Jon's Canadian Adventure

Norquay's closing weekend.

2011-04-23T16:43:00.000-07:00

This weekend will be Norquay's last of the season, marking the end of an incredible 6 months. Although I'm not leaving immediately it feels like the end as the place where I've probably spent more time than anywhere else (possibly including my house . . . okay probably not my house) shuts.

It's been an amazing last weekend so far, two blue bird days and a pretty cruisey time for me working on the lifts. Hopefully tomorrow will be much the same, and then we'll be having a few beers at the staff party afterwards.

Level 2 and the wolf.

2011-04-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

My level 2 retest went really well and, as I mentioned in my previous post, I passed it.
We also had Warren Jobbit ski with us for the morning of the second day. He was there to get some video for next year's Level 2 standards video, so, having passed, I may be in the video for next year's courses which is pretty exciting.

Today as Dave and I were walking home from Town Noel came out of his house to tell that there was a wolf hanging around at the top of our street. So, naturally, Dave ran in for his camera and we got some really good snaps, and an impromptu walk up tunnel mountain. Here is a selection of the snaps we got:

The wolf:

Dave tracking some wolf tracks:

Taking in the views:

All in all, a good, last minute trip!

I passed my CSIA Level 2 Instructor course.

2011-04-20T21:50:00.001-07:00

You heard.

This week just gets longer and longer.

2011-04-07T17:01:00.000-07:00

Today at work I sold $600 of lessons over the next 3 days, which means that this week I'll have sold $900 in total.
Obviously, that's really good, because I'll definitely have full days of work and I get commission on the lessons. However, it does mean I'm going in on Sunday, which was gonna be my day off, and then I'll be working Monday and Tuesday on the lifts so I'll have done 13 days straight of work by Wednesday. I'm gonna be tired as hell by then but my next pay cheque is going to be pretty sweet, I think.

For now, onwards and upwards with another 5 days of work!

Photos

2011-04-03T18:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos from the blue-bird day we had at Norquay today. The sky was the rich blue typical of Alberta and the sun shone all day.
Here are Tate, Coo and Phil who I went skiing up Big Chair with, Banff sitting in the valley behind them.

This is another view of the Bow valley from the run we took off big chair.

This is the view from the top of Spirit chair, with Rundle Mountain in the distance.

Lots and lots of work.

2011-04-03T17:57:00.003-07:00

After a fairly diminished pay cheque for the last pay-period I've been racking up a lot of hours this week. I've worked one shift on the lifts and one shift in the evening at tube town. I've also been working at ski school and had 10 hours of lessons last week, plus 2 today to start the new week. I was also named pro of the day, because in the last week or so I've sold about 5 more private lessons to students I've had who've really liked me and wanted more lessons with me. So, not only was it cool to be pro of the week but I'll also get commission on all those lessons which will be another nice boost to my pay cheque, plus I got a $20 tip off one my students' parents both yesterday and today.

Working with the lifties has, however, meant that I've basically got no days off this week, as ski school is still busy at the moment because it's spring break, and I'm also going in a lot to take the requests I've had! So, my next day off is next Sunday (1 week from today) and today was already my fourth day in a row. So, a 10 day week for me this week!

I've been teaching some pretty funny kids and having a lot of fun over the last few days. I had two sisters, Alexis and Victoria, who were big Harry Potter fans and so I made up a couple of Potter-based games that helped them work on balancing over the down hill ski and they / we had a lot of fun with it. I also had two 3 and 3/4 year olds, Sophia and Colburn, who were also fun to teach. Sophia had some trouble turning left and at one point she ended up in the deep snow at the right hand edge. As I picked her up, turned her round and started sliding across to get her going she started laughing and clapping her hands. She obviously had more fun skiing with others than trying by herself. Still, by the end of the lesson she was turning both ways which was very cool. Colburn was pretty good throughout the lesson, apart from at one point sliding down into the top of the terrain park, which meant we had to go through it, obviously avoiding the jumps. As we were about to get going Colburn said, "Can you help me now?!", after I'd helped Sophia down to where he'd stopped, skiing backwards in front of her holding her hands. Sophia then piped up and said, "no help me!" At this point Colburn grabbed hold of my hand, "no help me!". Sophia countered by shuffling closer and grabbing hold of my leg, "help meeeeee!" I took me a minute or two to get untangled and convince them that they could both ski by themselves.

I also went out skiing with Gord yesterday and we worked on some stuff to help me get ready for my level 2 retest, and after that he told me this morning that I had been skiing at the level 2 standard which was naturally very good to hear.

Tomorrow I'm back on the lifts then I've got another 5 days in ski school.

Ahhhhhh, here goes.

Have you been avoiding me?

2011-03-27T14:53:00.000-07:00

Yup.
Sorry, Blog, for my prolonged absence. I decided to wait to update until after my level 2 course had finished, and unfortunately I didn't pass and subsequently didn't really feel like posting about it.
That being said, I did pass half of it. The course is in two parts, a teaching / assessing part and a skiing part. I passed the teaching / assessing part but no the skiing, which was really quite the bummer.

That being said, half is half and better than nothing, and I can keep that pass forever and ever, so that if I do a retest I only have to be assessed on the skiing half and not the teaching again. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do this in April. With that in mind, I've been out practicing a lot lately to try and be ready for it. I went out for a session with Fred, one of the level 3s at Norquay, and my friend Phil, who is training for his level 3, although he probably won't take it this season. Fred explained a couple of things to me that I'd been pretty confused about and we had a really good session so I feel a lot better about things after that. He also said that he thinks my fail for the skiing part must have been pretty boarderline, as he said that, judging by my skiing today, I was pretty much at standard.

In other news, I'm going to be working a couple of days a week as a liftie, probably for the rest of the season, which is good because ski school is slowing down and so this will keep my pay cheque pretty sweet and help me get through the rest of my time here.

My life is like ooh, ah, ooh, ah.

2011-03-08T16:58:00.000-08:00

Today was so good.
After a pretty lazy day off and some good football at the high school yesterday I got the 9.35 a.m. bus to Norquay. I took my snowboard boots and from about 10.00 till about 12.00 I went snowboarding. First I went over to mystic chair. I went down imp (blue) and knight flight (blue), then got the chairlift back up and did banshee (blue) and the bottom of giver grandi (blue), went up again and did the top of giver grandi (black - probably the equivalent of a difficult European red) and black magic (black) before heading back over to the lodge. I then did a few laps of the park before lunch which went really well.

After lunch we had level 2 ski-instructor training with Gord which also went really well and I got a lot of positive responses from the boss and so I'm pretty confident for my level 2, which is good considering it starts on Monday!

After that I got back on a board and hit the park for a few more laps and absolutely smashed it. It's interesting that I've taken to free style on a board way easier than on skis. I find that I'm way more confident and able to do much cooler stuff on a board than I dare to on skis. It feels a lot more natural than trying grinds and stuff on skis and I rocked it like a boss.
My trick repertoire is now:

50-50s on boxes.
50-50s on rails.
Back-side board slide on boxes.
50-50 to backside board-slide on boxes.
Straight air small jumps.
Indie-grab small jumps.

I was talking to Matt A, the senior snowboard instructor at Norquay (also a mate) and he said that I should have no problem with level 1, and I'm feeling increasingly confident for my skiing level 2.

OH YEAH!

Your 8 weeks are up.

2011-03-07T11:15:00.000-08:00

This weekend marked the last installment of the weekend 8-week programs.
It's been really good working with the same groups on Saturdays and Sundays for the last month and a bit and I definitely felt like I'd gotten to know the kids in my Saturday group really well. They were all very sweet and said they'd miss me and didn't want the programs to end and gave me lots of hugs. Jenny's Dad, Dan, who was also one of the chaperons for the school, said I'd done a really great job and they'd all had a brilliant time, and he bought me lunch which was really cool. Other than that, however, I got no tips, which I wasn't too bothered about until I heard that a couple of the guys got about $150 in tips between their different kids. Just the luck of the draw, I suppose.

My Sunday group were less sentimental, all of them saying they wouldn't miss me apart from Anna-Maria, who said she would, even in the face of the others saying they didn't care. Typical, fickle 5 year olds, right?
Nonetheless, their parents all seemed very pleased and told me they'd had a really good and that I'd done a good job. Hugo's Dad said that, despite seeming like he hated skiing sometimes, Hugo had in fact really liked me and enjoyed himself. Still, no tips. Such as life.

Things are slowing down a lot now and so there are a lot less shifts on the mountain. It might be time to start looking for a part time job on the side, which I can then carry on with once ski school closes.

85 cent day.

2011-03-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Having been drafted in yesterday, I spent today working. It was 85 cent day, which is a promotion that has been put on a few times this year as part of the celebrations of Norquay's 85th year. By the way, I learnt today that Norquay is the oldest, longest running resort of North America! Pretty cool. We were also offering $85 2 hour private lessons (for 2 people: add a 3rd for $30), of which I had 2 as part of my 5 hour day, completed by a 55 minute special at 9.00 a.m.
The two hours I had in the morning were with Sharan and Kaitlin, mother and daughter, who said they wanted to build up skiing double blacks. Naturally, hearing that at the start of the lesson was awesome and so we spent the whole two hours ripping around on Mystic riding bumps and tree lines (Sharan - the Mum - didn't do the trees, but Kailtin wanted to and she did well). We finished off the lesson by going down Sun Shoots, a double black, and so they were really pleased they managed to do what they set out to, which of course made it very rewarding for me.

I then had two hours with brother and sister Bennet and Alexandra who were good fun. We skiid off Cascade (on the green runs) and built up to a bit of parallel skiing, and at the end of the lesson their Dad gave me a $20 which was, of course, an excellent end to the day.

I then did a couple of laps of the terrain park with Will, my sort-of-housemate (he used to be in our flat but now is downstairs). He absolutely nailed a 540 off one of the medium jumps which was wicked to see, although it did cast something of a shadow over me nearly landing a 180. I landed it fine, but I only managed about 160 degrees of spin.

All in all, another great day at the office.

Back in the country.

2011-03-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

We had another quiet day in terms of lessons on the hill today.
Max, Alex, Daniel and I were sent to help ski patrol remove and roll up some B-netting (the netting they put up along the edges of runs when races happen). It was kind of annoying, pretty cold and tough at times but we made the best of it and had some fun, especially considering the huge amounts of snow just off the side of the run that we went jumping into.

The day ended in amazing fashion, though. We got permission from ski patrol to go outside the ski boundary and we hiked over to a place called the South Bowl. Needless to say, in was incredible. Only 2 people had been there before us all year and that was ski patrol. The powder was incredible, it was about waist deep and, because it's outside the boundary, there was no snow pack underneath meaning it was just deep, deep soft snow. We stuck to the edges, near the trees, to avoid setting off avalanches but nonetheless it was incredible.

