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Ski

PASR Supporter
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Everything posted by Ski

  1. Ski

    ~my new carpet~

    I don't get it...why would a girl have to ask to be invited? Did I miss a rule change? This is a trial run day, I think, for Jeff and some others to see if grass skiing is going to be worth a risk of misdemeanor trespassing at CB, Blue, or Montage...
  2. Ski

    ~my new carpet~

    I have a very limited number of guest badges anyway...
  3. Ski

    ~my new carpet~

    They don't know yet, but I'm going to donate a half-dozen to our Courtesy Patrol as a thank you for giving my oldest a "job" a long time ago.
  4. Ski

    ~my new carpet~

    Spyder runs big, so the XL's look huge. The XL's and L's are all in really good shape and headed for storage. You can take a look on the 8th.
  5. Ski

    ~my new carpet~

    Man, I was worried. The auction ended over a week ago and even parcel post should have been here before today. And the guy's phone number was just the Swiss Valley Ski Area main number that is closed for the season. Then two boxes weighing 80lbs showed up today and every jacket is in great condition. They weren't allowed to be taken home, so they were just used a few hours a day, mostly 10 to 30 days this past season. And at least three were never worn at all. One's already back up on EBay... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=7152654513
  6. Actually, I bought a jacket and it came with 20 extras! This is what my living room looks like:
  7. Ski

    Ridge

    Bummer, I thought maybe they'd decided to go after those rich sissy skiers at UPenn...
  8. Ski

    Ridge

    The University of Delaware is one of our accounts and I was only aware of their ski/snowboard club that meets at Blue Mountain. I've shot their drunken outings four or five times for the yearbook. I didn't know they even had a ski team, or were you kidding?
  9. Ski

    Ridge

    This thread makes it seem that skiing is unique in how specialized kids have to be to reach a high level, but I covered a high school soccer game last week where eight starters on one team play soccer at least eight months out of the year. They were awesome...
  10. Ski

    Ridge

    What kids are burned out?
  11. Skiing is the #1 sport in countries such as Austria. Hermann Maier would have played football if he'd been an American. Benji Raich would have been a second baseman. Eberharter would have been a point guard. Instead, all the top athletes are enrolled in their national ski academy.
  12. The one condition for moving to Hawaii was that we fly us back once a month to visit her family.
  13. Well, add in how jealous and bitter I am over that view...
  14. Wait, ThinkSnow, I haven't beat the horse yet! Rob, J3/4/5 kids all have Derby (an old fashion term meaning State Championship) in PA. Top finishers from Derby move on to post-season races in New England. Speaking as a soccer and baseball coach, bragging will get you a lap as far as I'm concerned. I'm not really sure in what sport bragging would be appropriate to teach a kid. The USSA system has an amazingly fair scoring method. There are no golden days, per say. Every point dropped is earned. 'Dude and Sib's daughter can travel anywhere in the US and know how they'll stack up. As to where the best junior racers are, they are spread out at the racing academies. Holderness, CVA, GMVA, and any of the other schools where kids are getting the top coaching seven days a week. The competition level has risen so high that a kid can no longer attend a public high school and hope to make the US Ski Team, according to Head Coach Bill Marolt and the CVA Headmaster. As Sib points out, the thousands of USSA kids are all fighting for a chance to get an FIS start bib. FIS races are overseen by the International Ski Federation and have there own point profile, which gives kids world rankings. There are different divisions of FIS races (University, World Cup B, Citizen, etc), with FIS World Cup being the "major league" of FIS. Sib's daughter toiled for hundreds of hours in freezing obscurity for the honor of being handed her FIS start bibs. The charcter she built on that lonely journey will be with her forever. And no matter how pissy her mom gets toward me, her daughter's accomplishments have my deepest respect. USSA mirrors the rules and the point system of the FIS. Our own Missy was a victim of this when she was forced onto skis that were too long, I'm afraid. Suggesting that USSA should adopt a scoring system like NASTAR's would be like asking the NBA to adopt gymn class dodgeball rules.
  15. Ski

    it's snowing

    But I can't seem to shake the nonsenisical hope that some stalled cold front will bring a return to winter and local ski areas will do the unthinkable...like that scene from Dumb and Dumber where she says he has a one in a million shot at being with her and he says, "Wow, so there's a chance!"
  16. Ski

