Drop In

My social schedule has been packed this week! Which has meant a lack of time and energy in the evenings to blog.. apologies! This has juxtaposed my working week that was super quiet with very little actual teaching but lots of standing by (just in case there is a last minute booking.) so I got paid to freeride the mountain and drink coffee. Coffee is dangerously becoming my new favourite.

But this means I will be having a quiet one this week to make up for it. Look out for more writing soon, on the excitement of the last week or so. Containing: a shadow adaptive lesson, hockey matches, CADS overview, JA Laird school, training, Aussie day and more!

On the calendar this week: my first paid adaptive lesson (tomorrow!) JA Laird again, and regular week of work and training. I have a friend who is kindly letting me have full use of his skis ( he's a snowboard instructor) if he's not using them, so hopefully I can get practising!

Love to all my family xxxx

Super Busy!

Full update coming soon when I find the time!!

All weekend I have been doing the CADS course (which I passed!) so now I'm qualidpfied to take adaptive lessons and volunteer with PASS on Sunday afternoons. It was facilitating and the information and new stuff totally fried my brain. We cramed 3 days into a weekend which was tough but awesome.

And today we had around 200 kids fro, the local school do a school trip to the hill! I had 11 beginner snowboarders to entertain and teach, I loved it. This chaotic fun environment is hilarious and I thrive in it. Keeping the kids having fun is amazing and I love to teach so it's a win win! And I will see them again tomorrow!

I've been starting early and finishing late, abasolutely shattered so I promise to fill in the gaps with details soon.

Love to all my family speak to you all soon xxx

BEST DAY EVER

Friday feeling x1000000.. but it didn't stat that way..

What an amazing Friday, I'm already looking forward to the next one! But it started in a messy, sleepy, stressy fashion. Now I was expecting a day off work when I woke up this morning as I am on an internship program, so get training every Friday from 10am till 3pm. Everyone knows that.
 I woke up at 7am to have a nice leisurely start and do some chores etc.. when for some daft (not so daft) reason I checked my online shift rota (Dayforce) through sleep dazed eyes. To my horror it says 'Friday 20th 8am-9am' ... No! The next bus is at 7:06. I need to be dressed. Packed. Fed. And ready to run for the bus in 3 minutes to make it in time.
I throw on the nearest clothes, chuck some thermals and socks into my day bag and charge up stairs still putting on my t shirt. My housemate Michael was in the kitchen already talking to his family over breakfast, and I stumble in and yell 'grab me my loaf of bread!' He looks confused but obliges as I hurriedly stamp on my batman shoes, and rush back. Whilst snatching my bread from his fist I explain it's my breakfast, lunch and possibly dinner and I'm on set up (8am-9am in the yard.)
Good news, I made the bus. Completed my shift. And even found the time to grab a coffee and steal some peanut butter and jam for my sandwiches. Well done me.

From then it turned amazing - every week we get 4 hours tuition towards our level 2 snowboard instructor course at the end of the season and we started with a BANG! It's so fun to ride together with everyone once more and really challenge ourselves and have fun. Even in this one session I could feel the improvement working and I now have tips and tricks to take away, think over and test when I freeride. Enhancing our riding and developing the core competencies of snowboarding is the name of the game, coming at you with 3 main words:

Quicker (increased speed down the hill/quicker movements when changing edges in turns)
Lower (lower stance)
More (more moving in the lower joints and smaller overall stance)

But it's not all as serious as it sounds. Today we did work around these 3 things but we also learnt how to butter! This is when we shift our weight over our front/back foot, transition into a nose/tail press (balancing on one end of our board) and start to spin around!
Dizzy and tiring work, not to mention super fun! I've been wanting to do this for ages!

We rode all day and I felt so good afterwards, I could feel the burn in my legs for sure! I was working them so hard that they needed some R&R. A session in the hot pools and a stretch was just what the doctor ordered.

Feeling fresh as a daisy I went back to the locker room to polish off my 3rd and final p, b and j sandwich (to turn the frozen jam spreadable I heated it up in the staff microwave, which turned it into hot molten jam. Ouchie to touch (as me the idiot found out) but delicious in sandwich filler form.
In here I met my mates who would be joining me on the CADS course and we headed to the meeting together.