It was a little sketchy at times, when we were on our way down through the trees to the ski-out and it got pretty skinny. Despite that, and a bit at the start where we ended up doing a lot of hiking and weren't quite sure where we were going, it was awesome and, if I get the chance, I'd definitely do it again.

So, my first endeavor into some back country skiing was a veritable success.

Just another day at the office.

2011-03-01T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today we had a lovely, spring-feeling - 29 on the hill, which meant that, much like yesterday, a lot of those who had booked lessons didn't show up, so I got to ride all day.
My best runs of the day were 3 laps of Big Chair that I did at the end of the day. As we pulled up to the chair we heard that Gun Run, a double black, had just been opened, and so Alex, Yannick, Kelly, Iona and I all jumped on, with a few of us keen to hit the newly available powder. As we got to the top of the lift I saw a bunch of snowboarded lining up to go down Gun Run, and so instead of waiting for the others and giving the boarders a chance to tack out all the snow I just zoomed straight off and down Gun Run, where I got an awesome line through fresh snow.

As I arrived back at the top of Cascade chair and was about to head back to Big Chair, I heard Gord (Ski school director, my boss) call me as he was just getting off the chair,
"Where're you going Jon?"
"Big Chair."
"Awesome, come with me!"

Gord Then took me to a run off the North American Basin where no one else had been and he and I swept through making the first tracks of the day, despite it being about 2 p.m. We did two laps, and so I basically got half an hour of private tuition from my boss which was awesome.

It's a hard job, but someone's got to do it.

The snow report says we've had 2 cm. . . yeah, we've had more than that.

2011-02-28T14:54:00.000-08:00

Today was one my best days at work ever.
At the morning meeting I was told that I had an all day discovery lesson (for absolute beginners) and so by 9.05 I was on the slopes and I made the day's first tracks down a couple of the black / double black diamond runs off Mystic chairlift.
Upon my return to the lodge for my lesson, I was told that in fact it had been recorded wrong and the lesson had been booked for March 28th, not February 28th. So, I spent the whole day going out and skiing in between hourly check ins, none of which yielded any lessons. There were very few punters on the hill because it was pretty cold (low of - 23) and snowing all day, plus it was a Monday, so I was constantly finding more fresh powder: I don't know what the official figure was but in places the snow was knee deep.
My top 2 runs of the day were:
1. A run down through the trees between two runs off Mystic chair which was awesome.
2. Going down the shoulder at the edge of Rob's Run (a black diamond - the equivalent of a European red) where the combination of the actual depth of the snow, the steepness of the pitch and my hard-charging meant that the snow was effectively waist deep as I went down, which was amazing.

After signing out at 1.00 Yannick, Yannick (two German guys in ski school) went out snowboarding. We went over to mystic and I made it down my first black diamond run on a board without having any real falls . . . that is to say, I fell once, but it was just as I starting going and it was because the front of the board went from sliding to dead stop under all the snow.

All in all, it's pretty incredible that I get paid for days like today.

Tonight I'll go play football (proper football mind, the English kind) at the high school and then back to work tomorrow for, hopefully, some more shredding!

Sunday always comes too late.

2011-02-27T17:24:00.000-08:00

My lessons today went, on the whole very well. I had a bit of a hiccup with me A.M. minit mites, whereby after 2 runs Sophia, who it turned out only wanted to have a little snack, went from laughing as she skiid down and having a great time to sitting down on the slope, bawling her eyes out and asking for her momma, which is obviously the method of communication she thought most appropriate, rather than, "can I have a snack?" Other than that, the mini mites did a great job as usual and we got some good skiing in.

I then had a 2 hour private with a 6 year old called Emily, who was a good skier and who did really well, but who was very quiet, so the 7 minute chair lift rides got a little awkward. Excluding this, and to be honest I think I did quite well at keeping conversation going, the lesson was really good and she said she enjoyed it so our lesson next Sunday afternoon should be similarly successful.

I'm working for the next three days as well, but I don't think a few beers this evening could hurt.

Saturday, wait

2011-02-26T16:03:00.000-08:00

The penultimate week of my Saturday program went really, really well.
None of the boys turned up which was a shame, but Emma, Rachel, Jenny and I did some really good skiing. They love going over little bumps and jumps and going down all the little tracks through the trees dotted around so we had some fun with that. In afternoon we got over to Spirit and Mystic chairs and went down some nice blue runs which was a really big achievement for a group who hadn't been able to stop on the magic carpet when I started with them.

Next week there's going to be a bit of a party with some music and stuff for the end of the programs which should be a lot of fun. On the other hand, it seems I'm going to have to write some report cards for the kids which might be a bit of a drag, then again Jenny's dad said he'd give her some money to buy me lunch next week to say thank you which is really nice, and who knows, I might get some tips off the other parents.

Tomorrow, another week of my Sunday morning mini-mites.

Friday, I'm in love.

2011-02-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

Today was the fairly lazy day I predicted. I was exceptionally successful in buying a new ski coat which is awesome, it's a yellow and black north face coat which came with a reversible liner jacket and together they're really warm. It cost me $220 in all, which was after 30% (also known as $90) had been taken off in the sale.

I also went up Sulphur Mountain with Dave, my housemate, and his cousin, Sebastian Monster (yes that's really his name) who's visiting at the moment. The views were breath taking and they got some spectacular pictures, which you can expect see some of soon.

Onwards to the weekends and the next installment of my 8 week programs.

Thursday doesn't even start.

2011-02-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

Today I went on another awesome road trip with Jeremy and Jon Kress from ski school. The three of us went to Castle Mountain, another BC ski resort where we get unlimited free reciprocal lift passes.

The day was almost a write off because it was absurdly cold. As we waited for our lift passes to be printed we heard ski patrol come over the radio saying it was - 45 with the wind chill, and a liftie told us that at the start of the day it had been - 60 at the top of "red chair", which goes up to all the best, steepest terrain, and which remained shut all day.

Nonetheless, we made the best of it and still did some pretty hard charging and got a lot of good runs through the shoots, over jumps and cliffs.

Tomorrow I'm going to be having a pretty chilled out day off, not least because it's going to be around - 25 / - 30 again.

Wednesday break my heart.

2011-02-24T19:43:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was pretty awesome, we'd had some snowfall which made for good conditions and I got 4 hour of lessons plus I set up the magic carpet which gets me another hour's pay.

My 4 hours were with 2 British Children, Erin and Finlay, from The Wirral, who were a treat. Finlay made me laugh when he responded to the offer of hot chocolate with, "I'd rather have a cup of tea. I do love a cup of tea" in a little 6 year old northern accent.

They both seemed to have a good time and they definitely improved so it was a very successful day.

I also got a great run down Lone Pine, off Big Chair, after my lessons. The snow was great up there which made for a great run down despite my legs being pretty tired after the 4 hours of teaching.

Tuesday,

2011-02-22T15:35:00.000-08:00

Today I only had 2 hours of lessons but I had a really good session with Dale, Georgia and Keely. We skiid the Sun Shoots, a double black run off Mystic Chair and then we went up Big Chair and came down some more steep terrain off there.

This week I've felt like my skiing has been really good and really technical. A lot of the time I'm guilty of sacrificing good technique for speed but lately I've been slowing down and thinking about skiing properly which has yielded some good results.

Hopefully I'll making a trip to Panorama, another ski resort around 2 hours away, with Jeremy on Thursday, so if that happens it should be really good. For now, I'm going to see Gnomio and Juliet tonight, which I'm sure will . . . pass the time, and then back onto the mountain on Wednesday and another week with Meadow and Wyatt.

Monday you can fall apart.

2011-02-21T18:22:00.000-08:00

Today I had a very busy day on the hill. It was family say so naturally a lot of people were up for their holiday and there were a lot of lessons going out. In the end, I had 6 hours of teaching, and as it's a national holiday I get 1.5 X pay, so it'll be a nice little boost to my next pay cheque.

Most of my lessons went really well, with the exception of one. I had a 2 hour private with some Russians, 3 adults and a 2 year old, to be precise. When told that we don't give lessons to 2 year olds, they said he was 3, then they said he was 4. Nonetheless, he couldn't speak English and he didn't seem to like me. Another relative was also there, not on skis, trying to help him. At one point, she was trying to pass him over to me to ski down the small hill with and he was refusing to come with me, so he just fell over and started crying. I tried to pick him up but he wouldn't let me help him and continued to cry. The other relative there walked down and I thought she was going to help him up and talk him round, but instead she produced a camera and took a picture of the bawling child. After 20 minutes the mum and child dropped out of the lesson having realised that it was pretty much impossible for me to teach him. I then carried on with the two guys but the kid's Dad also dropped out after about an hour had gone by and I only carried on with the last bloke for around 20 more minutes, so the lesson finished 45 minutes early.

All in all it was a really good day though, I even got a great run down Big Chair in.

Family Day Weekend.

2011-02-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

This weekend the programs I normally teach were on a hiatus for Family Day, which is tomorrow. Basically, this is a national holiday brought in by a conservative government a few years back, which they had also used as the hook with which they caught the voters.

I still worked 3 hours each day though: on Saturday I had one hour with a little girl who could pretty much ski the whole mountain which was very cool and then a 2 hour special with a family from San Francisco who were also good fun; today I had 1 hour with twin 4 year old boys, Adam and Marcus, who were a lot of fun, although they thought that going in a straight line really fast was a much better idea than learning how to snow plow, and so as I skiid down backwards in front of them they continually tried to get underneath my legs and out the other side to freedom.

There was a Dog Sledding company on the mountain this weekend with a tent and two dogs who were the coolest dogs I've ever seen. They looked very proud and were super friendly and I quite wanted to steal one. Alas, I have no pictures.

I'm now going to be working the next three days as well, then I'm off Thursday and Friday.

Road Trip

2011-02-19T17:06:00.000-08:00

Our road trip to Kicking Horse and Revelstoke was incredible.
The trip kicked off at 8.00 a.m. in Banff after we picked up the car and go onto the road. It took us 2 hours to get to Golden, where Kicking Horse and we were on the Gondola by 10.40 having gotten our free lift passes and Kat having gotten some rental poles because she forgot hers.
We then proceeded to have an amazing day shredding powder, hitting vertical drops and jumping cliffs. Here's a little video:

At the end of the day we went to Revelstoke, which took us about another 2 hours on the road. We then found a place called the Powder Springs Inn where we got a room for $109, plus $10 for an extra person, and we got free breakfast and 10% off our food bill at the attached bar, so in the end we paid $67 each for dinner, the room and breakfast, which we were pretty happy with.

