Everyone in life has their own aspirations. Some want to earn as much money as they can, others want to make their way to the top. For me I vow to have more fun than any other person in the world, and this week I got my ticket to achieving that goal. The musical composer Marc Anthony famously said “if you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life”. Every day I get to snowboard on this course, I come home with the biggest smile on my face. Achieving my CASI level 1 has opened the opportunity for me to spend my winters snowboarding. HOW RAD IS THAT MAN. HAPPIEST GUY IN THE WORLD.
The week begun with the final preparations to our exams by doing what snowboarders do best, shredding. Well sherelping, shredding while yelping! Monday was concluded with a final teach to keep the quick ride system and teaching methods fresh in our heads. Now shrelping can be due to one of two reasons. Reason number one is due to how much fun you are having. Reason number two is because you genuinely have no idea which direction your board is going to end up, hence the slight squeak in said shrelp.
Tuesday was definitely a fine mixture of the two. However one thing that did assist with not falling over Tuesday was the fact that I stretched off thanks to a stretching class led by Rosie. True lifesaver…not Rosie, I mean stretching. But you did a pretty good job leading the stretching class!
So exams rolled around, and honestly it felt kind of like another week of riding with practice teaches. We began the day with a workshop and got to do a fair amount of riding, as said by Greg Daniels, CASI’s BC coordinator, we are snowboarders, and when it’s a nice day we all want to ride. Well the exam started on a Wednesday, but Wednesday means only one thing. More wings!! We took it pretty easy as the day after would be our first day of presenting teaches to the group. However to kick things off on Thursday morning, visibility was exceptionally poor. Imagine trying to see your own hand in front of your face…Okay so I might be exaggerating a little bit but you get the point. So to start the day in true snowboard style we needed to have a warm up run to totally get a feel for the conditions yeah. Not because we wanted to ride at all…. So on the way to Happy Valley a guy from the course, Pat and I are making our way down and we see the orange coat of our examiner Dom, veer off to the right, so we also make a right turn. Through the blinding haze we saw the orange coat surrounded by a group of students, so we stop to find out the route we will be taking. It took a full 10 seconds to realise that it was another exam group lead by Jake! Great demonstration of class management there Jaymez! However later on that day we presented our first teaches, which of course was smashed in true style.
Friday was the last day of exams, and introduced something that would feature heavy in teaching using the level one material, and that was how to teach children, which was a lot of fun, as we got to play games all day!!
So turned out we all passed, which as if we needed one, was a perfect excuse to head over to SAM’s to celebrate. It’s safe to say that the night was a good one, it involved a whole heap of celebrating, culminating in a Haka!
The celebration from the night before had our heads a little sore, which made us nearly forget about a previous arrangement…The first snowpines houseparty of the season! Michael came over and set his DJ decks up, which was sick to have some music live in our living room. Tim celebrated his birthday which made it seem highly appropriate for him to dance around in a mankini. However the agreement made the night before to have a toga party had not been followed through, so watch this space, toga party soon.
As if Saturday wasn’t enough on Sunday a few of us went to SAM’s in the evening for dinner…which obviously resulted in us taking full advantage of Sunday doubles. Unfortunately that was the last time we would see some of our NBS family for the season, Raad, Rosie, Philly, Ritchie, and Rowdy James all left for home. You guys will surely be missed, but thanks for the perfect reason to stay out drinking Long Islands on Sunday! Axel and Jez may have also left because I personally haven’t seen either of them up until now. Yes it’s a few days late, but can you blame us? Perfect opportunity to celebrate right? Just a bunch of snowbums, who enjoy a shred and each others company…
Oh no wait, a bunch of snow bums who enjoy a shred and each others company right, WHO ARE CASI LEVEL ONE INSTRUCTOR QUALIFIED!!!
Stay rad
Jaymez