Sun Peaks 2007 with SnowPerformance.com

Complacency. We’re all guilty of it. We think things like “that’s good enough,” or “I’m happy where I’m at,” when in fact we do want to change and improve, but we just don’t know how. We have been doing what we do for so long and improvements come in such small increments that the effort to really make the jump to the next level is daunting. If you fall under this description, as I did, then I have the solution for you.

Snow Performance is a high-performance school for all intermediate, advanced, and expert snow sports enthusiasts. Based out of Crystal Mountain, Washington, Snow Performance (SP) has been setting up performance snow camps in the U.S. and Canada for the past eight years, with fantastic success. The courses/camps SP offers are varied and focus on all aspects of the sport, including skiing, telemark, and alpine snowboarding. You can see their current calendar HERE to get an idea of the types of programs they offer.

For years my so called friends have been telling me to “take a lesson,” so I finally decided to follow their advice and partake in the four- day SP camp at Sun Peaks Resort in British Columbia, Canada from last December. For a bit of history, Bomber has been a supporter of the alpine snowboard programs at SP by supplying them with boots and bindings to use for the camps. Donek Snowboards has also graciously helped out with a demo fleet of carving decks. As we all know, just having the hardware available is a major advantage in getting into alpine snowboarding, and SP has the gear if you need it. Some of the camps at SP are for certain type of skills or terrain, like bump skiing or riding in crud, but this particular camp was an all-encompassing one that did not really specialize in any one domain.

The participants: the riders in our group represented a wide range of abilities, professions, and ages. We had a total of ten students,including me, the majority being from Canada. We included an engineer, an accountant, an anesthesiologist, several college students, a lawyer, a nurse, and various other professions. Age varied from eighteen to forty, seven men and three women; we had one person who had only been on a carve board once before and others who were five to ten years into hardboots. So, as you can tell, we had the full spectrum of skills and personalities. However, the common thread for all of us was wanting to improve our carving skills, and that was enough to allow us to work together towards that goal.

The coaches: Our head coach was Captain Sean Cassidy who has been coaching the SP camps for over seven years now, and his passion for the sport is obvious. Sean also runs clinics at Bomber’s Summit Expression Session event in Aspen every year, and is a great guy with tons of patience and knowledge, making him a superb coach. The assistant coach for the camp was the famous Mark Harris from Idaho, who runs the snowboard team up north at Schweitzer Mountain Resort. Mark is also a major figure in the alpine snowboard scene and can be seen donning the latest carve fashion in Bomber’s current catalog. These two guys worked together to see who needed what type of help and, more importantly, made sure you got it.

So off to the camp! Couple of interesting facts about Sun Peaks and the Snow Performance camp:

1) Sun Peaks is the second largest resort in Canada, behind Whistler
2) The percentage of return SP campers is about 90%
3) Four out of five women in Canadian bars carry pepper spray

Day One:

All the camp participants had met the night before at a “get acquainted” cocktail party at the resort. This provided an opportunity to meet the other students, and also to see what coach would be assigned to the group. The head honcho for the SP camps, Gavin Kerr Hunter, gave everyone a warm welcome and explained what the week would involve for those who were new to the camp.

The first day of riding involved everyone getting their legs under them and making sure all were comfortable in their gear. With that behind us we went into some basic discussions on using the various areas of the body to make our turns. For example, what do your feet do? Are they just along for the ride or do they actually have some say in your carve turn? Obviously they do play a part but what is that part? We spent the majority of the afternoon riding and having these discussions on what we do to make a carve turn. Think about it, how often do you do this? Makes for very high awareness of what you are doing and what works.

Now for the good part: that night we all got together at Coach Cassidy’s condoand did something that was exciting, potentially embarrassing, and a first time for some: video analysis of the day’s riding. If you have never seen yourself making carve turns, you need to do this. When you think you are railing a turn and are so low your ear is on the snow, watch it on video. Might not be the case. When the coach asked you to get be more dynamic during the turn and you swore you were moving up and down to the point of silliness, watch the same turn on video and you may look like a statue cast in concrete. Video doesn’t lie and it’s brutally honest. But hey, we were all there to get better and this is how we did it.

Day Two:

We spent the second day doing some very interesting and effective skills exercises. One was where we put our hands on our heads and then tried to make turns. What does this do? Makes you aware of what your hips and upper body are doing. To me it showed how much dependency we have on our hands and arms to compensate for what might be incorrect body position. Without arms, you cannot make a mistake with your core body, or it’s no turn for you. Another exercise was doing the waltz. This was fantastic for those who needed to be more dynamic on their boards. Those familiar with the waltz know that it makes you swing your body around, as well as dip up and down with the legs. Perfect for getting you into the rhythm of carving. I was skeptical at first but, damn, if it didn’t work, and helped quite a few people out.

We did more video analysis that night of the day’s riding. A short clinic on hardware set-up was also performed by yours truly. Interestingly enough, by the time I was addressing the molecular structure of a typical heel bail, people seemed to be ready to head back to their rooms and get some sleep. Several didn’t even bother to go to their rooms.

Day Three:

I have said it before and will say it again, if you want to improve your carving, run gates. Period. This is exactly what we did on Day Three of the camp, and it was quite an eye-opener for some. The concept with gates is that it forces you turn at a certain time. It does not allow you to be lazy or slow in your turn, you must turn, and you must turn now. And the kicker is, if your form and technique are not sound, it all just crumbles, but if you are correct in form you are rewarded with a beautiful smooth run. The camp reserves an entire hill for the participants, just for running gates, and we used proper triangle gates. And guess what, there’s the video camera recording the whole thing. Of course Sean and Mark were very good at helping everyone out in improving their runs on the course. More video analysis that night and you could already see the improvements in everyone from day one.

That night there was a fabulous banquet for everyone in the camp. It was held at the main lodge at Sun Peaks and served up as much food as you could put into your tired body. Gavin and the other coaches gave some great “thank you’s” to all those at the camp and a group toast was given to everyone for their obvious improvements during the week. By now Mark Harris had a few beers in him and was telling the younger campers about his days as a Navy S.E.A.L. – Special Ops – Power Ranger (or something like that) back when Norway invaded Panama. It was the Canadian Rules arm wrestling that finally made me leave the festivities and shuffle back to my room to get some much needed sleep.

Day Four:

Last day of the official camp and we spent it mostly free riding and running another course set-up on a different hill. This one however was dual gates, so we were able to match up with our personal nemesis for the week and see what happens. Hey, nothing brings out your skills better than friendly competition. And, by this time, we were all good friends and there were absolutely no egos in the way. Well, hardly any.

The camp’s primary goal of making each participant a better carver was achieved for all. But the secondary goal of having a good time and making friends was also achieved. The skills I learned at the SP camp , as well as the new friends I made, will last forever. Sean, Mark, Gavin and the rest of the Snow Performance crew are a class act and provide a learning experience that is hard to beat.