We then headed up to the mountain for another awesome day's skiing at Revelstoke. We got going with some great runs through the glades there where there was still some super nice powder. However, after doing a pretty awesome, though difficult double black run under the Gondola I was suffering from some pretty bad shin bash, so I decided to take the afternoon off and I had a little sleep in the car while Phil and Kat continued to tear it up on the hill.

The drive back was pretty interesting. The first two hours, from Revelstoke to Golden went smoothly and we made good time. After our break there though we ended up in and out of snow storms with huge trucks ripping past us, so visibility was really poor and we only did about 60 kilometres an hour for a lot of the time. In the end the journey home took a total of 5 hours so it was the longest journey I've ever done, the first journey I've ever done out of England and the first I've ever done in those conditions! So, all in all it made for some pretty interesting driving.

Nonetheless, although pretty hairy at times it was definitely worth it for the amazing skiing, and I'd do it again for sure.

Something I forgot.

2011-02-14T21:09:00.000-08:00

There's a Canadian married couple called Don and Donna who work at Norquay at the weekends who passed something on to me they heard at a dinner party or function of some sort.

They were talking to the mother of Sophia, who's one of the kids in my Sunday A.M group, and she said that she was really impressed that I'd managed to win Sophia round, as she had said previously that she wanted to have a girl instructor, but has told her mum since that she likes me and likes being in my group.

The good feedback is rolling in!

Monday, Monday.

2011-02-14T16:06:00.000-08:00

Today I had a wicked day teaching. I had a 2 hour discovery lesson with a married couple which was good fun, although the wife suffered from some confidence issues which, at one point, resulted in her crashing into me and taking me out, which was, naturally, loads of fun.
In the afternoon I was expecting to have one of our valentines day specials, but in the end I was with two adult guys, as their wives had decided they would be better of together considering the difference in ability, so we skiid all over Spirit and Mystic chairs, did a couple of black runs and worked on their technique in carving turns and over bumps. We had a lot of fun and they gave me a $20 tip at the end which was pretty cool!

Tonight I'm going to go play football at the local secondary school again which should be cool, then probably have a bit of a night out before my day of tomorrow. I plan on going boarding again tomorrow and we'll sort out our car and our reciprocals and then it's plain sailing to our road trip on Wednesday! Woop!

Weekend Repeats.

2011-02-13T17:40:00.000-08:00

My weekend programs all went very smoothly this week, despite there being relentless snow all day on Saturday. The 3 brothers in my Saturday group, Chase, Trae and Jet weren't there this week, so our group was reduced to 4, which was fine and we got some good skiing done. Today my Sunday group had gotten an extra member, Gabi, which was fine, she was at pretty much the exact same ability level as the others and so we carried on trying to get to grips with parallel turns.

As I said, it snowed all day on Saturday, so today there was some really nice snow, so we got to do some great shredding first thing in the morning and in the afternoon (after I was done with lessons) and I hit some nice tree runs and plenty of snow.

Phil, Dave and I have planned ourselves what promises to be a sweet road trip for this week. We'll be leaving Banff (if everything's cool with the car rental) at about 6.00 a.m. to get to Kickinghorse by about 8.00, sort out our ski passes and ski all day there. At the end of the day we'll drive to Revelstoke, spend the night in a Youth Hostel and then ski there all day on Thursday, then drive back home, getting back to Banff at about 9.00 or 10.00 or so. It should be an excellent trip as both those resorts have some great snow at the moment as well as some nice, steep terrain.

Catch up.

2011-02-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

Things since last Wednesday have carried on much the same. My 8 week programs have continued to go well as I begin to introduce some parallel skiing to the kids. I had a couple of days on the hill with no lessons, which basically means I get paid about $30 to ski, which I really can't complain about.
I've been spending some time in the terrain park recently learning some tricks. So far, on skis, I can ride boxes (sideways) pretty well and I'm building up to 180s of jumps. On a board I can 50-50 on boxes but that's about it, though I'm pretty happy with that considering my limited experience on a board.

We few of us are planning on going up to the free ice rink at the Banff Springs Hotel and playing some "shinny", which is what Canadians call the ice-hockey equivalent of having a kick about, so that should be good fun.

Phil and I are also trying to get a group together to make a little road trip to the Marmot Basin in Jasper to ski there for a day, so we've been looking up car rentals, although that'll probably be our main / only expense because we've got vouchers for a free night at the youth hostel there and we get 1 free day skiing there as one of the reciprocal deals that come from working at Norquay.

So, plenty of plans being made for exciting times ahead. For now, onwards towards the weekend and another round of programs.

Wednesday.

2011-02-02T21:17:00.000-08:00

Today I had a(nother) good day on the hill.

In the morning I had no lessons, so I went riding with Matt Berry for a bit, and then I went up Big Chair. I timed myself, and I managed a lap in 12 minutes and 19 seconds, which includes a 7 minute chair ride and a double-black diamond run. I did this because I'm beginning to get ready for the challenge that you can do at Norquay where you have to do 27 laps of Big Chair in a day. You don't get much if you do it, just a little Gold pin and some pride, but it would be cool to say I've done it so I think I wanna give it a go.

In the afternoon today I had the 3rd week of my 8 week private and it went really well. On Wednesdays I have Wyatt (who has been really difficult in the past, frequently sitting down in the middle of the piste saying, "I give up, I can't do it") and Meadow (who has been a dream and an excellent skier). This week things finally turned round with Wyatt, who suddenly seemed interested in skiing and, thank the lord, finally managed to turn both in both directions, which he hadn't been able to do before, after many drawings in the snow and a lot of watching meadow and pointing out his straight tracks. While he mastered steering, I had Meadow try some parallel, getting her to do turns in snow plow but ski parallel during the traverse, which she got on with very well.

Needless to say, I had a lot of snowballs thrown at me today.

Weekend Programming

2011-01-30T17:48:00.000-08:00

The last two days I had my weekend programs, which both went very well.

My kids on Saturday were a little excitable, but they came round and we did some good skiing. At one point they were accusing me of having killed all the bears, as well as having sunk The Titanic, two feats I can only dream of having the power to actually perform. This then led to a pretend phone call to the police, informing them of my sins and asking that they come to arrest me "at Banff, at a mountain", which did rather make me chuckle. Saturday night was a pretty quiet one before I went back up the mountain today.

My Sunday Mini-mites group was depleted by 1, as Hugo didn't turn up, apparently because he was sick. The four of us (Anna-Maria, Janelle, Sophia and I) soldiered on through the - 16 temperatures and did about 4 good runs in our 2 hours, which I was pretty satisfied with. I would have liked to have gotten on to doing some parallel ("french-fry") turns, but it was not to be.

After this and after some lunch I went for a Level 2 training / steep terrain session which was good, I always feel like my skiing gets better after these. A nice moment for me was when I was on Big Chair (the 2-man that goes up to all the steepest expert runs) with Yusaku (who had been teaching us) and he said, "so, you're pretty good at skiing bumps and powder, I see" which was awesome.

I then went up with a bunch of the other instructors and had a run at the Acrobag: basically a huge, cuboid bouncy castle with a huge jump in front of it. These are mainly used for pros to practice huge tricks on, but we all just went and hit it for the big air and soft landing, which was really fun (videos to follow).

Finally, I had this email forwarded to me by Gord:

To whom it may concern.

I am writing to express my thanks to four members of your staff.
Myself, my husband and our three boys visited your resort on Friday
21st, Mon 24th, Tues 25th, Wed 26th and Thur 27th January of this
year. Matthew had lessons with Daniel from High Wycombe, Iain and Kai
had lessons with Sam from Australia and myself and Joe had lessons
with Jon from Cambridge. They, alongside Gretchen on the front desk
did everything possible to make our lessons go as smoothly as
possible.They went out of their way to accommodate us and make sure we
had an amazing time!

I have to congratulate you on hiring such good team members and them
for taking their jobs seriously and not just treating us as something
they had to do to pass the time! We have all left your ski resort with
some excellent memories (and lots of funny stories for the staff
concerned to tell their friends later on after the resort has closed!)

Can you please pass this email on to the four people concerned to show
them that their time and patience was very much appreciated! (Poor Jon
certainly earnt his money teaching me to ski and was very patient- I
would have lost my temper with somebody like me on day one and refused
to teach them anymore!)

We are all home now (after a very long flight) but the skiing and
snowboarding is all the boys could talk about on the way home and that
is what they have spoken to other people about! We will definately be
coming to Canada again next year and visiting your resort.

Thank you again and well done to you all.

Kind regards

Tracey Lewis (And Iain, Matthew, Kai and Joe)

Having that passed on was really cool, and Gord also mentioned it at roll-call this morning to everyone who gave the four of us a nice little round of applause; good stuff all round.

It's difficult to believe that it's already the end of January, which means that thing will be picking in terms of how busy we are, and I'm scheduled for 5 days next week, with tomorrow and Thursday off.

So, for now, in case I don't see you, good afternoon, good evening and good night.

Finally, a day off.

2011-01-28T11:16:00.000-08:00

So, I thought yesterday (Thursday) was going to be my first of two days off, but at the last minute Chappy recruited me to cover his shift while he does the pre-course for his Level 3 qualification. It was, however, a good day in the end, as I had 3 one-hour private lessons, all of which were requests. The first two were with Joe, a 3 year old from Oxford whose family is on holiday here who I taught every day this week and had who a really fun 4 lessons with, Tracey, Joe's Mum, who I taught twice and who was also a good student as well as being very friendly and a good laugh and Conrad, a Canadian 3 year old who I taught on Monday when I was covering Mary's lessons. So, I got 10% commission on all those lessons, having sold them by being so awesome, getting me 10% of $356.00 in all which will make a nice addition to my next pay cheque! It also means that I'm only $646.00 worth of lessons away from getting 15% commission on all the lessons I teach, which I don't think will take too long because I'm fairly sure that Conrad will be coming back for more lessons in the future, making me a happy, busy and well paid bunny!

Tracey and I also had a bit of a laugh during Joe's lesson as, while Joe and I did laps of the magic carpet / bunny hill (the slope for kids / beginners) there was also a group of kids that included children called "Jaden" and "Maveric". This prompted Tracey to ask me, "Where are Goose and Ice Man?!"

Wednesday night was the card board sled race and The British Bullet performed admirably. Here are some pictures just after we had finished it:

I think we did a pretty good job using only a LOT of cardboard, about 200 metres of duct-tape and one bin-bag!