I had no idea what to expect, apart from I knew I had a wacky but sweet course teacher and a fun group to learn with. And it was fascinating. Learning about different physical and mental challenges and how we as 'problem solvers' can adapt and accommodate to these people and give them a new passion was so uplifting and exciting I couldn't keep still! - or maybe that was my 5:30pm cappuccino I thought was a good idea in order to keep me awake (early start and all) but really just made me talk at 100mph and is the reason I am still awake now writing this blog. Thank you caffeine, but maybe we should only have mornings together..!

I carry on with this course all weekend and will definitely update you when I have completed it and tell you all the cool stuff I learnt and did. Tomorrow I learn how to sit-ski!! I'm so excited! So I should go to sleep now and recharge for another early start tomorrow.

Love to all my familly xxx see you next time,

This is the life

Slow and steady
The working week had quietened down quiet a bit recently. The resort isn't at max capacity anymore (far from it) so class sizes are small and not too frequent - at least for us snowboarders. Which suits me just fine! One to one classes are amazing, you get to build a relationship with the client and when you aren't working you can go ride! What a dream.
-quick side note.. on my days off I love to treat myself to a cooked breakfast. Only after I started boiling my eggs did I realise we don't own egg cups.. so I improvised!

Fancy boiled eggs, my fave.

Freestyle day!
Me and my friends had synchronised days off Monday this week so we hit the miniature terrain park. We tried the boxes (wide rails to grind on) and the kickers. I thought they were terrifyingly big but by the end I could ride over and jump over them okay. I even threw I some 180 degree spins! Some of the guys were trying similar stuff - grabs and 360s, and I was the camera man on occasion! Afterwards I took my new found desire to land tricks to the side kicks (bumps on the groomed slopes we use as jumps) to practise my 360s.. which I landed for the first time ever! What a great feeling!

Pow!
This week we have been fortunate enough to be blessed with snowfall! Over night weather has landed us with 10-17cm of fresh snow mid week that we were able to play around in! I was super tired from freestyle the day before, despite this I got up to the mountain on the first bus and got to ride fresh powder with the other instructors when the lifts first opened. It was magical. Gliding on soft silent snow. Floating down wieghtlessly on a white blanket. It's a similar feeling to surfing an I just love it. Luckily I got a level 3 group so I got to play around finding fresh snow all day with the competent riders, having an absolute blast. But boy were my legs tired! You have to work extra hard.

I got JUGGED
We have a tradition at work where, if an instructor messes up or does something dumb whilst in uniform, they can get grassed up and have to pay the price in beer at our bi-weekly staff party. And guess who owes the team a jug of beer.. me! I was turning around to look back up at my students.. hit some pow.. caught an edge and somersaulted backwards. Right infront of my colleague. No escaping that one I thought as he casually rode last laughing his head of shouting back at me JUUUG! My kids thought I was pretty funny too. Doh.

Juggling Kids
We suddenly had a real busy day yesterday! Out of the blue me and my buddies all had students of similar level, for the full day or joining half way through. We all had radios too. So when all the different kids progressed at different paces we had to do some swapping. It was actually pretty fun, and matching the kids up to an appropriate group set us all up for an amazing day. Good work team! Love the communication! But, what do I do with this $10 tip for the kids I had for half a day?!
-don't worry. I got a beer for their original instructor. TEAM WORK FOR THE WIN

New course: CADS
Canadian ADaptive Snowsports for mentally or physically disabled people. This is the 2 day course I signed up for this week. Snowboarding and snowsports in general are too awesome nit to be shared with everyone! Over this course I will learn how to use adaptive equipment like the sit-ski and learn how to teach people with complex neurological challenges that affect communication and movement. Super looking forward to it and it will give me a new perspective on teaching and coaching in general. I expect to learn a lot!

Living Underwater

Living room camping.

Last Friday I woke up early, around 6am so that I could get ready in time for the 7am bus and get a quick ski I'm before work. That plan was promptly dismissed when I felt icy cold water engulf my foot as I got out of bed! What a wake up call.. I ran round the house yelling so that the other might salvage some of their possessions that were on the floor. Nightmare! But we all pulled together and got all our stuff off of the floor, my room was worse affected as water was flooding through the sauna ceiling (next to my room.) Loads of my clothes were soaked and my carpets were under 2inches of water which messed up the walls and more of my stuff. So I panic called my landlord at 6:15 to tell him what happened.

