CASI Level 2 Snowboard Instructor Course Diary Week 7 – 2015

Seven weeks has gone past all too quickly…but what a seven weeks it has been!! I’ve met some of the most amazing people, and got to do some wicked snowboarding…I’m just glad I have more of this ahead of me!!!

Monday started with the beginning of some new training…This week we would swap our boards in for swords…well not literally, Fraser kept telling us that we were going to treat our snowboards as if they were swords and perfect the art of the edge… Get it, a sword has two edges and so does a snowboard. I like to think of myself as a modern knight of the round table, but like 100 times radder.

So I guess the only way to describe Monday was Funday Monday. This is the story in a nut shell, I said to Fraser could he give us some tips on how to get 180’s smoother. So Fraser made a rule, unless we were trying a specific tactic, huck off of everything! So the week started off awesome, and to make things even better, we tried these things called toe to toe’s and heel to heels. Now this is going to be hard to describe, so bear with me. Basically you carve across the fall line on either the toe or heel edge respectively, and pop a 180. You then land on the same edge but facing in the opposite direction and continue riding. Repeat as appropriate looking pretty darn awesome throughout. I only wanted to say that to show off my knowledge of snowboarding, I’ll be honest. BOOM, SNOWBOARD-RELATED-KNOWLEDGEBOMB.

To top off Monday it was Jez’s birthday!!! But we will continue this trail of thought on Wednesday!

Tuesday was pretty much more of the sick day we had the day before, we did a fair amount of carving, and worked on our bump riding. We worked them into board cross later in the afternoon, which was sweet, as the roller at the end was big enough to send it. By the way for non-snow bums, you may hear the phrase SEND IT yelled at you from a lift. This quite simply means that the spectators are cheering for you to do something awesome, much like fans cheering at the football. The thing about football is that I don’t really like to pass the ball to anyone. Now it’s not that I’m not a team player, but I would much rather kill it on a board than share a football with anyone. The 180’s were making a good development at this point, but falling over was becoming a bad habit, I am just so thankful for the genius that created butt pads.

I’ve always had a keen interest in the practice, but never really tried yoga much past a few sessions, but Fraser said to us that it helped out with his snowboarding. So Snake, Tom and I decided that we would give some a go on Wednesday evening. I must say aches and pains aren’t really an issue anymore, but I have to say one problem about yoga is that it makes me well gassy. Sorry to sound all early 2000’s chav there, but I’m well ‘ard innit. Just find Chris and ask him to do his squeaky fart impression for a simulation of what our yoga session sounded like. So back to the previous mention Jez’s birthday! We attended a Hawaiian party at Eagles. Now having a party in the snow surrounded by people dressed in summer attire is quite a feat. I walked into the party and was immediately told take off my shoes and socks as people told me that I would get sand stuck in my toes! Unfortunately I could not find a Hawaiian shirt to wear to the party, so I wrote “Jaymez’s Hawaiian Shirt”, on a white t-shirt with a sharpie. Sharpies are fascinating objects, as for some reason I am always tempted to write things down using it, which prompted me writing Jez’s name in a love heart on my arm much like a tattoo. Hawaiian parties seem to bring out the best in me.

At the same time as being so glad that I have discovered this, I am kind of becoming very lazy. Pizza up here is kind of the bomb. As the totally real historical figure that looks like Tom Hanks, Forrest Gump, once said, “That’s all I have to say about that really”. And once again, Thursday was another session of squeaky yoga farts! But hey, the upside is that I have a new found realisation of how my body truly works!

Some of you may remember from previous weeks I have mentioned the word shrelping: shredding and yelping for a good or bad reason. (taken from the Dictionary of the modern rad snowbum…They really should make one because I feel I talk a foreign language sometimes!) However this time it was for a good reason! A sacred thing had happened the night before, it finally snowed. The rule ‘no friends on a snow day’ kind of didn’t apply today, as we did a lot of tree runs over at Easter Chutes. Now when Fraser says to buddy up, I kind of took it as a queue to shrelp through the trees, “I’m not your buddy guy”. For some reason this South Park quote has become quite a favourite of mine, along with throwing the word Meow into sentences as often as possible. For example instead of the word now, you use the word meow, which South African Carl felt the urge to correct everyone with at the house party the night after…So right about meow I will continue with Fridays tales.

So trees yeah, they are quite crafty things, they can make a small turn a small blind turn, which can cause a lot of problems, as we found out. Hiding round the corner of some trees was a huge patch of rocks, mud and water, which the whole group managed to pile up into. It sounds quite dangerous but it was a laugh screaming, “STOP ROCKS”, and seeing the next person fly round with the biggest look of fear on their face! In addition to this we had been working on a new method when coming through turns, which was tensing the butt cheeks. Don’t ask meow (me how…sorry) but it really worked! Friday was also known as freestyle rap Friday, as every lift opportunity we got some beats on the phone and freestyle raped to them! Bet you didn’t know I could rap! Well I can’t but I tried. Let me spit a bar…

“I ride down the slope, I ride in trees, I ride a snowboard, I don’t ride skis”

Some call me the next Dr. Dre. Or Prof. Mez as I’m more commonly known in the game.

On Saturday evening we played host to another NBS house party which was sick. It’s so awesome to see so many of the people that have become our Big White family in one place! I also swear house parties will never be the same after having Mike DJ at them. Do you remember S-Club? I’m pretty sure they wrote a song about us. You know the one that goes, “there ain’t no party like a snowpines party”.

I sit here now on Sunday having some breakfast in happy valley, about to head out to try a snowskateboard. I look around to find myself surrounded by these awesome people, and I just keep thinking to myself how lucky I am to have met these awesome people in this insanely awesome place. I’ve had some pretty cool experiences since getting here, and the awesomeness just keeps on coming!

Stay Rad

Jaymez