Having clambered into our sled amidst palpable apprehension, our first race went off in dramatic style. After a slow start we witnessed two sleds collide in front of us, spilling their pilots across the track, and gained speed downhill thanks to the slickness provided by the bin-bag stretched across our undercarriage. The weight distribution was such that our sled span a full 360 degrees, during which we made contact with some of the crashed sleds' floundering crews. We emerged from the spin to find ourselves in second place behind a sled full of Aussies and thought to ourselves, "well, second place is good, and it is Australia day so we'll let them have this one." However, The British Bullet had other ideas and mustered all its patriotic gusto to sail past the green and gold for a spectacular victory.

Noel Martin, our Landlord, was there with his family (his children had also entered a sled in the design of a submarine) and he caught our race on video for posterity, so I'll keep bugging him about it and hopefully you'll see it on here in no time.

Today I expect I will be doing very little other than making a trip to the bank to cash in my pay before heading back up to the mountain for my programs this weekend.

It's a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy life.

2011-01-25T16:34:00.000-08:00

Well folks, it's been a week since my last post, and what a crazy week it's been!
I worked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, today (Tuesday, naturally) and I'm working again tomorrow, having volunteered to cover both Debbie and Mary's shifts after they managed to injure themselves falling down some stairs and playing football (proper football, mind, English football), respectively. So, I've been slamming in the hours at work and having a great time doing it. I had two runaway children who I found myself skiing down and diving underneath to stop them before the careered off into anyone or anything else that might have been in their path. Other than that all my lessons went very smoothly except my Sunday A.M. program, from which Quinn dropped out due to her recently discovered fear of the chairlift, so my Sunday group is now down to 4, which is a shame because Quinn, (of, "my toes hurrrt" fame) was a cute kid who often came out with some pretty funny stuff.
On Monday, the day I was covering Mary, I had a 1 hour private lesson with a 3 year old from England called Joe. He and his mother (who stayed with us for the lesson) liked me so much that she went and bought 3 more lessons with me this week for a total just short of $300, on which I got 10% commission which will be a nice little bonus in my next pay cheque! I taught Joe again today and, upon discovery of his love of Indiana Jones, we went down the bunny hill singing the theme tune to ourselves, which, I must say, made the process of him learning to snowplow infinitely more dramatic.

Monday night was also the staff party at Tube Town which was a lot of fun, and tomorrow night is the Norquay Cardboard Sled derby, in which my fellow instructors Nathan, Phil, Tom and I are entering. The rules are that sleds may only be constructed using cardboard, tape, string and bin bags, and we have constructed quite the behemoth (pictures to follow.) We've named our team "the British Bullet", us all being Brits and our sled being shaped a little like a bullet and we hope for great success tomorrow night in the race! Tomorrow is also Australia day which we will undoubtedly be celebrating in style, considering the number of Aussies that work up at Norquay, and with Thursday off work it promises to be a big night!

Thursday and Friday will be 2 very welcome days off after 6 consecutive days of work before going back up the mountain for my Saturday program with Team Awesome!

Sunday, Monday, happy days.

2011-01-17T17:27:00.000-08:00

My Sunday program went pretty well, albeit despite a hiccup whereby one of the kids refused to go on the chairlift. We'd all been up it last week and I also know she's been up all the lifts before with her Dad Andre, who's the head-honcho up at Norquay. This made it pretty confusing as to why she wouldn't go up, be she insisted she was to scared and wouldn't go on. So, seeing as the rule is that you always go at the pace of the slowest skier, we stayed on the magic carpet for our 2 hours.
However, this then led to two of the other parents getting concerned that their kids were in the wrong group and asking me if they should be moved up. I did my best to reassure them and suggested I go out again with their kids to see if they should be moved up, but they didn't want to pay for another lesson. They then went to Kathryn, the assistant ski school director, who then came to me so I had to explain it to her and then go to speak to the concerned parents again to explain that their kids were in the right group, we'd just had this problem with one of them being scared.
Kathryn helped me out a lot by saying she'd talk to Andre and explain to him about Quinn and ask whether it would be okay if, were she to refuse to come on again next week, she stayed inside while we went on the chairlift.

Hopefully Quinn will have come round next week, but if not I think this might have to be what we do because I understand that the other parents want to feel like they're getting their money's worth for the lessons.

Other than that, it was a good day, although the kids didn't make too many more contributions to the lift of hilarious things they've said, just the one:
Anna Maria: "Look at my valentine's necklace!"
Me: "That's a pretty necklace, did a boy give it to you?"
Anna Maria: "NO! I'm not getting married!"

That did make me chuckle.

Today was also a good day: I slept in late but once I was up I went and hitchhiked up to Norquay (it's very common for people to hitch up to the ski hills here) and, seeing as my skis were being waxed / serviced I rented a board and boots and went for a ride. I got myself on the spirit (the chair to the intermediate blue runs) and did a few laps of those which was good fun. I can Ollie pretty well now and ride switch a little, but that'll take some more practice. I think it would be cool if I could get to be ambidextrous on the hill by the end of the season.

I've now got two days of work coming up, having said I'd fill in for Chappy, which also means that I'll get an extra day of work this week which is pretty handy.

So, probably a pretty chilled out evening ahead of me.

Saturday Program

2011-01-15T16:03:00.000-08:00

The program today went well, the 6 level 2 kids did a really good job and we did a good few runs down the green run. I was really pleased with them, especially after they spent the first run or so falling down an awful lot, which made me wonder if I'd hit the chairlift too soon, but it all worked out and by the end of the day they were doing really well.

At one point on of the kids, called Chase, managed to pop one of skis off while on the chairlift (right at the bottom just as it took off out of the station), and so I ended up giving him a piggyback / fireman's lift down on that run, so that the others would end up having to wait for him for ages. So, that was fun.

Back on my A.M. program tomorrow which should be good too, another evening chilling out tonight, I think.

Good day instructing.

2011-01-14T17:48:00.000-08:00

I had really good day instructing today. I had a "disco" lesson, which is a "discovery" lesson, which is where you get absolute beginners, take them through the rental shop and then spend all day with them.
I was teaching Rachel, from Liverpool and her friend Megan from California (under the watchful eye of their boyfriends, who seemed to check up on their progress fairly regularly.
We had a good day and they made a lot of progress so it was also pretty successful.

It was snowing it's ass off all day today though, as it has been for the last 2 or 3 days, and the snow up there was incredible, so I was a little jealous of those able to go all over the mountain making new tracks while I was stuck on the magic carpet. That said, I'm sure there'll still be plenty of snow left for when I'm able to hit the slopes in my own time, come Monday or maybe Sunday afternoon, and I'll have my fatter skis then so it should be awesome.

I've got my two programs tomorrow and Sunday, so I'm looking forward to that too.

January will be pretty quiet.

2011-01-13T18:53:00.000-08:00

The last few days have been fairly uneventful, what with the mountain being dead during the week leaving with us instructor types in want of some work. It's quite frustrating and I may have to look at getting another part time job in town. If I did do that, I'd most likely look at a couple of evenings a week at one of the ski or rental shops in town. That way, it wouldn't interfere with my instructing if that picks up in the future and I can learn a bit about the equipment which would be pretty cool.

In other news, we have two new house-mates (again). Alex, Dave and I have been joined by Lee (an Australian) and Rachel (a Canadian). They seem pretty cool so far and we get on well so maybe these guys'll stick around a bit, although that's not what the trend would suggest.

Back to work tomorrow and I'm really looking forward to it, I think it's the most excited I've been about having to get up at 6.30 a.m. for a long time. I really, really enjoy instructing and it's making me want to come back next year and do this again more and more. It's just a shame there's no one to teach during the week; I'd be up there every day if I could. This is also making me more sure about pursuing teaching as my ultimate career.

Tomorrow I think I'll just get what I get, but Saturday and Sunday I'll be working with the same groups as last weekend which will be good. I'm particularly loooking forward to what Quinn and Hugo might come out with this week, as they were pretty funny / cute last time round. Quinn sounded qutie a lot like this Zak Galifianikis Character: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLD6m7u0qG0 except she would say "my toes hurt", not "my beard hurts."

More on that story later.

First weekend instructing.

2011-01-10T17:26:00.000-08:00

So I've just had my first weekend of lessons and it went really well.
On Friday I shadowed Chappy, one of the other instructors on Norquay for the morning, then in the afternoon he was booked to teach a group from Canmore, but the Scottish couple we'd been working with asked if I could stay with them and so that's what I did and we had a good lesson together.

On Saturday I taught the first weekend in an 8 week program. I had a group of 9 level 2 kids, where level 1 is never skid before at all, so they could stop but not turn. We stuck to the bunny hill and had a good day's teaching; it seemed to me like they made a lot of progress. It was also handy that Yannick (another instructor) took 3 of them off separately, because there was a fairly significant divide in the group in terms of ability. So with just 6 the afternoon was a bit better, plus I had 3 less people to pick up off their feet when they fell down.

On Sunday I had a group of 4 level 4 5 year olds just for the morning. Two of them were enthusiastic and fun to teach but the other two were a little difficult to convince that skiing was a good idea. One cried as her mum left and so stayed with her for a while before joining us on the magic carpet, and I had to tell one little boy that it he came skiing and did really well then he would get into The Guiness Book of World Records for being the most awesomest skier ever, after he said that he wanted to be at home looking at the pictures in it. One of the girls in the group was also the daughter of Andre, the boss up at Norquay, so hopefully she'll tell him that I'm awesome and he'll give me loads of money!

At the end of the day, 11 of us got recruited to clear the lodge's upper balcony of snow, which turned out to be a pretty enormous task, and after 2 hours we'd only managed half of it with our pick-axes and shovels, despite being fueled by free beer, so that was loads of fun(!)

I also taught myself to snowboard on Friday at the Norquay night skiing which was a lot of fun, and then a whole bunch of us went tubing, where you go sliding down a track in a rubber ring, which is also a pretty good laugh. So I'm on the way to becoming ambidextrous on the slopes, although for now I'll be sticking to the green and easy blue runs.

Unfortunately January is looking pretty slow and at the moment I'm only getting work on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I'm going to have to work on selling some lessons (somehow) in order to try and get some more hours in so that I can get some cash coming in.

We're planning to take a trip to kicking horse this Wednesday, or maybe Wednesday of next week, which should be cool because apparently they've got tonnes of snow at the moment.

After having a pretty chesty cough and spending 3 days on the slope shouting out to students I've lost my voice, so for now I'm just taking it easy trying to feel a bit less groggy.

