COACHES CORNER
January 19
It has been fun this year watching the improvement in all of the kids. Watching Tyler this weekend, you would never imagine he had never skied a day in his life before this year. Everyone has been working hard and your skiing is showing it. 80's day was a blast and kudos to Hal for admitting that his outfit was in his closet! Thanks to Tiffany for coming up with the idea. The next day will be Friday of BWC and for the Hero Slalom at Finals. We are planning on a costume day on Sunday, March 21st with awards for the best girl and boy! It's on the 49 and am looking forward to how things unfold this weekend!
December 14
Great first weekend! Even though there isn't that much snow, the skiing was great! Hope everyone had a good time and enjoyed getting back together with your friends and the coaches. We will continue to work on Basics up until Christmas and will then hopefully have enough snow to run some gates afterwards. Our first race is January 9-10 at Schweitzer with two Giant Slaloms. Our focus will be on GS through the holidays. Giant Slalom is the foundation of all skiing!
October 14
Thanks to Hal, Jani and Steve for putting on the Race Night! A great opportunity for everyone. As the snow has come and gone, it is good to know it can snow! A good start and we need the moisture. We have an action packed year ahead of us. A busy race schedule and EEYSL Finals. It will be great to get on snow again. Hopefully an early winter and we'll all have another good snow year!
March 9
What a great job the club did putting on its first race in five years. With everyone basically "1st timers" it came off without a hitch. There were nothing but great comments on how it all transpired. The mountain was extremely happy with what we did too! Great Job Team!
What a great weekend powder skiing! Sunday was one of the better powder days I've experienced at Bluewood. It's hard to believe that the season is winding down. Yesterday was my last day at Bluewood for the year. With races the next four weekends, I said Good-Bye to the mountain and Bruce. Good Luck to everyone in the races throughout the rest of the season and I'll be seeing you on the hill!
February 17
Great job @ Anthony Lakes! This is a race that shows how important time on snow is. In the EEYSL, training 3-5 days per week is not uncommon for the top kids. We train two days tops. Most of the kids at Anthony Lakes train one day per week. Time on snow is what makes you better! Since this is the case, always remember to make the most of the time we have. Always give it 110% on the mountain and you will reap the rewards!
Our race is coming up, and there is a chance that we will get a US Ski Team coach to set one of the runs! Greg Needell used to coach at Mission Ridge and is coming to Bluewood to watch his son race. He is now a US Ski Team coach. Claudia is trying to talk him into setting for us. We will have about 70 kids at our race is what it is looking like, so should be fun! See ya on the mountain.
January 28
Well, it's been a long week and a half, but I'm finally on the mend. I think I've only coughed up one of my lungs, the good one! I'm on strong meds and plan on being back on the hill this weekend... Great job at 49 everyone! It was the first race for a couple of you and hope you had a great time and learned lots. It is definitely different than training and gets intense at times. If you've ever heard the phrase "herding cats", well, it's like that for coaches sometimes on race day. Be patient and know that the coaches have everyone's best interest at heart and are doing a great job. They are all "my kids" when you are a coach.
I hear there were some awesome athletes from Alaska there and the results showed it. Jimmy said they have 200 YSL kids, 70 devo kids and 50 juniors in that program!!! You got to see the best of the best. I think we held our own. The Doctor I saw at the immediate care center has a friend that has kids that ski for SSRA. His friend mentioned we were coming up and taking some of "their" awards! This is a sign that our presence is known-good job to all!!!
January 5
We're back from Schweitzer and had a great trip! With very little training and a bigger hill than we get to train, we did awesome. There were some great skiers in the EEYSL race and we held our own. We only had 11 kids in the race and came away with 4 top 10 finishes. It was cold, to say the least. Roger Taggart was awesome in letting us train with them on Saturday on the same hill as the race on Sunday. Thanks Rog!!! Our kids showed some confidence on Sunday and it showed in the results. Kudos go out to Halle with our only podium finish. Hayden and Gracie almost got there with a 4th place each in their age group.
We will train GS on Saturday and go over what we learned this weekend. Sunday, we'll start training SL in preparation for our race at 49 in two weeks. It's gonna be fun!!!
November 23
Where's the snow??? As a wheat farmer, I am glad it stayed warm enough for my wheat to pop out of the ground, but that's done and now it's time to hit the slopes!!! There was 9" in the Blues at one time and now just a skiff. It will come, as it always (almost) does. Skiing at Bluewood by Thanksgiving is not a normal thing but we usually hit the slopes by mid December. Let us hope we get that done. I'm looking forward to another great year! Tiffany, Hal, Jenny and Curtis all attended a USSA Level 100 coaches seminar this fall and came back with a bucket load of ideas and drills to challenge all of you with. Our first Jr. race is the end of December and first EEYSL race is the first of January. We will be holding the first race in five years at Bluewood February 28/March 1. Anthony Lakes and Mission Ridge are both planning on attending. Maybe a few of our friends from up North will also attend? It should be a great time and a good time of year to hold a competition on Skyline.
