Whitetail Blizzard
Hi Snowsports Staff,Vol. 2006-1
Welcome to the first edition of the Whitetail Blizzard.
This will be the SnowsportsSchool weekly newsletter that will contain the thoughts (or minutes) from the staff meetings on Wednesdays and Saturday afternoons. It may also contain timely information that wasn’t available at meeting time and notices of up coming events and busy days that we may need extra staff for.
This weekend we held our on-snow portion of our hiring clinic (my northern name for the ITC. We selected approximately 130 (final count tbd shortly) new instructors for our school of which 50+ are snowboarders. Congratulations to our new pros! Please make sure you introduce yourself to anyone on the staff you haven’t met yet (including me, as I am a new hire as well).
Snow making temps returned on Tuesday night, but will not return again for a few days, unfortunately. As of today we are on a day by day basis, until snowmaking temps return. We are still ahead of a lot of areas in the Northeast, as my old area may not even be able to open next week and my friends at Smuggs say they are struggling as well. If there is anyone who knows how to raise our base area to around 5000 ft. please do it soon!
Saturday’s meeting and other notes:
Dress Code: Black or Tan ski or snowboard pants, solid black or white long sleeves (cold weather), white polo shirt with logo or green polo shirt with logo (warm weather).
If you are not wearing a collared shirt, wear the uniform vest, Whitetail employee optional vest or fleece, or uniform parka with shirt. This sets a good example that we are professionals in our sport. Caps must not advertise other areas. They may promote technical equipment pertaining to riding or skiing. Winter hats should match the uniform, no long cords or pigtail type straps, please.
Wearing gloves while teaching or free riding and skiing is a must and a safety issue. If it is warm find some spring gloves that go with the uniform. Black, Tan or Olive Green.
Our Worker’s Comp Insurance covers you while you are teaching and in mandatory clinics, but does not cover anyone free skiing/riding in uniform. I want to thank you all ahead of time for skiing and riding responsibly and under control at all times. On this note I will have available for viewing the ACL Awareness Video put out by the University of Vermont and Vermont Ski Areas Association. Everyone should watch this for their own education on how to prevent knee injuries. There is a booklet that comes with the video, it contains a test for your own use that you can fill out and give to me or Nancy to show that you watched the video. Thanks for taking the time to do this. A couple of my friends from Sugarbush are stars in the film.
Mountain Passport Program
We have already had a few snafus with our Mountain Passport program. Here are some important bullets to remember.
- The Mountain Passport is only available to 1st Class participants with the 1st Class ticket.
- Have a bunch of Passport cards with your name on it in your pocket, along with a pen to write on blank cards.
- Try to make sure they purchase the Mountain Passport the same day, so they do not have to spend the extra $10 when they return for another day of skiing/riding.
Mandatory Clinics:
Teaching Movements to learn skiing/riding… This is our 1st Class clinic and you should be on rental skis and boards.
Where do I go now? ……… This clinic will explore strategies for teaching beyond wedge skiing and linked turns riding snowboards.
Personal Ski/Ride Improvement… No explanation necessary. Hopefully you will do more than one.
Knee High Knowledge……………Discovering how kids learn and the stages of development for different age groups of the under 16 crowd. This is our future!
Teaching Strategies for the Majority (Kids)…………. A program to program you into what kids are into today and how to capitalize on this and use it in your coaching on the slopes.
Non Mandatory Clinics (A partial list):
- Tactics for hardpack (our guest calls it ice)
- Tactics for soft snow, crud, powder (hopeful)
- Intro to Bumps
- Intermediate Bumps
- Advanced Bumps
- BasicPark & Pipe Etiquette (required for teaching in Park)
- BasicPark & Pipe Strategies (required for teaching in Park)
- Racing
- Level 2/3 Part 2 Exam Training (how to get across what you know in 15 minutes
or less with results)
- Tactics for Steeps
We will expand this list as the season gets going. All these clinics can be used with kids in mind as well as adults. Expect some indoor topics as well.
