Thursday, April 2, 2009

Day One of Level 3 complete!

WOW, what a day! The snow could not have BEEN more perfect, total ego snow! I was very very nervous this morning, but as soon as we got out of the lodge and on our skis, I felt fantastic. We did a warm up on Deer Park, which was hero snow, and then warmed up some more on PK. We jumped into low end demos, which was great, wedges, wedge christies, open parallel, I think I did well on all of those.

Then we did modified stem christies, delayed weight transfer turns, those went fine, then we went into lunch, and then headed back out after to Slauchmans, where we skied steep north facing stuff in knee deep skied out pow. I felt SO solid, charging, happy, opening in the ankles, my legs were fresh, I wasn't hanging on to my turns, my skis felt light and responsive!

I definitely skied to my potential this morning. We came back over to PK and started presenting tasks, Jen Gunther did hop turns, which are not my best, but I think my second set is passing. Barbara did Javelin turns, my first set sucked, my second set was okay, but I had the same problem in them as I did in Pivot Slips, not keeping that uphill hip high, so I'm not sure if I passed either of them, even though the second sets of both were pretty good. Common thread problems are an issue, that's what the tasks are designed to expose, so we'll see if I can't pull that issue together tomorrow.

I taught Charlestons, and my first demo was crap, but my feedback was good for the group, and my second set felt good. Then we did short swing turns, which are a problem for me, we did two sets, I don't know if either set passed. My feedback for the second set was to send the knees across into the new turn faster, earlier. I got the same feedback for bumps, so that's another common thread, that's two, so now I'm a bit nervous.

Bumps on Deer Park felt solid, I played, had fun, varied turn shape, good ski to snow contact, etc, but then I got the knee comment, and that threw me, I haven't got that feedback yet in the bumps. I called Squatty after I got down the hill, and he said that means I'm not committing to the new turn enough, and I can change that for sure.

We did arcing in the crud, about shin deep, high speed arcs, and I was arcing, but I wasn't working my upper body like I can, I think I was a titch defensive in the crud. The second set was much better, the third set was good and aggressive.

On Slauchmans, Troy asked me to soften my outside leg earlier in the turn, and I did that for the rest of the day. I also had NEARLY a huge wipe out, which turned into a spectacular save, I got inside, my outside tip got ripped back behind me, I miraculously stayed on my inside foot and did about 15 turns in knee deep crud while I tried to get my outside ski back under me (the tip was dragging and bouncing in the snow BEHIND me) I went over a little compression and my tip freed, and I pulled my foot back under me and kept skiing, I was PSYCHED! If I had fallen, I would have totally destroyed my knee. It's a bit sore from being yanked on like that, but no worries.

So no falls for me today, my free skiing was to my potential, I did well in the Whirlpools, I did well in the bumps, and can make the change they want, I hope, tomorrow.

Focuses for tomorrow:

Must soften downhill leg earlier
Revisit pivot slips with a better tip lead/hip open
Revisit short swings with knee commitment
Revisit bumps with same
Revisit arcing with leveling of shoulders
Don't pop even once all day
School those hands, more open, no lazy left hand

Kill it in the teaching segment.

I have NO idea if I am above the bar or not, I think my freeskiing is there, I'm not sure if I'm going to fail on Pivot Slips, Javelins and Short Swing turns. I'm not sure if they are good enough to pass, or not.

SO, I'm not gonna worry about it. I'm gonna hydrate, shower and go to bed, then go have ANOTHER killer fun day skiing at my favorite mountain tomorrow!! Whoot WHoot!!

2 comments:

Liat said...

yay! I've been waiting all day for an update- thanks!

a said...

Thanks, Liat for all your comments!