Everyone do their snow dance, eh???
March 19
I guess you can say I've been a little lax at this page this year. As we grow, so does the time involved in keeping everything straight... No excuse, though. It's been an awesome year! Congrats to everyone for all of the improvement I've seen throughout the year. Especially little Sam Sievertsen. I remember the first day...I must say I had my doubts, but he proved me wrong! To him racing down the face of Skyline brings a smile to my face! I'm proud of all of you! Remember, you can't measure improvement by trophies. Everywhere you go, there are great athletes in PNSA! Keep up the good work and sorry to see the changing of the seasons. Winter is definitely my favorite!!! I've already heard from new families interested in the team next year, so I'm excited!
BART is hosting the PNSA Convention June 6-8 in Richland this year. Thanks to Monica for setting this up. We will have a social on Friday night for the attendees and meetings Saturday and Sunday at the Red Lion in Richland. I encourage everyone to attend and learn more about how the division is run! We will have our Spring meeting prior to the Convention on May 24th at my house. More on this to come.
Here's to a great last day!
January 21
The season is a great one! Plenty of snow and great mountain involvement! Thanks to Rick and Bruce for working with us on training and a place to keep some of our "stuff" on the mountain when needed.
Sienna had a great first J3 Qualifier and laid down an awesome run in one of the GS's and ended up with a sixth place finish. She's lowered her GS points to 178 which will qualify her for an Elite Season Pass next year! This enables her to buy one pass that will let her ski at all of the races throughout the season. Good Job and Good Luck this weekend at Ski Bowl!
Schweitzer was fun and a good experience for the first race of the season. We've had two good weeks of training and are looking forward to this weekend at 49. I've seen great improvements since our last race! Good Luck this weekend!
We received a memorial contribution from Carol and Andy Anderson in memory of Mrs. Helen Reid of Santa Barbara, CA. Helen "introduced Carol to the sport and patiently helped her learn the job of snow and skiing". What a great way to remember someone that loved the sport like we do...
Check out the Sponsor Boards and help out those businesses that help the Team. This is our best year ever for local support of the Team! Thanks to everyone that loves the sport of skiing and supports the athletes in their dreams and adventures...
December 17
The Fundraiser was a great success! Thanks to all of those involved, especially Sandra. She is the backbone of the whole process. Thanks to all that got auction items and sold tickets. For our first year, it was great! I got to order our new radios because of all of the support.
Well, we're off and running!!! On Saturday the 8th a bunch of us went up and cut brush on Skyline to help the mountain get the run open. There were a few "Christmas trees" in the run that we had to trim. Thanks go out to Greg, Nathan, Mike, Tiffany, Monica, Sienna, Gracie and Jim V. for showing up and helping. We got it done so fast that when Jim O. and Randy showed up, we were done!!! I got to try out my new weedeater with a saw blade on it (a man and his powertools, ahahah). Nancy called and thanked us for the help and the support. It's the least we can do in return for the support the area gives us. The first Sunday was "skiing". You had to be quick to miss some things, but we were on snow. It was a good first day.
This last weekend was great and the kids learned alot. I see improvement over last year!!! Welcome to all of our new members. A big welcome goes out to Keith, Sam, Amy, Colleen, Jared and Kelsey. The club is growing and there will be more! Also, welcome back to the rest of you. Many happy faces were seen this weekend! An ex Blazer, Jenny Murray approached me on Sunday to fill an opening for a position on the staff. She will join us starting this weekend. This makes another ex-Blazer coaching!!!
Sienna and Tiffany were both at Mt. Bachelor over the weekend for the first Jr. race of the year. Starting at the back of the pack as a "990", Sienna blazed to a 27th place on Saturday with a 180 pt. result. On Sunday, the wind was blowing about 50 mph down the hill and tended to blow the little one around. She ended up with a 222 pt. result in 48th place. There were 72 girls in the race. A good first weekend of Jr. racing. Way to go Sienna!
We will continue to do drills and work on our skiing this weekend. The first YSL race is coming up at Schweitzer on January 6th. It is set up for us to train with SARS on Saturday before the race. President Monica will be getting out a list of housing options for the upcoming races. I'm adding the 26th as a day of training to make up for the lost Saturday last weekend. We'll also extend the season a weekend to make up for losing December 1&2. I'm looking forward to another great year!!!!!!!