Qualified by 2011

2010-12-31T17:49:00.001-08:00

On the bus this morning that sun was rising over the rockies, making for a picturesque view for the duration of my journey to Nakiska for the last day of my course.
It was a mild -29 with wild chill in the morning, but by the afternoon it had warmed up to a pleasant - 7.
The course went very well and I had a great time skiing with the other guys taking part who were a really cool group. I am now a Certified Level 1 Ski Instructor and look forward to getting up to Norquay, into an Orange Jacket and on with teaching people to ski. Finally I'm ready to do what I came here for, and just in time for 2011.

Speaking of which, our plan is to ring in the new year at a house party round the corner which should be good.

On the subject of resolutions, I think my first will naturally be to not get any more stupid injuries that hold me back from what I want and ought to be doing. That's all I've got for now but maybe I'll come with something more profound at a later date.

Happy New Year to you all, I hope 2011 brings surprises, challenges and treats in abundance, and look forward to seeing everyone upon my return at the end of May.

Boxing Day

2010-12-26T16:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was, naturally, Christmas, and I had an awesome day. I got up in the morning to skype my family back home which was really nice, I opened my presents while on webcam with them and had a long talk which was the ideal start to Christmas day.

I then went skiing for most of the day while Dave and Owen cooked up an excellent Christmas dinner for nine of us and we had a brilliant evening playing games and chowing down on all the tasty food.

Today I went up to Norquay on the 8.25 bus and after going out with the other instructors for the morning session I spent the day teaching (slightly illegitimately). I was supposed to be shadowing Jack, one of the other instructors on "Discovery", which is what they call it when people are absolute beginners. The group had 7 people in it and although 5 of them picked things up pretty quickly two of them struggled, so I spent the day with those two and by the end of the lesson they'd made it onto the magic carpet. So Jack very kindly spoke to Kathryn, the assistant director of the ski school, and they agreed me to pay a full day at instructor's wages.

So, I got a good day's teaching experience in, which was really good with my course only two days away now!

I think I'll spend the day tomorrow going over the e-prep that I got sent by the ski school at Nakiska to get ready for that. I'm feeling pretty confident after today's success, plus Gord said to me something like, "I've seen your skiing and I'm sure you won't have any problem with it" which was reassuring.

The new ski gear I got for Christmas, socks and thermals, are also proving to be really good so many thanks again to my lovely family who sent them out, as well as all the other goodies I got.

So, all in all a good couple of days, roll on level 1.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

2010-12-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

I've had another great day on Norquay today, even if I did have to get up at 6.30 a.m to catch the staff bus. It was worth it though, as I went out with Gord and the other instructor's for a session first thing, and got to get an idea of how things go in the mornings and throughout the day up there.

It was a beautiful day and a balmy - 5 on the mountain which made for ideal conditions. I also went tubing (sliding down the hill in a rubber ring) with Mr. Matt Berry which was pretty good fun.

After coming down the mountain I went to the post office to find that the Christmas package from my family had arrived, so I'm feeling all the more excited for Christmas now there's a sizable stack of presents under our tree for me to open on the big day.

Yes, they're all for me, because my family is the best.

I think I'll have a day off skiing tomorrow to rest my ankle a bit, but I'll definitely go for a Christmas day ski before our house get together, which should be a real treat, considering the size of the turkey Noel and Nancy brought round.

I thought I forgot something.

2010-12-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

I forgot to put these pictures up from my day at Norquay today. The views up there were pretty spectacular.

I stopped in to see Mark when I went up his lift. . .

Mark and I were getting pretty excited when we saw the construction of the snow park going on up there:

And finally here's a little picture of me on a lift.

Skid again today.

2010-12-22T14:47:00.000-08:00

I went back up to Norquay today and did some more skiing. My ankle definitely felt better than it had on Saturday, and I hit some black runs today (which in Canada is like a moderate to difficult red in Europe) and it didn't complain too much, so I think that's a sure sign that it's on the mend.

I saw Gord when I was up there and he said I should take the staff bus up tomorrow morning to go for a session with him and some of the others so I can start getting prepped for my course. Speaking of which, when they sent me the confirmation of my reservation they also sent me some reading material and a little worksheet to get on with so that'll keep me occupied tomorrow or Friday or something.

Having gotten up at 9.00 this morning and after getting up tomorrow at about 6.00 I should be getting into a more normal sleeping pattern, rather than getting up at about 12.00 in the afternoon and going to bed really late.

Not so much ski in ski out.

2010-12-20T16:03:00.000-08:00

I had planned to go skiing today but after going out last night I ended up sleeping in and missed the 10.25 bus, which is the last one.
This brings me on to something I prefer about skiing in Europe, which the fact that a lot of places there are ski in ski out, or at least in walking distance from the lifts. This means that, even if you sleep in, you can easily just ski for an afternoon, whereas here you're restricted to the bus timetable, or hitchhiking.

Tomorrow I believe a trip to Calgary is planned with Steve and Owen, who have a car. We'll go to the mall and I think go to see Tron, so should be a good and, importantly, different day.

After the inter-house Ice Hockey Dave and I thought it would be cool to do inter-house basketball too; you can rent the basketball court at the gym for free if you're a member (we think), so that could be fun, and Nancy seemed to like the idea.

Nancy also said she's going to go ahead and book me onto the level 1 course in Nakiska, starting from the 28th, so I'm going to have to buy my pass for the 4 days, but there's a chance I may be able to get that back on insurance as it's a result of my injury, but I'll have to look through my policy.

For now, that's all, folks.

The big match.

2010-12-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

This evening, Noel and Nancy had organised for us all to go ice skating and play some ice hockey, so trooper that I am, and envigorated by my success skiing today, I strapped on my brace and got right down to it!

Needless to say, we brave soldiers of The Annex were winners of the knock out tournament, with two resounding wins, 4 - 0 Vs. Cougar / The Nest and 3 - 2 against Cedar. Admittedly, the main reason we won was the unrivalled skill of Mr. Will "wags" Wagstaffe, who played Ice Hockey for Plymouth University during his time there. However, I like to think of him as Marlon Brando in The Godfather: clearly the best individual, but with a strong supporting cast.

Some highlight for me:
In the first game I hung back a little, not wanting to get involved in the melees around the puck, but I made some (obviously invaluable) interceptions while chanting DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE!
In the second game I was much more involved and was pleased with a couple of moments of puck control on the left wing. At one point, one of their players broke through and pushed the puck in front of himself to shoot, but I heroically dived across the ice to knock the puck away from him with my stick. However, my favourite moment was when I received the puck on the left, evaded one of their attackers, brought it forward and took it past a defender to be clear on goal. I pushed the puck to my right and in front, raised my stick and brought it down with tremendous power . . . which was wasted, as I swung to the right of the puck, missing it completely, and the momentum from the swing carried me away from it, and the moment was gone. Next time. Next time.

I had a lot of fun, as did everyone, and Noel and Nancy had also laid on some Baileys-hot chocolate for us all to enjoy by the fire that Noel fuelled generously.

So many thanks to Nancy and Noel for organising the evening, and bloody good show to everyone who picked up a stick and got involved. Cracking.

Today?

2010-12-18T15:42:00.000-08:00

Today I went skiing!

I went up to Norquay to test out my ankle, and saw Mark on the bus up there so I skiid with him for a couple of hours or so.
I stuck to the greens and blues but we still got to ski quite a lot of different runs across the mountain, and it was great to finally get out there and ski.
My ankle seemed pretty much up to it, it was a little painful sometimes when turning right so that I was up on the inside edge of my left ski, and I couldn't do any really sharp turns or fast stops, but basically my ankle is shaping nicely.
So, I should be ready in plenty of time to start the level 1 instructor's course over at Nakiska on the 28th of this month, which would mean I could hopefully start teaching on Norquay in January!

It finally looks as though I'm going to be over the injury soon.

That being said, while I'm sticking to the easy runs, I thought I might take the opportunity to learn to snowboard, especially seeing as I get free rentals from Norquay as staff. That way, I won't get bored on the greens and blues at Norquay, and will be ambidextrous on the snow.

Tonight Noel and Nancy, our GYC sponsors, have organised for us all to go up to the ice rink at one of the big hotels and have a hockey match and do some tabogganing, so that should be cool.

I thought I'd treat you all to some haiku.

2010-12-18T01:21:00.000-08:00

My ankle's injured.
My impatience is mounting.
My swimming improves.

Here in Canada
Snow falls most on the mountains.
I watch it rising.

Physiothera
Py takes so long it doesn't
Fit into one line.

Therapy is slow
But with patience brings rewards,
Like the falling snow.

I hope you enjoyed them.

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

2010-12-12T18:37:00.000-08:00

We have now decorated our appartment, complete with Christmas tree:

with presents under it:

though they're not real presents, and stocking above the fireplace:

I think Dave and I did a pretty good job!

Went for a swim today and Mark and Alex happened to be up there too so we all played some poolsket ball . . .that's basketball in the pool, which was good fun.
I also swam 40 lengths, which I also did yesterday. I've been feeling some definite improvement in my ankle . . . I think, so hopefull on track for skiing by christmas!

Up, up and away!

Yay for insurance.

2010-12-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

My insurance claim has come through and Dad's been able to pay the cheque into my bank account, so that's all turned out jolly nicely. Hurray for insurance!

I swam a mile again today, which again I'm pretty pleased with. I can say with some confidence now that my ankle is getting better, so hopefully the estimate of being able to ski by Christmas should hold out, fingers crossed.

Nothing much else to report just now, my life pretty much consists of swimming and physiotherapy at the moment.

Out.

Swimswimswim

2010-12-06T22:10:00.000-08:00

Went for a swim today, I swam a mile which I'm pretty pleased with. I dunno if I'll do that much every day but I definitely think the swimming is helping my ankle along. To be fair I took I wasn't exactly swimming particularly fast and took my time over. Still, a mile is a mile . . . right?

I think tomorrow I'm going to get a Canadian phone, finally. I'd been putting it off until I started work but it's getting frustrating now so I'm just going to bite the bullet and do it.

Dave, Alex, Steve and I went for a burger tonight at Eddie Burger, which was pretty good. It was the first burger I'd had since I got here, which seems like an awfully long time to go out here without having a burger. Now all is right in the world.

The claw . . .

That's one good cup of tea.

2010-12-05T13:34:00.000-08:00

Well this is third day that I've been doing physio on my ankle, it's difficult to say whether there's been much improvement so far but I think it's getting better. I'm going to get a month's membership at the gym and go swimming up there a few times a week as they said that would help things along.

Miguel has now moved out and our new flatmate Dave has moved in. He's from Switzerland, though he went to university at St Andrews in Scotland. It's not quite the same without Miguel around but Dave seems like a nice guy and I'm sure he'll settle in just fine.

