycats as well as Woodward's own project being built in the Tahoe region, USSA's center of excellence in Park City Utah and the recently permitted Stratton Mountain School Air Awareness Facilty. It is a playground on steroids. It is host at different times to nearly every national Snowboard and Free-ski team in the world as well as just about any competing professional you have heard of or not. Great to see Rick Shimpeno and Phoebe Mills and have them in the SMS family circle again. The improvisational bouncing and parcour or freerunning moves being thrown by all these differently trained athletes is clearly at the forward edge of human athletic evolution. I love it. I love watching it. I love trying it myself and working with the kids to see what they can find out about themselves and how they can expand their movement skills. I'm so amazed that we will have such a place and know that everyone with an interest in this blog, our school, our kids will get to see the looks on our athletes' faces as they do their own training dances in such a place at home on campus...awesome and onward. I took a quick leave to go round up our meal vouchers for breakfasts and just barely fit under the garage door that was closing at group sales, just in time like on Get Smart. In and out with our 388 meal tix back to the Barn. Pick up the crew, we're all half out of breath half the time. 3:00 am wake up call at sea level, travel 1600 miles and working out at 9 thousand feet, finishing some moving-in of bags and kids, getting new keys that work better for Chewy, Mike and Pete. Time for dinner.
Day one on snow starts with breakfast at Copper. The pipe is olympic size and straight edged right in front of the lodge. We enjoy the view while we fuel ourselves. Over to Breckenridge to wrangle 18 seasons passes. Of course one birthday is entered wrong and one name spelled with an M instead of a G so we are being told these guys are not in the system and close to buying two more before sorting it out. Our last serious logistic completed and we are up and riding in a sunny forty degrees on snow that stays pretty hard somehow. These first days on snow each season are always interesting. New gear and time off make confidence a rarer commodity. Its also part of the plan. Rediscover certain skills, manage risks. we are teaching these guys and girls that keeping themselves healthy is an important tactic toward continued skill development. We are likewise riding at Breck right now rather than Copper because athletes need time on snow before time in air and before time in the HP. We will ride Breck for one more day tomorrow, our third before training some Halfpipe for a few days. Then we will go to Keystone to ride a larger and more diverse Park set up.
 |
| Evan Werner BS3 |
It has been great to see the new young blood on snow. The big young crew we have had all fall and the new winter term riders are full of surprises and going to become the next great SMS athletes. Day two on snow was a big step up for just about everybody. The commodity less rare. I can't list everybody again and don't see all that goes on with the Dev crew but in the Am squad I have to mention that Peter D has shifty threes right out of the gate, and super energy on his butter tricks, Mason has some knee tendinitis but is doing a pretty front board on a flat down box/rail and fought through some landing issues to get his front three today. JP is already landing sevens and cab fives, Xander already getting back rodeos, and spinning on and off down rails. Jack is getting his threes back and front boards and he tail-pressed a 25-30 foot down barrel in his first two tries on it. Jack was told not to skate all summer by a therapist so he has come from feeling pretty shaky yesterday to pretty styley today. It's getting late and we will keep you more in touch as we are settled in better now. The energy is great the kids look and feel fit and strong. We have study hall every weeknight at 7 and have been to woodward three times. We will skip that part tomorrow to get some extra leg rest for giant halfpipe riding the next day. It is great working with Scott, Jay, Dwaine and Jesse. Its great to see these kids fighting for their "dreams" or just what they want to be and do. Thanks for the trip.
 |
| Jack G fb on the dr |
 |
| rider x. front one on, back one off. |
No comments:
Post a Comment