November 30
As it tries to snow, patience is a word that is more and more on my mind... This is what I call a typical year for Bluewood. It keeps tempting us that the opening is upon us, then it doesn't happen. Meacham got 17" and BW didn't. Even Yakima got 7"!!! Get out and hit the slopes anywhere possible. Tiffany and Sienna were in Colorado at Copper Mountain for five days training with the Juniors from the Mt. Ashland team. They had fun and Tiffany had to take the lead since their Program Director severed his achilles tendon and had to have surgery two weeks ago. It was a good experience for both of them. I'm anxious for the season to start. I've been to Mt. Hood twice and only got to ski one day.
The PNSA coaches symposium was great. Tiffany, Lissa and Sarah all had a great time and we all had a chance to set a slalom course and get critiqued by the experts! Tiffany and I both ended up buying metric tapes to measure spacing on gates. Sunshine abounded that day. Lissa and Sarah both took the Referee test and learned all of the ins and outs of the rules of our sport.
Tiffany, Monica and I attended the Officials Clinic in Spokane. We all took the Timing and Calculations class. I needed to review things for my TD license and Tiffany and Monica both passed the test. Tiffany has an interest in becoming a TD!!!
At the PSIA symposium it rained... Spent the day in the Lodge learning some new things and listening. I now have my continuing ed. credits for my PSIA Training Director status. It's good to get that out of the way early in the year...
What we need now is SNOW!!! It will happen, I just have to remember that word "patience".
September 4
Hope everyone had a great Labor Day. I just wanted to say I have bad news. Mikayla tore her ACL on her other knee playing soccer. She is scheduled for surgery next week. Keep her in your thoughts. We will miss her on the hill this winter. If you play sports, you know what they say...it's not if you are going to get hurt, it's when.
August 27
Greetings! Hope everyone is excited about the new year. Still nothing on the sale of Bluewood, but no one will talk that knows, so something must be in the works. Only time will tell... I'm looking forward to another great year on the mountain is all that matters!
Hope everyone had a great summer and got a chance to do whatever it is you do. Sienna, Gracie, Nate and Blake went to Mt Hood with the kids from MHA and Northern and had a great time. Sienna and Gracie headed back to ski with Dave Lyon in August. Sienna spent 18 days on snow this summer! Tiffany coached two camps with Mt. Hood Academy and Northern Division kids. She also attended the level 200 USSA Coach's Camp at Mt. Hood. She's ready for you Jrs. next year! I skied a couple of days on Hood and it was great. You should all do it next year if you get the chance. We will watch the weather and see what opportunities arise for this Fall.
I know it's early, but start thinking snow... Hey, I skied Halloween at Mt. Bachelor not that long ago, so anything is possible!!!
March 19
What a great year! The team is growing and more are on the way!!! It was fun watching everyone improve over the course of the season. Wedges were replaced by edges and speed became your friend. Change is slow and is hard work. Just think of how much time you actually spend skiing in one day at Bluewood... 10-12 minutes up the chair and 1-2 minutes down. That is 8 minutes an hour if you don't stop and talk, which we do. That is why we want you to make every turn count. With so little time available, remember to use every minute you have to improve.
As summer approaches, remember what you've learned and write it down. Start a journal of what you have learned and what you want to accomplish next year. This will help you in the fall as ski season approaches. You can open the file and review it when the snow starts flying. Remember, we as coaches are only able to give you the tools, you need to be the mechanic and put them to use...
Have a great spring and we'll see you soon!!!
March 5
Great Job at BWC!!! All of the athletes skied well. After Friday's blizzard and training in ruts and holes to your knees, it cleared up for the weekend. Saturday showed what too much new snow can do to a race course when you send over 120 kids down the mountain on the same track! Ruts and holes were the flavor of the day... Sunday was better when it froze overnight, but there were still a few holes. As I always say, that's ski racing!!! The Mt. Bachelor crew did an awesome job of maintaining the race course and worked hard until the last racer went down the mountain. Hope everyone had a great time!
February 23
Great weekend at Anthony Lakes. If you get the Waitsburg Times, we had half a page on BART!!! Good coverage for the TEAM. Congrats to Kyle, Logan, Alex, Michael, Blake, Sienna, Gracie and Emily for heading to BWC! It will be fun. Tiffany will coach the girls and I'll coach the boys. Our club race is planned for tomorrow with TEAM pictures to boot! Hopefully the weather holds for us.
Our best to BreAnna for a full and complete recovery. We miss her smiling face on the hill. Good Luck to Jaymin and his quest to qualify for Nationals!
