RAT- Rocky Mountain Assessment Trials... here we go!

As you read this, you might want to hit PLAY.



Oh, my god, its becoming reality. Look what I am working on now:

2011 PSIA-RM TRIALS APPLICATION
Welcome to the PSIA-RM Assessment Trials (RATs). As a Division, we are creating this 3-day event to better prepare you for your process at the National Education Team Tryouts. An important part of the National Process is the Application that you turn in to the Selectors ahead of the event. This Application gives Selectors an opportunity to better know you and understand your goals and ambitions.

The selection process, while intense, can be rewarding. As Maverick says, "You never ever ever leave your wing-man."

Its time. It is finally time to begin filling out the paperwork and sending it in. I have such mixed feelings about this. First, it got here seemingly suddenly, as do many things once ski season starts. Bam! Its Christmas, see you in two weeks... work every day, try to keep food in and clothes clean... BAM! Christmas is over, fill your calendar with clients if you can and get your butt out there training because BAM its time for exams in February!

Wow. Here we are five years in to a six year process. First of all, I'm quite stoked to be able just to write that sentence. I think part of me was pretty sure I'd be shaken off my tree way before this by one thing or another.

I do know that my skiing and teaching and technical understanding is improving every day. I think my teaching and technical understanding are still far ahead of my skiing, and while I got several nice compliments from the TREW crew the other day on my skiing (blush), I got some video taken yesterday that made me want to crawl under the chair in Bernie's office and cry. Then I noticed my client saying "But it feels so much better than that! I can't believe it looks like that!"

I remembered Katie Ertl (nee Fry) last year sitting in the Movement Analysis watching her skiing from the year before get torn apart by a group of 40 trainers with a big smile on her face. She squirmed a bit, she was embarrassed a bit, she laughed, she taught us how to take it. Its never as good, as clean, as "correct" as we want it to be.

So my job here is to take my feedback from Andrew, Joanie, Johnathan, Scotty, Kurt, Trish and Weems and get out there and ski it until it sticks. I made some major changes in my skiing in the beginning of the year. When I looked at the video, I'd kept some of them and been lazy enough to let others go.

There is not time in life for lazy, let alone in the pursuit of a goal which has a definitive time line which is looming! If a change is made, it is my job to keep it. To have the discipline to hold it in my skiing as it tries to squirm its way out and default patterns, easier and somewhat efficient, present themselves as attractive options.

Train on, see you at Tryouts!