    Ridge

    "Great ski racers are made, not born" is the credo of places like CVA. The biggest turnoff for most young skiers is the absolute regimine of training. Coaches may have different personalities they bring to training, but among the variety of different turns needed for various terrain and gate sets, there's only one "best" way to ski a race course. The world imitated Michael Von Gr
  17. She looks awesome!
  18. Ski

    Ridge

    Yes, for sure, they went to way of the wedl (sp?), but it's a good drill for keeping your upper body down the fall line. A lot of basic drills (like gorilla turning) are for isolating and doing one thing to an extreme, while other things are done wrong.
  19. Ski

    it's snowing

    It snowed during my baseball game at East Stroudsburg North today. Very cool. They complained like crazy.
  20. Ski

    Ridge

    You bet. Hey, you might want to consider joining us at Sugarbush for the next ASRA race camp in December. Absolutely all levels of skiers are welcome.
  21. Ski

    Ridge

    Ha, a ski instructor that tells you that should have his/her head examined, unless they are teaching deep powder skiing. All the power to you if you are working off of a wide platform. Your hip flexer muscles will start complaining at some point if you stay too wide. But learning a wide stance makes learning a carve much easier. Basic ski carving begins with a "gorilla turn", where your feet are way apart and your weight is extremely far forward. You can even dangle your arms in front of you like a gorilla. Then just tip one ski on edge and see what happens...the downhill ski will whip around. We were all taught to pressure the downhill ski to make it turn. When I gave lessons, I always used the analogy of squishing a grape with your shin against the boot tongue. But that's wrong. Tip it. Just get it up on edge and it will turn. Spend a day getting back to basics. Pick a gentle blue square and traverse it edge to edge to edge, just using the downhill ski. Ask someone from the ski school if they can show you a javelin turn, where you lift one ski off the snow and cross it over the turning ski. One of the cool things that Hobart teaches us is that as adult racers, we have to be our own coach. To enjoy the journey, but don't expect it to be a smooth one.
  22. Ski

    Ridge

    NJski, here's the bible for carving turns: http://shop.store.yahoo.com/snowshack/quicturmadea1.html Hobart is the founder of one of the top ski academies in the nation and a wicked nice guy. His DVD/tape is the best and most understandable explanation of the use of shaped skis. I learned more in one 90 minute lecture from him than in anything else I've done over the last few years. When 'Mom gets back (if she comes back, that is) from her most recent outting, she may have an opinion to add. Sry, Sib, I can't find the URL. Full results had gone up right after the race, then seemed to disappear. It wasn't at the Intermountain USSA site, though, but at a ski club site I'd found via Google. I recall it was a PDF of a Xerox of the original results.
  23. Ski

    Ridge

    Yep, that's him.
  24. Ski

    Ridge

    Masters is for people over 21 who want to continue ski racing beyond their junior careers. You simply pay annual dues to the USSA and sign up for the region you wish to race. In this area, you'd have races at Mountain Creek and be part of 'Dude's races. Mostly, though, you have races every weekend either in NY or New England. depending on which division you select. Some of the best coaches weren't necessarily some of the best racers. Some never raced at all. But I was kind of surprised to read his endless blog on the NASTAR MB about his personal journey in entering his first Masters race this year. The self-proclaimed NASTAR Ski Meister loaded up a half-dozen pairs of race stock Rossi skis and went off to kick some Masters butt. He ended up getting creamed in the GS and fell down in the slalom. But the important part was that everyone got to see lots of pictures of him My opinion of his technique is mostly based on the opinions of top level Masters racers whose opinions I respect. The vast majority of NASTAR racers don't need lectures on waist steering and the other 50 things Gary hits them with. A former UVM racer who knows Gary said "It's like teaching a third grader a flawed form of calculus."
  25. Ski

    Ridge

    Yes, he coaches Adult Masters at Park City, yet he just started entering his first Masters races this past season. I just vaguely recall it wasn't a happy departure from employment from old posts.
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