by Terry McLeod
In March 2010 I attended the AASI Rider Rally held at Copper Mountain, Colorado. For those who know me this might seem quite strange since I am primarily a skier and have snowboard gear that’s almost as old as the sport itself. However, this year there was a free ski/terrain park group offered for alpine skiers and that is what motivated me to make the long drive halfway across the country to attend.
For those not familiar with it, the Rider Rally is loosely modeled as a National Academy for snowboarders; four days of on-snow clinics, evening events and after hour socials all hosted by members of the National Demonstration Team. This year the indoor sessions were held at Woodward at Copper each evening. This is a new facility that has mats, trampolines, foam pits, skateboard parks, and Snowflex™ for indoor skating, skiing, riding, and jumping. It’s pretty hard to describe how incredible this venue is, and we had the run of it every night. This photo below gives you an overview but for a better idea it’s worth surfing around their website: www.woodwardatcopper.com.
Usually we think of training/educational events as being important because of the topics they cover, the quality of the clinicians, the opportunity to learn new teaching methods and skiing techniques. These are all important and do comprise the largest portion of the information that I came away with, but not far behind were all the conversations and insights that came from hanging around other teachers, trainers, supervisors and managers from resorts all over the country. Whether we were sitting on a chairlift or a bar stool, it was easy to go down the path of “what do you do at your area?” on topics that ranged from line up methods to pay systems, beginner terrain and techniques to staff training and development. Sometimes you ended up feeling like it would be so great to teach at that person’s area because of some cool feature, while at other times it was very encouraging to realize that I didn’t have to go back home and live under the giant corporate thumb that they have to deal with. By the end I was able to come home with at least three different things from these conversations:
Best practices (a team of staff from several departments who confer on terrain park features and design for example).
Dreams of what we can try to develop over the long run (terrain that’s easy to access but out of the way with low-end, progressive beginner jumps and rails).
Appreciation and relief that I’m in a more casual, Northwest, work environment (I don’t pay taxes on the coffee cup I’m given for employee appreciation day).
Returning to the topic of on-snow clinic content, the biggest concept that I left with is how possible and important it is to break down a new trick or feature into very small increments that build on each other and create success at every step along the way. A lot of the freestyle crowd has a fairly go-for-it outlook on sports and it’s easy to get caught up in this when teaching (“here’s a couple pointers, now you just need to commit!”).
Presumably though, the people who are willing or motivated to take a lesson may be somewhat less inclined to just “go big,” after all, they’re coming to us for advice. Either way, when we take the responsibility of guiding people through maneuvers that are challenging for them, we owe it to our students to make it safer and easier than if they were on their own. Here are a couple of outlines as examples.
360 Off a Jump
Whirly birds/Surface 360’s on the snow
- Skis parallel
- Both skis on the ground
- Whole body rotation
- Smooth rotation without stops/jerks
Timing the Surface 360
- With marks in the snow
- With terrain variations
Add minor pop motions
- While staying on the snow
- Coming slightly off the snow
Time the pop movements
- With marks in the snow
- With terrain variations
Go to a small jump, surface 360 beside the kicker/rolling over the knuckle (no air)
Time the spin to finish on the landing
- Add minor pop motions
- While staying on the snow
- Coming slightly off the snow
Time the pop to the knuckle
- Be sure to match the landing angle
- Butter out most of the spin
Straight air off the kicker for speed check,
Time spin and pop with take off.
- Land between 90-180 and butter out
- Land 180-270 and butter out
- Land 270-360 and butter out
- Land 360, stomp, and claim
Obviously it could take some time and several runs to work through all of this, but that time and mileage is what keeps things both safe and successful. Here’s a sample for an “urban on” to a box or rail, where you approach it from one side and use a slightly directional jump rather than coming at it dead center. If students are learning this move they already have some basic box riding skills, so we won’t repeat all of those steps for this progression.
Urban/Street onto a Box
(can also be used for lip slides)
Review the solid stance that you’ll use while sliding the box.
- First on snow
- Next on a line in the snow
- Then on the box using a normal “straight on”
Introduce nose and tail presses as a way to adjust/correct while sliding the box
- On the snow statically
- On the snow while sliding
- Step onto the box and do the movements without sliding
- Slow speed sliding presses using a straight on
Adjust your approach to the box so that you’re in line with one side of it, rather than centered
- Hit the box by landing on just one side of it, usually a steel bar/rail
- Nose and tail press the side bar of the box
Introduce “directional jumping” for take off
- Statically, check for proper landing position
- Sliding and jumping onto a line in the snow
Walk the takeoff of the box from the side that you’ll be jumping from
- Check distance from box (side, laterally)
- Check direction of trajectory
Approach & takeoff from the side (urban on)
- May need to make a sequential jump initially if speed is slow
- Works towards a simultaneous jump at take off
- Adjust take-off trajectory as needed
- Use press moves as needed
- Smile big and say “Woo Hoo!”
Another obvious fact is that you need to have available and choose appropriate features for learning new tricks. Just like in all snowsports instruction, we need to be on comfortable terrain (features) when introducing new movements and/or maneuvers. There’s nothing wrong with returning to that big, wide flat box in the kiddie park, or that short, flat jump to teach and practice new moves.
In summary, the Rider Rally is another example of an event that serves to inspire on multiple levels and it has provided me with more tools to coach and connect with students in the terrain park environment. I encourage you to move outside of your normal training group and take advantage of the many higher end training events that are available, whether it’s through PSIA/AASI regionally or nationally, or other organizations like USSA, USASA, National Sports Center for the Disabled, National Ski Patrol, American Avalanche Institute, American Mountain Guides Association, or anything else.
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