I finally got round to buying some Tea, so I'm feeling pretty British right now, sipping on a cuppa.

There's a snake in my boot.

Physio

2010-12-02T16:50:00.000-08:00

Today I went to physio, which was pretty good. I got an exercise program which I'm supposed to do three times a day, and every three days I'm supposed to knead and prod my ankle where the scar tissue is and then ice it.
They also told me to ditch the crutches so now I am officially walking!
She said it wasn't gonna get better for 6 weeks, which I assume includes the 2 weeks it's been already, so my date for recovery is the 23rd of December.

Google autocomplete me fails of the evening:

2010-12-01T21:50:00.000-08:00

The format shall be:
Typed:
Suggestions:

Who de
Who dey panties

Why d
Why did I get married too
Why does my mom turn me on

Why
Why Can't I hold all these limes.
Why are these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for fruit salad
Why is there a dead Pakistani on my couch.

Why can't
Why I can't I hold all these limes - listed 3 times.

Well done Canadian internet. Please leave your own in the comments section.

Someone's poisoned the waterhole!

Something to report.

2010-12-01T16:32:00.000-08:00

Hello Chaps,
Sorry I haven't been on for a while, there hasn't really been much going on. I've basically been sitting around with my foot up watching movie after movie, plus over the weekend I was ill with the flu and so was even less active.

Today I went to the Norquay orientation day. The first half was a general one about Banff with a few different people doing a speech. It was ok, interesting in parts but ultimately boring when dragged out over a 4 hour period. The first part set the tone, where my boss's boss at Norquay distributed Employee Handbooks which he then proceeded to read out to us, which was handy, because I'd been struck temporarily illiterate. I did learn something valuable, which is that a large proportion of said handbook could be reduced to, "Don't be a dick."

The second part of the day, which was the ski school orientation, was much better, I guess mostly because it all applied directly to me so I was more invested. We also did a little ice breaker, introductions thing which are always entertaining . . .

In other news, my ankle is feeling much better, I would say I can 90% walk on it now, so I'm feeling pretty good about my rate of recovery, and I think I'll give physio a call tomorrow to make an appointment.

To infinity, and beyond!

Some good news.

2010-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

My ankle is feeling better, the pain isn't very bad and the swelling is going down, and the bruising has gone a not very nice yellow colour, which is a good sign, my esteemed Uncle Rob informs me.

I spoke to Gord, my boss, and he said there should be no problem for me to get on a course later on. He said that Norquay do one every month, as do Sunshine and Lake Louise, so between them there's almost one starting every week, so basically I will be able to work and instruct, so that's good news.

He said not to rush back in to things, because he did that before and it meant that things just got worse. If I went back before my ankle's strong enough I think it would pretty much guarantee that I did it again, so I'll just have to wait it out.

As far as doing something else goes, he said that he thinks pretty much all the jobs on the mountain are filled at the moment, but that he'd speak to a couple of his colleagues up there to see if they have anything available. He also said they always need people around Christmas, so I may well be able to get something, we'll just have to see.

He also said that all the physios in town are really good, so that's reassuring.

Good news overall, just got to get better now.

Disaster Strikes

2010-11-20T14:48:00.000-08:00

On Thursday night while crossing the street in town I fell on the ice and hurt my foot. The middle of the roads are always the worst, with the cars compacting the snow into really slippery ice.
It was cold out so I was walking a little fast and as I crossed the street I slipped and fell. On Friday Aven took me to the hospital and an x-ray revealed that I tore the anterior-key ligament (I think it was) in my left ankle.
This means my foot looks like this:

They gave me a Gel brace to wear if ever I had to get around:

This has two bits that go in the freezer so when I put it on it keeps my ankle chilled. I've also got crutches so I'm able to keep pretty mobile but I'm not gonna lie, it pretty much sucks.

The doctor said that it could be as long as 6 weeks before my ankle is fully healed, but I may be able to ski within 3. I'm going to speak to Gord (my boss at the Norquay ski school) on Monday to see what he says about me starting later or something, so far all he's said is not to worry about skiing and to just get better. Nancy's kindly said she'd also see if there was some other job I might be able to do for the time being to keep me occupied and, more importantly, paid.

Today was Norquay opened, so it could have been my first day's skiing, but instead I'm on the sofa with my foot up tackling insurance claim forms. Oh joy.

Getting around on crutches is not as easy as one might think, it's pretty tough on your shoulders and my right leg, the one I can stand on, begins to ache after a while.
Another big risk is having one really muscular, toned bum cheek and one flabby weak one, so I'll have to think up some exercises to avoid lop-sided hotness . . . just kidding. Seriously though, it is especially frustrating because I felt that I was building up a really good level of fitness at boxing and now that will be pretty much totally undone.

Let's just hope I can make a speedy recovery. The doctor gave me the address for a physiotherapist and which he said would speed my recovery (I guess it ought to seeing as that's the point of physiotherapy) so once the worst of the pain is over I'll head down there and see what it's like in terms of cost.

For now, plenty of film and tv watching, plus I brought A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens, and there are a couple of other books here left by previous occupants, so hopefully I'll be able to keep myself occupied.

Another boxing session.

2010-11-16T20:40:00.000-08:00

Another pretty intense workout at boxing tonight. In addition to all the other stuff we normally we also did this thing where, in pairs, you throw a ball to each other, for the first 2 minute interval using only your jabbing hand and for the second only your cross hand. Doesn't sound that bad? The ball weighed 12 kilograms, so it was pretty tough.

It's definitely clear that my cardiovascular fitness is much better than my muscular endurance, and I felt the strain in my arms far more than in my ability to keep going, which I'm pleased to say I was always able to do. Apparently Tuesday is their "tough class" so I'm glad that I still felt good and the end and not defeated.

In the sparring my first two fights were with two of the women there, which was a little weird, especially having come from a club where that meant I would be defending only. My third fight, however, was with a chap called Jon-Jon, clearly quite experience and, although he was a little older and not so quick, he definitely landed a couple of punches. I was kept on my toes which is always good, and I was happy with my footwork in places, sidestepping round his guard to land a couple of cross-punches.

Also, I've gotten better at skipping.

A quiet night tonight, but tomorrow we'll probably head out to the open mic in town again so that should be cool.

Snow!

2010-11-15T23:44:00.000-08:00

It snowed tonight while I was out round at Thom's house, so after getting back I took a couple of quick pictures to capture it before it gets driven over in the morning:

Yay, snow!

Snowfall expected.

2010-11-15T14:42:00.000-08:00

We've heard there's a snowstorm expected tonight which should bring 10 to 15 centimeters of snow. Exciting stuff, especially since I should be getting my ski pass tomorrow!

Last night Miguel managed to keep his lobster hands until 12, and then for another hour which earned him a drink from me, so that was pretty funny.
Going out in Canada, though, seems to be like going out in England about 2 years ago, as I discovered when in a club full of people going "we . are . your friends. You'll . never be alone again." and "put your hands up for Detroit", which was a little bit what going out was like in first year of uni. Some things do make it only hear a little bit after they come in England, as I regretfully found out when the DJ mixed in, "PaPa Americano" and I nearly just left straight away. I thought I'd lived through that little number quite enough after hearing it every second while at work at Christ's. Matt, Martin, I thought maybe I'd have gotten away from it by putting an ocean in between, but its followed me across the Atlantic to ruin clubs out here as well . . .

Miguel loses a bet.

2010-11-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

A few of us went and played pool today at a place where it's free during the day, and during on game Miguel and I made a little wager. I won the game, and so now Miguel's fingers have been bound on each hand, and he has to stay like that until midnight tonight:

Let's see if he manages it.

Miguel Wins the bet.

2010-11-14T11:02:00.000-08:00

Aven displayed very little in endurance or staying power and undid her hand-binding before the evening was over, and so Miguel won the bet. I was very disappointed in her for this. Ah well, to the victor the spoils.

This morning, thanks to us getting a T.V. upgrade, I've been watching Football (English football, mind) on Setanta sports, which has been nice. I must say Chelsea had an embarrassing game against Sunderland, and Everton were pretty upsetting against Arsenal. The Mersey-side boys are going to have to pull themselves together to avoid dropping into the relegation zone, I think.

Signs of snow to come?

2010-11-13T17:59:00.000-08:00

With clouds gathering round the mountain tops and the river beginning to freeze, it looks as though we might finally be in for some snow. Norquay mountain opened today, having had a little snowfall and with all the snowmaking that's been going on, but, in the absence of any buses running, I couldn't be bothered to hike up, plus I haven't got my lift pass yet, should be getting that on Monday.

In other news, I've set up a little bet between Aven and Miguel. I've bound the fingers on one of their hands, and the first one to take it off loses and the other person gets $5:

Boxing Session # 2

2010-11-13T12:52:00.000-08:00

I went to the boxing club again last night where I got a really good work out. The session followed the same structure as the previous one: circuits; sparring; shadow boxing (with weights or resistance ropes); 300s; plank. it was pretty intense but again there was a good bunch of guys there and the instructor is good at keeping everyone motivated and by the end adrenaline was running high and I felt really good.

When we did plank, for the side plank I did what Alex Campbell calls "Shaolin-monk style" for the first 15 seconds, where instead of balancing on the side of your foot with your legs together, you bend one leg and place your foot flat on the floor and hold your other leg up in the air behind it. It's pretty tough and I couldn't keep it up for 30 seconds but I was pleased to do it for half the time after the main body of the class.

We also did some stretching at the very end which was really good, because not only did it provide some cool-down time but it also meant my calves weren't completely seized up today like after the last time.

Things I need to work on in the sparring is keeping mobile, using my long reach to keep opponents at distance. The coach gave me some good positive feedback as well as some things to think about doing better, which was really cool. I can really see what Mr. Oli Moran enjoys about boxing, and at the moment I'm thinking about sticking with the boxing rather than the kyokushin, as I enjoyed the class a lot more.

As far as costs go, I can pay $12 a session (which is a lot, really) or $65 for a month, which isn't so bad, if I keep training at least once and preferably twice a week. I'll have to see how it goes once I start work and have less time.

Also I need to get better at skipping.

Open Mic in town.

2010-11-11T12:12:00.000-08:00

Last night, after watching the first episode of "The Walking Dead" (which was awesome) Natasha (someone else from GYC) Shane, Miguel and I went out to an open mic' night at a bar in town. We had a really good time and although I didn't get up to play anything myself, I did get on the drums to back up a couple of the other people there which was really cool. Unfortunately no one took a camera down so there are no pictures, but it was a good night.

Today is Alex's birthday, but because he has work tomorrow we're gonna wait till tomorrow night to celebrate.