Anyone going to the Level 1 Exam here on Jan. 2 – 3, find the time to ski with me in the before the exam. I just want you to be successful or understand why you may not be and try to get you there before the exam.
Teaching Movements Clinic, Saturday and Sunday, Dec 23,24, 8:30 am on rentals.
New Programs
Tele Lessons and Tele Festival…………I am hiring a few teleskiing instructors in order to capitalize on this growing alternative to alpine skiing or snowboarding. They are also volunteer patrollers. The teleskiing lessons will go out during regular lineup times for groups or privately. We are planning a TeleFest on Sunday, January 28.
Guided Demos………….working with Dusty in the retail shop we will offer 2 hour guided demos on alpine and tele skis and if needed snowboards.
Rentals and out guests
Due to our limited number of certain sizes of skis, this is how our adult guests will be sized in the 1st Class lessons:
Up to 5’1” = 120cm
Up to 6’1” = 130cm
Over 6’ 1” = 140cm
Up coming events: (updated daily)
- Christmas week (Dec. 23-Jan. 1)
- Hot Dog Race (Dec. 30) on Velvet
- PSIA Clinics (Jan. 2-3)
- Nitetrailers/ Night Diamond Club start (Jan.4)
- Women’s Day (Jan. 6)
- PSIA Nordic Clinic (Jan. 6-7)
- Whitetrailers/ Farside Club start (Jan. 6, 7)
- ACE Clinic with Griz Caudle (Jan 7, 8)
Tips of the week:
Mac’s for Skiing:
To get the whole body involved allow the inside (the arc) half of your “blob”
(body mass) lead through the arc of the turn. Do not let it stop moving, or as you
feel it stopping move into the new direction. Use a continuous pole swing to
enhance this, by swinging basket between the 9-10 o’clock and 2-3 o’clock
position.
Anthony’s for Snowboarding:
To all instructors old and new, independent footing may help you through the difficult part of our lesson when a student is ready to link turns. Midway or at some point in our beginner lesson, after a student or guest has become one with the heel side and toe side edge, the next big move is connecting the two turns. At this point I introduce and recommend for you to introduce and explain Torsional Flex and Independent Footing. For those of you who still don’t understand, Torsional Flex is the twisting of the board and Independent Footing is the use of either foot independently, for example when beginning a turn you want to start your turn with your front or lead foot this is what’s going to initiate the nose of the board to begin a turn. For me a lot of times this is the key that unlocks the linked turns that we all have within.
That’s our tip for this week. Remember ride fast, go BIG!! And safety always comes first!!!
Jill’s for Kids:
Happy Feet!! It is the latest hit movie – go see it! All kids can have happy feet when they are learning to ski and snowboard. There are some wonderful ideas for movements that we can incorporate into our kids’ lessons, and some wonderful characters we can relate to. Speaking of kids’ movies, we are planning ‘movie and popcorn’ nights after Mac’s staff meetings to help you wind down a little after your day on the slopes, and give you some new material for working with the little ones.
Joke of the Week: Why DIDN’T the skeleton cross the road?
Because he didn’t have the guts to do it…………….
Ha ha…. They can only get better from here. (this is Jill’s)
Other News:
Congratulations to Charlie Downs our newest Level 2 Alpine Certified Instructor, and to Andrew Davis for being successful at Level 2 Part 1!
Housekeeping
I want to thank you all ahead of time for keeping the Schoolhouse clean and tidy!
If we all pitch in and clean up after ourselves when we use the bathrooms (like putting the seat down, guys) and kitchen area. This will allow me not to assign cleanup duty to everyone, throughout the season.
I picked the name of our weekly newsletter to honor the men who served in the 10th Mountain Division during WWII. This division was made up of the original members of the United States ski patrols and ski schools. Many were responsible for developing the ski areas that we know now. One of these soldiers was my dad. Their weekly newspaper was called “The Blizzard”. Hope you liked this and find it informative.
THINK COLD & SNOW!!
Mac
Jill
Nancy
Bill
Anthony