He came round pretty quick and called all the right people to start sorting out our house. He said the basement floor would be inhabitable for about 4 days and the sauna had to be completely gutted. However the problem was a frozen pipe that had burst which is relatively common out here so that would be fixed asap. In the meantime we had to live in the front room on the sofa beds. But the bloke was very upfront and generous with us, he's going to try and financially reimburse us because he didn't want to charge us rent for a house we can't live in, so we may get some compensation yet.

-we don't have an alien disease in our house.. it's to help get rid of the moisture downstairs.

Adapting on the job.

The skill of being flexible and able to adapt is probably the most useful and transferable skill I have learnt from my travels and work experience this year! Couple of examples I can give are things like keeping kids happy: it's like a fun interrogation! You ask them questions and when you find something they like and you know about you're onto a winner. Whether it's super heros, cars, films, video games. You can use all to have fun with them and create new games that they'd enjoy and engage with more. We have our default techniques and analages but if you can adapt that it works way better, and I love coming up with new games. 

Or maybe you've been told they're a certain level. For example a client may come and say they're a level 3 not knowing that a level 3 is expected to be able to turn consistently. So you have to assess them yourself on the first run, and re plan your lesson on the fly. I love it!

Skiing?!

Seeing as I have so many ski instructor friends it's only natural that we teacher each other! So last Sunday when me and my house mate Tom both had a day of we switched equipment! I had a really enjoyable day, skiing was surprisingly fun and I picked it up pretty quick. And Tom was exactly the same, by the end we were both ripping it down the slopes. The only thing was that I looked like a snowboarder on skis and he looked like a skier on a snowboar.. our outfits suddenly looked really goofy! We skied all day and at the end we even went up with the group of instructors who just finished work. They all knew I was a boarder so were looking forward to seeing what I was capable of, and I impressed them! Locker room chat revolved around getting my skiing level one qualification too this year after many of the instructors praised my ability level and encouraged me to do it.. only thing is that once i get that ski qualification I might be stuck on skis all season!

I get paid to ski powder all day! Then taught the cutest girl EVER

Pow day! Finally getting some snow coming in and I was lucky enough to ride it! I was working but I was in the fortunate position of teaching SnowBirds (kids aged 3-5) who only get 1 hour lessons. Which meant I was booked all day but there was only 1 kid to teach! I spent the morning riding around with other instructors and my friends who were off work and played around in the fresh snow. It feels like you're floating, weightless, gliding down a mountain.
And then when it came to my lesson I had an absolute sweetie. She was 4 and loved frozen so much she had a Disney themed jacket, and just wanted to play with all the foam obstacles we have on the nursery slopes! She gave them all names and of course Mr. bobbles the dinosaur had to be friends with Mr Bubbles the dolphin. We kept making up stories and it kept her entertained and distracted from the cold and I could trick her into learning!
Best. Job. Ever

Moving back in followed by a staff party!

Finally dried out our house yesterday.. Definitely enjoyed a bed after so much time on a sofa bed! Carpets are fixed, of course it's still rough round the edges and there is no sauna, at least I have my own room back!

It was also the 90's themed staff party last night, everyone's outfits were great - I'm sure the local thrift stores got plenty of customers. I know that's where I went to get my look!

Right now I thought I was working but ended up having my shift changed, so didn't quite make the most of last night now knowing I could have slept in! Nevermind though, because I'm sitting here with frozen peas on my ankle after twisting it on the dance floor.. I can hardly walk. So it's going to be a rest day again I think.

Love to all my familly xxx see you in the next one!

Holiday Season CatchUp

Christmas Peak Season Brings Many New Guests and Experiences

Guests reached a 10 year peak at around 4500 people at Panorama! Which meant I got my first full day children lessons as well as my first tip, first powder day and trip into Canadian back country.

 In other news HAPPY NEW YEARS which I celebrated in style by being the last man down on the torchlight parade down the mountain followed by a massive firework display! Hundreds of people turned out for the event and I got some amazing footage on my GoPro! Check it out.

Here are some pictures to look over. Love to all the familly xxx here's to a great 2017 !
(Ps. Pictures are in order of most recent first)

https://splice.gopro.com/v?id=7y5ZjZ