See ya this weekend!
February 15
Good Luck to the YSL Team this weekend!!! Schweitzer was a great race for the Team and a learning experience when it came to the Slalom... With three top 10's on Saturday in the GS we did AWESOME as a Team. But, the Slalom was an education on proper inspection! With the fog, mist, snow and a parallel race course, you had to know where you were going! Now everyone knows why we inspect prior to racing and why it has to be a good one! Life is a journey of learning and this was one of those days.
My hats off to the boys skiing together this past weekend and keeping track of each other! It made me proud as a coach to see the boys skiing as a TEAM!!! Thanks to all involved...
Good Luck to Sarah and Jarod this weekend at Meadows. Their first FIS race! Get after it and remember to arc the top of the turns and pole plants!!!
February 8
Great Slalom training last weekend! Remember, quick edge to edge standing tall with your hands up. I'm looking forward to this weekend at Schweitzer! Your hard work will pay off. We're all going to have great FUN!!!
I just got back from a PSIA Training Director clinic at Mt. Hood Meadows. We were doing WEDGE TURNS to work on our skiing!!! To get better, it's always back to the basics. This was teaching us to get up and over the ski rather than back and inside of it. It appears that the Austrian Ski Team does this for two days at the beginning of the year with Austrian Instructors (yes, even the Herminator) to work on the basic body position in the turn. Then we worked on projecting into the next turn off of the uphill ski ( new outside ski) and using our ankles and knees to edge the ski rather than our hips. SO, if the next time we train together, I ask you to do wedge turns, don't be surprised...
Our best to BreAnna. She had a nasty fall on Saturday at Mission Ridge and received a concussion. She won't be able to ski with us this weekend, but hopefully we'll see her smiling face on the hill soon. Nate struggled a little, but finished off the weekend with a strong run. He has figured out one little thing that will let him rip it up! All we can do as coaches is give you the tools, it takes your heart to put them to use... If you want it, you can make it happen.
See ya on the hill
January 31
Where has the time gone? It's hard to believe it is February already... One more weekend of training for the YSL bunch and then it is off to the races! We have a busy schedule after this weekend, so get psyched up!!! Good luck to Nate and BreAnna this weekend at Mission Ridge! It's a great hill and they'll have fun!!
I watched video from this weekend on something bigger than my 2" screen and would like to make this comment. EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET FORWARD!!! Between every turn, you need bring your center of mass (CM) over your boots. Especially when it gets steeper. Tiffany's group worked on it some this weekend. You need to extend off your new uphill ski to initiate the next turn. Check the photos...
January 22
Hope everyone is having a great time like me! What a fun weekend at Mission Ridge. Had a chance to see some old friends and make a couple of new ones. Mission Ridge did a great job putting on the race. FYI, we have a new assistant coach. Her name is Sarah. It's the girl with the white coat... She did a great job with the kids this past weekend. She earned her first "coach's ticket" and just spent the day "on the hill" like Hal & me. There is nothing like spending 7 hours on a mountain and making four runs! As crazy as it sounds, I look forward to it... Hal did a great job of "putting the kids in" and getting them ready. Thanks to Scott and Monica for shooting video. It was good for the kids to see their Saturday runs. With only 12 of the over 200 kids there, the club did great!!! Congrats to Hayden for a 2nd and 1st this past weekend!!! Jared got a 6th on Sunday. Gracie picked up a couple of 6th place ribbons and the rest of the kids skied awesome! You are all making great turns! We'll work on those tactics this weekend.
With the Jrs., Jarod is heading to the Slaloms at Ski Bowl and then Tiffany and the gang are headed to Mission Ridge for the Hampton Cup. The hill is in great shape, so they'll have a great time!
Be sure and check the link I sent out for GS tactics. Remember, even tips and finish at the panel
GO BART!!!
January 2, 2007
Happy New Year! Hope you all enjoyed the many days of skiing. My knee needed a rest and ice, so the new year gives me that opportunity! We will ski Giant Slalom on Saturday and Slalom on Sunday on Huck Finn if they let us. The Nickel is a definite maybe for this weekend, so we'll head to the "big chair".
I realize this is all new to some of you, so, if you ever have any concerns or questions, please share them with me. We try to do what we can with what we have. The only run we know we can use on a regular basis is RTR (race training run) which is the middle run on the Nickel next to where we have been training. This is all dependant on the snow depth and the chair running. As soon as they get enough snow to make jumps, we will lose the run under the chair. As far as Huck Finn, it is always dependant on the crowd anticipated for that day. Fortunately there were no complaints this last Sunday when we fenced it off. Management usually hears something when we do that... This is a good thing! Looking forward to another great weekend!