I also heard from Nancy saying that we can go to Norquay on Monday and I can get my ski pass upgraded to a "big 3" pass, so it'll work on Sunshine and Lake Louise. All we need now is for it to snow so that I'll be able to make use of it and all the gear I've bought.

Still no snow.

2010-11-09T16:12:00.000-08:00

As you can see, it's still pretty sunny here, although there is intermittent cloud cover, it shows no sign of snowing any time particularly soon. Sunshine is supposed to be opening on the 11th of this month (Thursday), but as suggested by the lack of snow this may not happen. They've been up there making loads of snow but I guess we'll just have to see if they can open on time. I think Norquay should be able to open on time for the date they set, which was (I believe) the 28th of November. Fingers crossed there'll be enough snow (manufactured or otherwise) to get some skiing done by the end of the week!

In other news, I didn't make it up to Sulfur Mountain today because Alex said he wants to go as well so I figured I'd wait for the weekend when he's free. I'll be missing boxing tonight to go out for steak (yum) with GYC.

Monday

2010-11-08T15:26:00.000-08:00

Today I shaved and bought a ski helmet. Here is evidence of those two things:

The helmet is pretty standard, hard on the outside, padded on the inside, chin strip round the bottom, ticks all the helmet boxes. Just as I'm typing this, a little snow is beginning to fall outside, which is pretty exciting because it seemed like it was going to be ages before we got any. Hopefully its a sign of more to come.

Tomorrow night it's $8 steak night at a place in town and GYC have booked a table for like, 30 people so that should be pretty cool.

A nice view.

2010-11-07T15:25:00.000-08:00

This a picture I took up at the Hot Springs the other day, it looks out over the valley Banff is in to the Rockies in the background. I thought it was quite nice with the framing trees, I meant to put it on here the first time round but forgot.

Update

2010-11-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

Pretty quiet couple of days out here. I bought some ski poles, having realised I completely forgot to get them when I bought my skis. I decided it wasn't worth busting out loads of money for them so I just got some for $50, they're pretty much just ski poles so I won't put any pictures up. They're silver and black, you can use your imagination.

I think I'm gonna have to think of something to do or I'm going to get bored of watching this T.V. show "Weeds". It has the person who plays Amy Gardner in The West Wing and she's pretty good but overall I wouldn't say it's a brilliant show. It fills up the time though and the others in the chalet all love it so I tend to end up seeing a lot.

Banff Hot Springs and Skis

2010-11-05T17:31:00.000-07:00

Alex and I went up to the Banff Hot Springs today and it was pretty cool. It was a little bit too like a swimming pool when I was expecting to be a little more au naturel, but it was still really nice being outside in a hot pool when it's cold outside. Also, Alex took his camera which works underwater so we got some really cool pictures

and videos, Alex made a compilation of 3 little videos of me.

Also, I picked up my skis all set up from the shop:

We're all going out to Melissa's tonight where a whole bunch of GYC people are going so that should be cool. Out.

One for the martial arts types Part Deux

2010-11-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to my second class at the Kyokushin Dojo in town, which, in the absence of the normal instructor, was this time taken by the boxing instructor, who uses the same hall. There were a lot of the same people and a couple of faces I didn't recognise, but again it was a great bunch of people with a good attitude and they were good to train with.

It was an intense cardiovascular work out, with some boxing exercises worked in. The instructor (who's name I forget) gave us a brief introduction to the stance and four basic puches - jab, cross, hook and upper-cut (which I shall henceforth refer to as a shuryuken - booya).

We started with 40 minutes of circuit training, with four bases: running up and down stairs, taking them 2 at a time up and 1 at a time down on a staircase with 20 steps; skipping; shadow boxing in the mirror, practicing staying on your toes, bobbing and weaving in between punches; and working on hanging punch bags. For the first 20 minutes I rotated between stairs and skipping, 2 minutes sets of each, the only break between which was for 30 seconds after the skipping. We also did either 20 press ups or 20 squats between each one. I did 3 sets of each of those then we all switched round and me and the other doing skipping and stairs went to the mirrors and the bags, which we also did 3 of, without any break between other than the squats or push ups. It was intense and really pushed my fitness so that by the last couple of sets I was having to really dig deep and pull out my reserves.

We then grabbed a quick drink before pairing up for some body-sparring (no head shots). At this point the instructor said, "this is not about knocking chunks out of each other, this is about practicing and instilling confidence in you and your partner, not just going to town on them"; might as well have said, "you are with a partner not an opponent" and I was really glad he was promoting that attitude. I had a two really good fights with a guy called Jee-Pee (short for James-Phillip, or James Phillips, I believe) who seemed like a cool guy and we had some rapport as sparring partners. I was then paired with one of the younger ones so I went pretty easy on him, but my last match was with Blair (which I think is his actual name and I was wrong before), the big guy I mentioned in my last post. This was tricky as he is both taller and a lot broader than me, so I had to really make the most of my speed and agility to get in round his guard, but don't you worry, I managed it. I used feints to get him to throw his stopping, defensive jab, which missed as I bounced briefly in, then out then back in again with a super fast with a jab of my own that almost always landed, so I was pleased with that. I also once dodged round his jab and landed a hook into his ribs as the punch he had thrown left him open. Obviously its not as though I didn't take a couple of hits, but because we weren't going all out it made for a very satisfying match after which no bruises were left.

After this we did a rotation between shadow-boxing in the mirrors while holding weights or while holding onto elasticated bands attached to the wall. The idea was to keep a steady rhythm of jab - cross - jab - cross going for the 1.5 minutes. The instructor was calling out, "if you're tired that's good, and you can slow down but don't stop, never stop completely" and I did my best to keep it up but by this point it was getting hard and I was digging deeper and deeper all the time to find more energy. When the buzzer went for the last 30 seconds, well put the weights down and just tried to keep punching as fast as we could for as much of that 30 seconds as we could. We did one set of that with the weights and one set with the ropes and then moved on.

After that the next port of call was "300s". We paired up, and one of the pair had to do 100 leg raises, lying flat on the floor (not lifting all the way up, but with about an 18" range of motion, with never putting them down on the floor). While they were doing that, the other partner had to run up and down the stairs, as before. Once partner A was done with the abs work out, partner B stopped running and you switched, so A ran while B did leg raises. We then did this with 100 crunches and for 50 side crunches on each side. This was kinda hard, but I'd like to think I have pretty good abdominal strength so I felt I could handle it. I was paired with JeePee again and we were motivating each other well between sets and this helped me keep going throughout.

We finished up with plank, doing 30 seconds of front, 30 seconds on each side, then 30 seconds more on front, which was really good and I was glad to get some core-strength exercises in.

Overall the class was tough, but really really good and I felt great at the end, plus there are no real aches or pains this morning which I think is a good sign. Overall, I had a better time with the boxing instructor than at the Kyokushin, plus there seems less chance of injury and more chance of pushing my fitness levels up. I think some sort of balance between the two would be ideal, as the cross-training with boxing would be really good. Also, at the weekends they have "head-sparring" matches, so if I wanted a bit more heavy contact I could probably find it there.

If we make it over to the hot springs today it should be a nice way to relax after the physical exertions of last night. Also all the drinking.

Out.

Local Wildlife.

2010-11-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

Some more deer were hanging out in our garden today, this time with a buck:

Pretty cool . . .

Few more pictures.

2010-11-04T11:46:00.000-07:00

Me and Alex went for a little walk along the river so here are some pictures . . .

We might take a bus ride up the hot springs today, more on that story later.

Sold Out

2010-11-04T08:57:00.000-07:00

We got up to the Banff center last night for the snow show but it was sold out, so after Miguel managed to chance his way in by showing his stamp from last night me and Alex just headed back to the Chalet and had crashed with a new couple that have moved in.

Kat and Will have moved into one of the rooms downstairs that's bigger, and last night Shane and Aven moved in, a Canadian couple from Vancouver Island, so we just hung out with them.

No plans today, but I think I'll have to find something to do other than sitting around in the chalet. I'll at least go for a walk around town, maybe get a bus over to Lake Louise and see that or something.

Skis

2010-11-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Took my boots down to the ski shop and left them with them to set up the bindings as I said. They said I could pick up in the next couple of days, so I'll go down on Friday and hopefully they'll be ready and I'll get some pictures up for you all to gawp at.

I also bought some sunglasses, ones with pretty decent UV protection and all that Jazz. I would put a picture up but I'm still keen enough to conceal my flagrant vanity that I refuse to take photos of myself, in the mirror, myspace style or, indeed, at all.

Will and I will probably play a little hock again this afternoon in the carpark with some sticks that were left in the chalet and a street hockey ball he bought, which has been pretty fun, although I'm obviously only just getting to grips with how it works.

There's another Film Festival event on tonight, "the snow show" with, as you might expect, films about boarding and skiing, so that should be pretty cool. Plus I expect we might go out to Sasquatch again.

Out.

Banff Mountain Film Festival

2010-11-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday me and Alex went to the Banff Mountain Film Festival "Radical Reels" show, which was a compilation of independent films about extreme sports: long boarding, solo-base-climbing,
ALLOW ME TO DIGRESS FOR A MOMENT:
I Just saw an advert on T.V. here for Eggs. Not a particular brand of eggs, just an advert for eating eggs. "Eggs: for energetic people." I had been impressed by the crudeness of the Viagra adverts which, shown throughout the day, showed people who were late for things with the clear implication that it was because they had been making use of their Viagra. To be honest this is not how I would choose to advertise it: "Viagra: will make your sex-drive so insatiable you will be late for everything." Perhaps these pills are a little too potent . . . After the advert for eggs, I then saw another advert for Eggs, in the same advert break, which seemed to be attempting to dispel some aggressive and slanderous rumors about eggs being spread throughout Canada. This is not something I have encountered, but inspired by the valiant efforts of this advert, I'll be sure to defend eggs with gusto and aplomb at any opportunity. I do also quite want to eat some eggs right now.

Back to the film festival.
So, a couple of the films of particular note.
One I enjoyed and was very impressed by was of a daredevil climber who had combined the disciplines of solo-free-climbing and and B.A.S.E Jumping, whereby he would try and free-climb cliff faces that were almost invariably too difficult for him to climb, and when he fell off he would pull the chord on the parachute and float down to safety. He described the feeling as being able "to turn the worst thing ever to the best thing ever: dying to flying." He had devised this, the most extreme of sports, so that he could push his body to, and indeed beyond, the limit of what it was capable of, while still knowing the parachute would save him. It was incredible.

