Powder days, powder haze!

Lee hiking out of the Dream forest on Saturday, epic!

Lots of snow to start the New Year with about 50cm here in the valley yesterday (Monday) and lots up top.

I'm running a 6 day Tech clinic this week with some strong contenders including 2 seasoned seasonaires (Rob and Sara with lots of experience), Steve who has already done the full line up of courses including Kamchatka and is now back at the start (but working on perfecting high end technique) plus Andy and Leo out on holiday to get their fill and another Sarah, who unfortunately has had to drop out after day 1 due to a sore leg that she got whilst warming up the day before we started!

We've been running through the Science behind good snowboard technique, looking at how the board works, pressure movements and the bio mechanics of the stance and then of course control of line and speed.

Things started to pull together today, its been interesting to see how those with the most experience sometimes have the most to work on, you have to get rid of bad habits and ingrained bad technique whilst also changing the way they look at and ride the mountain before things can change and progress. There also has to be a reason or an incentive for change. If you've worked your way up to a good effective standard with home made technique so to speak, its sometimes hard to take the time to step back and re build everything from scratch. As the terrain and the tasks get harder though its not hard to see the benefits of working with your board and the mountain rather than fighting against it and things begin to progress.

A good analogy I guess would be to look at a Golf Professional. When a Golf pro makes a change to their swing they have to drop out and rebuild everything from scratch over many months and in a way this is what you have to do if you want to ride with perfect technique or build up the progression towards great and effective technique after riding from the upper body and not with the feet for years and years.

Sara and Rob are kind of in this category but have made great changes today and after a period where they felt to be back tracking they are now fully on the progression in search of the perfect ride. Their experience will also now begin to work for them but they'll need to be strict so as not to slip back. Mostly they need to change how they look at and ride the mountain and the rest will follow out of necessity.

Leo and Andy have less experience and less bad habits and so its almost easier for them to make the changes. Steve has done the Tech clinic and Off piste clinic before so of course rides real nice and is working on being more dynamic. All of them have had to completely re-learn how to look at and ride the mountain, its amazing how many people don't actually turn their board enough to control their speed without reducing to rotation and skidding.

It's great to see the new changes taking place and performances improving and its always interesting to see how far on we'll get by the end of the week.

Ruth is busy in the office, all seems to be good so far. The late season courses are now rapidly filling up. We've had a couple of cancellations so keep in touch and get your name down on the list if you're after a space on one of the courses.

The New Tees are on the goodies page on the McNab Snowboarding site, if you're coming out on a course you'll get one when you get out here but if you want to buy one just fill in the online order form.

A bit of feedback from last weeks 3 day Tech clinic follows, feel free to write in with any queries and we'll do our beat to answer them.

Neil.

Testimonials:

"Hi Ruth
Really enjoyed it thank you.
Will be back and would recommend the course to anyone.
I was practicing on the Thurs and Friday and really got it and it was amazing watching the hundreds of riders on the slopes doing it wrong!! There were only a few that must have been "McNabbed" and were doing it right!
Thanks again.
Cheers
Ken.


"Many happy returns Ruth!
I had a great time last week-hope to be back soon!
Cheers,
Rory"