Wednesday, November 28, 2007

The Nastc experience


I just got back from taking a class from the North American Ski Training Center in Truckee. "Nastc" has been a great resource for our customers and the staff has done a few events as well. If you are interested in very high level instruction in a variety of vacation settings, Nastc is just the ticket for you. This particular class was a three day event called Certified Ski Movement Coach and my hope was to pick up some tips that would cross over into bootfitting. I did get a few boot oriented tidbits. Mainly we learned a lot about the mechanics of movement involved in skiing, and how to determine what biomechanic/physical issues an individual has and how to address them.

The class was comprised of about 9 qualified instructors and (little 'ol) me. What a great time. The instructor for the ski movement section was Darcy Norman. Darcy is a physical therapy and athletic enhancement expert that deals with many world class athletes. His latest "big deal" has been working with the Telecom pro cycling team from Europe. Loads of pro athletes have photos on his walls that you would recognise. Darcy did the class room section, and then Nastc director Chris Fellows ran the on-snow sessions and helped relate the topic to the instructors in a way that they can use the information to further their craft.

What a joy to ski with these folks! I was of coarse the weakest technical skier of the group but that was no problem. With an instructor filled group, everyone was helpful in helping me accomplish learning some of the very difficult (for me) drills they devised to use the classroom sessions on the hill. And what great instruction it was! With Chris being a PSIA National Demo Team member and a PSIA-W board member, Robin Barnes on the PSIA-W tech team and a Ski magazine tester, Malcolm Ridenour a level 3 Examiner, and Kemp Dowdy a PSIA-W tech team member and examiner, we are talking about some of the best instructors available anywhere! The rest of the group was rounded out with other quality instructors. Most importantly was that they were simply a great group of people and great fun to ski and hang out with. These people are truly dedicated to teaching and skiing!

As Darcy is very cutting edge in his field, there were no precedents for the application of his knowledge. On the hill, Chris led us in a series of drills that with a lot of input from the group, should arm them with new tools to make our skiing experience just that much better! I know I improved my turns and have enough knowledge swimming in my head right now to keep my busy for the rest of the season. I've got some serious work to do.

For more information on Nastc, you can check them out at http://skinastc.com/. Nastc gets a hearty recommendation from California Ski Company!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Stockli's, Nisei's, and Flexons...

It’s been busy at the shop.
Friday we had a few staff training sessions. Brad, the Stockli rep, was awesome. He is still very fired up on the skis after all this time. They ski so great and now the word is spreading. We are certainly VERY impressed with the current line and Brad just added to the stoke. Lot’s of info about the manufacturing process, material specifics and the like. Really good stuff! Of course there was also lot’s of comparing notes with Brad and discussion about how we all feel about how the various models ski.
Nisei ski club was here Saturday night. As usual it is always great to have them come for their annual visit. John is a member and we have a lot of regulars who are in the club. This makes it very relaxed and informal. They brought the usual great food, and a short presentation was followed by quite a bit of shopping. A number of boot fits and several skis as well. Thanks Nisei!
Sunday I finalized a bid to pick up a bit of merchandise from a store that shut down a few years ago. Included are about 20 retro 80’s sweaters (who knows what we will do with these), some tools, and various other miscellaneous items. Most intriguing however is the arrival of a few dozen pairs of Raichle Flexons. All are new, and there are various models. Most key sizes have low numbers. I am psyched to play with them! We are doing great with the Dalbello Krypton boots and the Flexon is the boot that laid the foundation for the Krypton. It’s an interesting story and our head tech Martin Sulser plays a small role in it. But that’s for another time.
Off to San Diego Weds night and so I will miss “Black Friday” at the shop. Happy Turkey day to all and hopefully we will have resorts open this next weekend.
Oh yeah, Todd got braces!

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Snow is coming!


Last week the weather was quite warm and balmy. It didn't seem much like winter was here yet at all. Todd and I had an early morning archery round at Redwood Park and at 7:00 in the morning it was shirt sleeve weather. Now we are back to the way it should be. Snow is forcast for this weekend with more on the way next week. We are back on track! Many resorts have jumped on the "open by November 17th" bandwagon and we will be making turns VERY soon. Whoopee!

Thursday, November 1, 2007

Happy birthday Greg

Happy 50th birthday Greg. Hope you had a great day.