Another were two spoof films, which appealed far more to my English sense of humor than the dangerously Canadian humor of the compare who was mostly just a little annoying. One was, "Parking Garage: Extreme!" (or something similar), which was the story of a man climbing the stairs to the roof of a parking garage, and across the roof the "summit", presented as if it was everest. It was in a similar vein to the old Dead Ringers sketch about Elen McCarthur (spelling?) cleaning her house, and pretty funny.
The other of these was called, "Cross Country Snowboarding", a spoof sport where Snowboarders have to hop along on flat ground, making light of how stupid snowboarders look when they run out of momentum on flat ground and have to jump along. It was also done pretty well and made me chuckle.

The last video in the show was a bit of a disappointment. It was a documentary about some pretty hard core kayakers who went to all the most dangerous rivers in the world and kayaked down them. It was very impressive and the locations were incredible but it went on for far too long, and could have done with some serious editing to make it a more nicely contained piece. It seemed it had 3 different films in it: one about their quest to find the best rivers / rapids, one about their quest to find the best waterfall drops, which ended in them breaking the record for the biggest one, and one about one of them who, as a 15 year old, nearly died on a river in Norway, then returned to it 8 years later to conquer it. The filmmakers were at the festival, and at the end got the prize for best film, judged on a seemingly very prescribed "clap-o-metre" judgement.

After this we went home where we caught up with Miguel who had also been there, and after grabbing a quick bite to eat and a couple of beers Miguel and I went out to the Dancing Sasquatch (a club in town) for the after party. The kayak film guys who had won the $350 prize were there, as well as a coupe of French guys who had made the film that was runner up for the prize. The Kayak guys were a lot of fun and bought everyone drinks, which meant I didn't spent a single cent all night - cash-back! I also spent a while talking to the French guys who were really cool, so although the club wasn't very busy it was a cool night.

Right now Alex and I are enjoying the treat that is Canadian day-time T.V. Later on I'm gonna take my boots down to get the bindings on my skis set and bring them back to the chalet. I'll take a couple more pictures then and throw them up on here.

Out.

Found some skis.

2010-11-02T12:53:00.000-07:00

While walking round town today with Alex, browsing in a bunch of ski shops, I got talking with a friendly salesman, who after I asked if they had any ex-rentals produced some of his "high quality demo skis", which I think meant that they were one that had been used as demonstration skis, but in short they were dramatically reduced in price. I had these put aside (the sort-of-gold coloured ones on the right):

As you can see they're real fat pow-pow skis that should also let me tear up some downhill. I figured, I'm not much of a park skier, and if I really wanted to bust some tricks I could always rent some twin-tips for a day.
The bindings are really nice too, and they're a steal at less than $500.

Booya.

P.S.

2010-11-01T21:23:00.001-07:00

Something I really appreciated was that we spent the last 25 minutes of class doing partner stretching, at which point the heat in the Dojo and the intense sparring meant I was able to really push my flexibility and get into some deep stretching.

Out.

One for the martial arts types.

2010-11-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

I went to my first kyokushin session this evening and enjoyed it very much. It was a good work out in a very small (and so very hot) Dojo, which had me sweating, although I wasn't particularly challenged in terms of cardiovascular fitness.

So, what are the principle differences between Kyokushin and Tang Soo Do?
In Kyokushin, all the sparring is full contact, and I definitely took a couple of big hits which I'll feel in the morning. I thought this was good, as it forces the students to really be able to defend themselves, in the knowledge that any lapse in concentration will lead to bruises. I do think it led to something that Alex Campbell, my esteemed instructor, is wary of, whereby students stick to a few relied upon techniques, rarely going beyond this limited repertoire. I think some slowed down sparring would be good, and there was little to none of the "partner not an opponent" attitude cultivated in Tang Soo Do, none of the back and forth, giving each other the opportunity to experiment or try to add to their arsenal of effective techniques.
That being said, it's clearly led to some very capable martial artists.

Another principle difference is in the format of tournament sparring, in which combatants spar for 2 or 3 continues minutes, no points are recorded, and at the end 5 judges each decide who they consider to have had the best of it, and that person wins. Had I known this was the case, rather than points, I would have taken the initiative and gone on the offensive earlier than I did. This is also because I found that, as someone who is quick, and also (I would like to think) able to identify and exploit moments where an opponent's guard is open or a target area exposed, I could, with some work, find myself with the upper hand.

Moreover, there are only two rules in sparring: No punches to the head and no kicking in the balls. However, low kicks are allowed, and in my 3rd pairing I took a couple of whacks to the legs from a clearly experienced martial artist, whose orange belt (one up from white, as in Tang Soo Do), was rather a deception. So, having spent two matches relying on evasion and pretty well ignoring low blows, I was caught heavily in the thigh by this young man, called Jake. He kicks were precise and efficient, delivering considerably power. This is something I am going to have to learn to do, as the touch-control we practice in Tang Soo Do did not stand up to the power Jake routinely executed his kicks with. He also had an excellent hook which has left a nice red mark on my chest. I also wanted to pick Jake out, as he was training with a disability: his right arm was not fully formed, ending (approximately) at the elbow. He clearly did not allow this to affect the way he trained, and his determination and overall attitude really picked him out as a truly exceptional martial artist for me.
The no punches to the head rule was difficult for me, as it ruled out the high backfist on which I rely for stopping opponents short. I find that the ability to step in on an incoming kick and deliver a back fist to the head is an invaluable part of one's arsenal, but it was completely written off by the rule. I quickly noticed that because of this rule, many of the students held their guards with their heads fairly exposed, something I would have loved to have been able to take advantage of, were it not for this limitation.

Overall, the class was very good, and all the students were welcoming and seemed like a really nice bunch of guys. The atmosphere was good, and the instructor struck a nice balance between discipline and informality, although he was maybe a little over keen to get across how he had a "background in street fighting". That being said, he seemed like a good instructor (though perhaps not quite Geoff Keerie) and he was very appreciative of my very different style and the new techniques I introduced. I feel I managed to throw Jake a few curve balls with my patented step behind side kick off the front leg, and a nice jump back kick I popped up into (with some alacrity, if I say so myself) to cut one of his attacks short. Alex Campbell's favorite, the Backfist reverse punch combo of doom, also served me well.

Things to think about for next time?
I need to be able to land techniques with power rather than snapping in and out with touch control, so that I can respond to Japanese stylists' power in kind.
I was also aware of the (idiosyncratically Japanese) efficiency, whereby fights can come down to one, powerful, disabling technique, and think that as long as I can stay on the front foot and use my speed to full effect I'll be able to take control, although this may not be so much the case against Blake (I think was his name), a very large and hairy white belt who although I outclassed in refinement of technique and speed, I could never stand up to in terms of power.
If I'm going to continue to train, I'm going to have to get some more appropriate clothing, as the sweats and sports top I wore were a little bit constricting and definitely not ideal in the very small, very hot Dojo.
I was a little held back by not having any pads with me which meant I was conscious of needing to not go all out, but it was very satisfying to give and take a few good hits, and tomorrow will certainly be a rather achy one for me, particularly in my legs where Jake landed some nice kicks.

All in all, a good training session and a good club that I look forward to going back to. The only thing that might reasonably hold me back from continuing to train is the price, but I may be able to negotiate something.

A pleasantly tired and satisfyingly bruised Jon out.

Tunnel Mountain

2010-11-01T14:33:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple of pictures from Halloween, this is Miguel as "The Amazing Clown Man":

Yes, he is genuinely juggling those bats, what a hero. This is Kat, as "cat":

No, she's not genuinely eating that rat . . . nor is it a genuine rat.

In other news, Alex and I went for a walk up Tunnel Mountain, which is just behind our chalet. It was a cool little walk and there were some great views from the top:

So, its been another good day here, although it's been a little damp this afternoon, let's hope that's a sign that some snow is on the way soon .
I think tonight we'll be staying in with a few beers watching some NFL and some Baseball.
Over and out.

Getting things sorted.

2010-11-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

Got my Canadian bank account set up with the Bank of Montreal today; things continue to fall into place.
Obviously, I don't have any money in it yet, so it's pretty much useless till I start work.
I went and looked around for a Canadian sim card or phone or something too but it seems phones in Canada are crazy expensive, they pay 40 cents per minute for calls and 15 cents per texts, and they have to pay for bock sending and receiving calls and texts, so pay as you go works out to some ridiculous amount of money. A guy showed me and Alex a deal for $50 a month which looked ok, but seeing as I'm not gonna buy anything until I've started work and have money coming in, because I don't wanna pay for it from an English account to avoid losing money on the exchange rate and charges for paying from a foreign account, I might as well just wait and shop around a bit online or whatever.

In other news, they don't have Sub of the Day here, which is lame.

Day three

2010-11-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

Halloween was a very good night last night, went round to another GYC chalet where some of Will and Kat's (my flatmates) friends from Plymouth Uni. are staying, then from there out to The Devils Gap and then HooDoo. Met a lot of people and had a good time.

I've looked up the local martial arts club, a Kyokushin Dojo. It looks pretty good, led by a 4th Dan and a 2nd Dan (I think). There's a class tonight so I think I'll go along, but from looking at the website you have to pay upfront for the whole season or something, which it says is about $200, plus becoming a member of the club and getting the handbook, another $40 or so, so it may be a little dearer than the club back home.

Still, the first class is free so if maybe if it's really good I'll think about it, and maybe the instructor will be able to be a bit flexible. To be honest, I don't think there's much point me becoming a member seeing as I'll only be training while out here, and I'll have to see how the session lasts for and if I could get some sort of discount for only being here over the winter. However all that turns out, I think its worth heading down to the class this evening and taking a look.

In other news, Alex and I will be going down with Nancy to open our Canadian bank accounts today, I'm sure that'll be fine, and I'm thinking about going for a walk up the hill behind our chalet on Will and Kat's recommendation.

Made it!

2010-10-31T12:37:00.000-07:00

It's now my second day here and feelign pretty settled in now. Everyone in my flat is here now, I'm sharing with Alex, Will, Kay and Miguel, all very cool people.
I've gotten a bunch of the stuff I was planning on, including this netbook, which I thought would be . . . good. Look at it compared to the size of my hand . . .

The chalet is really cool, here are a couple of pictures of my room and our living room, kitchen.

That's Miguel you can see a little bit of, I'll put some pictures of everyone up sometime.

Tonight is Halloween, which is a pretty big deal here so we're all going out, I got myself a cheap batman mask and I've been practicing my Christian Bale style batman voice. Should be a good night!
While typing this, Will, sitting with me and Alex watching some gentle Sunday afternoon Nascar (woop) said, "some local wildlife for you there." I looked out the french door to the balcony and saw this:

So, things are pretty sweet here.
Over and out.