December 29
I hope all had a Great Christmas! The Camp is going great with good training on the Nickel. It's great to watch you all progress and have FUN! The new timer is working out and gives you a chance to see progression and figure out what is fast and what isn't. Thanks to the parents for their help setting up and taking down, especially Nick. Thanks to Scott and Bluewood for letting us use the run under the chair to train. It's giving us a great opportunity to ski varying terrain.
Here's wishing everyone a Fabulous New Year!!!
December 24
Merry Christmas to All!!! What a great snow day yesterday. I have a confession to make, I'm skiing on All Mountain skis for the first time in my life. Yesterday was the most fun I've had in the snow conditions we had on Saturday. Thanks to Salomon for the X-Wing! I hope everyone had as much fun as I did... It was good to have Kylie back from her adventure in Germany. Kylie will be here for the Christmas Camp, as will Tiffany, Hal and I. We are going to work on Slalom skills and then into some gates. I have in my possession a brand new Brower wireless timer that the BOD so graciously ok'd. We'll give it try during the camp! Hal is busy organizing our fundraiser and we hope to raise enough money to cover the cost of the timer!
We'll see you on Wednesday!!!
December 19
Good hard snow this last weekend. Good edges make a difference! Great job again! If you haven't checked your skis, now is a good time. Keep waxing them every week! The more you wax, the faster they get. We'll train GS again on Saturday and start progressing into to some slalom drills on Sunday. Let's hope we get some snow!!!
December 11
It was definitely a wet one... Avoid the Triple Nickel until we hear it is actually fixed! A 30 minute ride in the sun last weekend and a 20 minute ride dripping wet this weekend... Great job by everyone sticking out the weather and putting in a strong effort.
Did anyone hear that flock of geese on Saturday? Or was that Tiffany and her "balloooonies"? I had a great time skiing with "our future" on Sunday. What a bundle of energy!!! If we could only bottle it, we'd make a fortune. Welcome to Luke, Blake, Sam, Drew and Reid, our new athletes so far this year! We continue to grow and this makes it exciting. I hope everyone is having as much FUN as I am.
If there is enough interest, we'll try doing the Friday before Christmas and Saturday as our weekend. Right now we only have Saturday scheduled. Then, we'll have the Christmas Camp December 27-31. That will make 7 out of 10 days on snow. This will be when you will able to retain the most all year. There is nothing better than repetition on snow to get those muscles trained. Don't miss it!!!
We'll see you early on Saturday!
December 4
GREAT WEEKEND!!! It was fun to ski with all of you! I saw improvement in everyone. Thanks to Monica for all of her help doing "paperwork" while we got to go ski. The sponsor money is starting to trickle in. Monica is sending out over 100 letters to old and possible new sponsors. I sent out over 40 to old sponsors and working on a couple of new ones. This money is our bread and butter and makes it possible to keep our fees down. If you know of any people that would be interested in supporting the team, get 'er done! It looks like Sarah will be the only one going to Mt. Bachelor and Tiffany will go with her. I'll cover for Tiffany that weekend. Hal toughed it out Saturday and will hopefully be on the mend in time for this upcoming weekend. Kylie did a great job moving up to a new group and Daniel had fun with the "newbies" and is bringing them along.
If you hadn't heard, Joneau had a mishap on Saturday and ended up with tib-fib spiral fracture. Our thoughts are with him for a speedy recovery. His smiling face will be missed at Bluewood this winter.
Have a safe week and we'll see you bright and early Saturday!
November 27
WOW!!! What a great 1st day on the mountain! Powder snow and almost all of the mountain open! Tiffany and I had a great time seeing old faces and new ones to boot. For those that skied with us, good job! This is going to be a great year! Remember to get to the mountain early on Saturday since we need all of the paperwork turned in and fees paid. All of the coaches plan on being there!
November 25
Looks like my snow buddies came through again!!! Nothing like a good early season storm system to get things going! We'll see all of you on the mountain either this weekend or next. Hope ALL had a great holiday with family and friends. Ski ya soon!
November 22
Happy Thanksgiving to ALL!!! The best to you during the holidays and drive safely. See you at the meeting on Sunday!
November 6
Winter is coming! You wouldn't know it by the temperatures today, but it will cool down and snow. Just returned from the PNSA Fall Coaches Symposium and came back with some new ideas and am anxious to get on snow and use them! Hope everyone is ready to rip it up this year!!! I want all of the kids to start thinking about goals for the year. You will have a homework assignment to get down on paper what I know is going on in your head. It is going to be a fun year for ALL!!!