Coaching and Clouds

Striving to continually improve, as I do, I like to take lessons as frequently as possible. So on Friday, I decided to take another one...

After hauling myself out of bed at slightly later than the usual hour, I went to the desk and signed up for another Black Runner Performance Workshop. Went up Standish, was blasted by the wind at the top and took a photo of the clouds, went up Wawa and did the same thing. Panorama of cumulus (probably cause by the rotor effect) and lenticularis below. Standish top station is in the middle:



Anyway, after going round too fast and getting a brain-freeze, I went back to pick up some warmer layers for my forehead then headed over to the Old Sunshine Lodge to meet up with my instructor. With 7 students signed up for this lesson, we had two instructors who divided us up into people who were comfortable doing moguls in the morning (myself included) and those who weren't. A quick run from Angel just clarified who was in which group, then Kenji (who was my course conductor for my Level 1) took me and a husband-and-wife team from Leeds off to practice our mogul technique.

Despite our willingness to 'shred the gnar' in the morning, we spent most of our time on the groomed perfecting our parallel skiing and speed control in the steeps. Then Kenji surprised and disappointed us by saying he wasn't going to teach us 'bump skiing'. But then followed this up by saying he was going to teach us 'skiing in the bumps', which made us relieved and a feel lot les retarded. What he meant by this was that skiing in the bumps does not require some whole new technique, only the application of normal skiing in a new setting. Excellent.

Lunch came all too quickly, and after our (or maybe just my) massive all-you-can eat saladfest with a roast chucked in just for fun, we headed out again with Kenji armed with a video camera. Unfortunately, the light had flattened even worse than the Magic Carpet, so our descent down the steeper blues wasn't as fluid as before (despite Kenji's suggestions that we 'flow like water'). So we transitioned to Standish and was greated by this blizzard below left:

But there were some good moguls when we'd escaped the gale and driving snow, and the light had got a lot better, so we went to Goat's Eye Mountain next for a bit more practice. Above right is said mountain, with right to left, Kenji, Anne, Noel, and stereotypical snowboard dude. You can see the wind whipping snow right off the mountain to the side of Standish!

But by the time we'd made our way down to the base of Goat's Eye, it was time to head back home. Thanks to Kenji for being an awesome teacher and to Anne and Noel (whos son wants to do something similar to me for a gap year) for great company.

Anyway, so in the evening, Steve and I went into town to get some essentials, like a new watch for me. It looks complicated with hands and a digital display (and, funnily enough, a temperature guage too...), but it looks great and has enough functions to keep me amused tring to work out how to do something as simple as time something...

http://www.casio-europe.com/euro/watch/edifice/efa-120d-1avef/