Where Pros Work Where Pros Work

Wh long history of hiring instructors, coaches, and other snowsports professionals during the off-season. Work hard, play hard, and surround yourself with a likeminded team as you wait for the snow to fly next fall. Located in the heart of the White Mountains of New Hampshire, we can help support your pursuit of professional work opportunities.

www.AlpineZipline.com www.WhalesTaleWaterpark.net

To give online, go to your member portal at members.thesnowpros.org, and it’s as easy as 1-2-3!

To make a donation, click on Make a Gift at the top right of the screen. You will have the option of including a specific note for your gift, select the fund, and select any amount.

You can donate using your credit/debit card.

freestyle Freestyle is for Everyone

By Peter Novom

PSIA-E Alpine Examiner, Eastern Team Member

Who can learn freestyle?

Everyone. That’s a verifiable fact. Not that anyone was counting, but I ran a Freestyle Specialist I accreditation where the average age was 62.7 years old! I’m not a math major, but I’m pretty sure that means there were several in the group much older than that. Add to that: most of the folks had never really tried any freestyle before!

How did it go? Well… it went superbly. By the end of two days, everyone was having a blast learning butters (a flat spin in the snow with a nose or tail press) sliding boxes sideways, moving around in the air, and completely obliterating their perception of what was their comfort zone.

Is there a difference between freestyle skiing or snowboarding and riding all-mountain? This may surprise you, but the answer is No! The fundamentals are the fundamentals regardless of the surface you are sliding on. In addition, participants left with some really cool takeaways.

Freestyle takeaways:

• Failure is harder to achieve than we think. This is super interesting, but if you ask someone how far forward they can lean toward the tip of their equipment (or the tail), they usually move a couple of inches. But where is the actual failure point? As the group learned through exploration, you probably have to move your body a couple of feet to fall over. Also, you won’t know this until you actually try…and fall over. Once you know where things go splat, then you realize that you have all that room to play in between!

• Problem-solving is a great way to learn. I’ll give you an example: if you are perpendicular to the feature you are on, or about to be on, you will likely be successful! For example, visualize a patch of ice where you are sliding sideways. What do you need to do in order not to eat it? You will have to match your body in motion (perpendicular) to the slope, and just keep sliding. You’ll be fine – I promise! And, after playing on park features, many of the group started looking for – instead of avoiding – slippery surfaces!

• Anticipation makes everything possible. This is good advice for any skiing or riding: you can’t focus on what’s happening now. Really, that’s already in the past. Any success you have right now is a result of something you did before. On a groomed slope we have all the room and time to make the wrong move and then fix it. On a box or a jump (or ice) if you anticipate the challenge and move to the future confidently, you will land with a smile. I started exploring freestyle because I grew up on a really small mountain. Eventually, someone would build a kicker (jump) or find something to slide on. This came out of a desire to make a small mountain more exciting, but it became a social meeting point. Everyone would laugh and support each other. Some people hung out and never hit the jump, and we didn’t care. And everyone bonded around doing something a little bit crazy together. And the next week, we found another spot to jump off, and the next week another.

I’ll see you all at the next jump – hopefully in a PSIA-AASI event! <<