SAAS FEE 10 WEEK SKI & SNOWBOARD INSTRUCTOR COURSE 2015: NEW DRILLS & PARK SKILLS (WEEK 5)

Posted: October 26, 2015

Week 5 and the snow hasn’t stopped falling. Saas Fee has more pistes open than ever at this time of year. Perfect conditions for our crew to try out some new drills for their BASI technical performance. And venture for the first-time into the park to learn some new skills on the boxes, kickers and even how to tackle the superpipe. Here’s course leader Steve with the update…

The sun is shining on Saas Fee

Another huge week here in Saas Fee!

The large snowfalls from last week have opened up many more pistes all the way down to the mid-station “Morenia” which is far earlier than expected!

Saas Fee doesn’t get much better than this in the autumn

The weather and conditions have been brilliant – blue skies and smooth pistes all week.

Winter’s coming

As we edge closer to November there’s definitely a feeling that winter is fast approaching.

This means that more of the mountain in Saas Fee is opening and the ski area is expanding further, so we’re now able to ski very long runs starting from the top of the glacier and ending at the base.

With the mountain opening to “Morenia” the runs are longer, perfect for training those BASI turns

Pistes are super quiet which is brilliant to train on, and the park is in ridiculously good shape for all to enjoy.

Saas Fee park – why the world’s best freestylers come back each autumn

There’s a real atmosphere of excitement for a great winter to come!

New drills and great improvements

In training this week with Emma, Jake and Gibbo, the trainees have been trying many new, exciting drills to improve their skiing and boarding.

Plenty of focus now the BASI Level 2 exam is just a couple weeks away

Emma had everyone skiing on one ski which really didn’t look too difficult but trust me it was!

We have all seen a great amount of progression on the mountain this week, and it’s set to continue next week with plenty of time to practice and consolidate these new skills.

Beer pong and spaghetti towers?!?

Off the mountain has been great fun too!

Monday evening was the first of the “Saas Fee Peak Leaders 2015 Mighty Quizzes” created, designed and delivered by Disa, one of our newcomers last week.

Concentration and engineering skills… and not a beer in sight?!?

Things got pretty competitive (in a good way) with the competitiveness peaking during the ‘spaghetti and marshmallow tower building round’.

There were also quiz points up for grabs on Friday after we got back from training as Disa had organised a friendly game of beer pong!

That explains where all the beer went…

During the week, between organising jobs for winter and doing fitness sessions with Jake, we went out for a few drinks to Fee pub, one of the local bars.

It’s not all training and learning on this course.

Get your jib on

The weekend was all about freestyle!

Making it look too easy on the rails…

The snowboarders had a chance to try a few exciting new techniques with Gibbo during the week… including the ‘Eurocarve’ and some freestyle tricks which were then worked on throughout the weekend.

Gibbo laying it down with a eurocarve straight out of the 90s

Marco, our freestyle skiing coach, came across from Italy to give the skiers a session on freestyle.

I think everybody (whether they admit it or not) was really excited to try something new but equally nervous.

“You go first, no you, no you… ” who’s gonna drop into the superpipe first?

Marco had everybody skiing switch, doing 180’s, riding the superpipe, doing jumps and all sorts!

Such a brilliant way to end a great week.

Riding the ice walls of the superpipe for the first-time is a daunting challenge…

Racing into Week 6

Next week is set to incorporate a variety of different sessions to help everyone improve.

Happy birthday Daniel!!!

The skiers are teaching the snowboarders how to ski at the start of the week.

Brad, one of our snowboarders wants to join the Swiss ski team… so let’s hope Jake and Emma’s groups do a good job of teaching him!

You got to have dreams… will Brad get there? Stay tuned…

Week 6 also sees the skiers shadowing with the Kandahar ski club, a great chance to get the racers perspective on technique.

Rounding off the week will be a few practice days and more training with Emma, Jake and Gibbo… then it’s fast approaching BASI Level 2 exams?!?

Not long now…