November in Austria

Had two amazing weeks of winter up on the Kitzsteinhorn glacier in Austria. I was doing the first part of my Landesschilehrer. (LS1). 

To explain you shortly there are 3 levels of ski instructors in Austria: the Anwaerter (beginner, peace of cake), Landesschilehrer (part 1, part 2 with snowboard and Alpine course. A little more tricky, but still achievable) and Staatlichen where you need to be a really good skier overall, don't know much about the criteria myself yet, but I believe with hard work and training it would be possible sometime in the future.

So back to how did LS1 go. The course started with 3 days of snowboarding. Me and my sister signed up in the Pro's. As everyone could get down the slope in a fast manner we were really quick on the theory and teaching parts and did some fun riding for ourselves. That was really good since it was the first day back on the snow after a 7 month break. We got cut off on our second day due to storms so only had two days of snowboarding. Going through the 'how to teach park' section was really fun as I haven't been doing it much myself. 

As this is only an intro there are no tests for the snowboarding at this part so it's no problem if you've never even been on a board, the full snowboarding course with exams comes on the LS 2 so you have plenty of time to train for it.

Thanks to our cool snowboard instructor Ernst, the two days we had on the mountain were super fun, same as last year where we had our whole Anwaerter course with him. Good riding put together with all the teaching and technique program, great laugh over the lunch breaks! 

Next day we started off with freestyle skiing, now with 41 people in the course we split into four sections to learn all the freestyle and kids part. First day on skis now after a 7 month break and it's a new pair of twin-tips I've never skied on. Off we go. Started with how to teach kids parallel skiing, then into slope style, then some technique and park section. First time trying the boxes with skis, lots of fun. Knowing I'd want to try the side-slide I put on my protector pants and good I did because turning the skis sideways automatically made me do the alpine basic position. Which does NOT work on the boxes, haha! Slipped out immediately, but didn't matter since I had the protector on! 

Of course it wouldn't have been me if I said no to 'should we do the intermediate' jumps? Still first day on skis, but I was up for it! First jump did good, on the second one was missing a bit of speed, so didn't really get over to the sweet landing spot. Anyway, lots of fun!

From the next days I lost count what we did each single day, but overall it was a lot of moguls, short turns and carving turns. Being in the top group with Klaus was really hard in the beginning for mainly two reasons. First, as we were only 3 non-native German speakers out of 11 he was talking very fast Austrian German and second I didn't have the feeling that I have full control over the skis.

Those two combined, the first days were a war between us. From aprrox. day 3 it got better, either I started understanding the dialect or he slowed down or both combined, haha! Also skiing started to go better, so the next days turned into very productive skiing. 

As I wanted to get the maximum out of myself in this course I was never satisfied when I heard 'that was ok'. I wanted to know what to do to hear 'that was good'. So I knew it was ok most of the time, but I was pushing myself really hard to get it good. And for that I really appreaciate the way Klaus was working, because he fixed everything step by step, starting with the most important and then to details, so it also made perfect sense for me. 

I remember the first two days I was also flying out of the mogul course all the time! I was so frustrated, because I had never done the man made zipper line, I was always doing a wide slope with hundreds of moguls that I could pick from. Here I only had one way down and I had a problem with that. I was so happy when I finally got all the way down in one go! From there on it improved rapidly! 

Quickly going through all the teaching 'how to' and back to skiing, I loved that! Theory lessons in the evening was a good German training along with studying some of my Anatomy course I had taken with me.

Now to the exam part. The theory was available on both German and English, although same as last course, the English translation made so little sense I stayed with German. With that passed, next on was teaching, where I got my topic 'children snowplough to parallel skiing over jumping'. Quite easy since it was a topic I had done in real life already. Managed it through in German well (so I think, haha!), then a few questions to get my English grade too. 

Only skiing left now. Started to feel the pressure. I knew I would pass, but I wanted to do my best. My goal was to get an overall 2 (The Austrian system, where 1 is the best through 4 is passed and 5 is failed). So as I did my warm up run on the moguls I could feel that some of them were really sharp, so had to be careful in the middle. I skied a little more careful than I usually would as flying out would for sure be worse. So made through the whole course in a nice zipper line, absorbing every single mogul, I felt so relieved when through the course! 

Next on was short turns. A little worried about those too, because hadn't been able to get the rhythm fast enough. Technically good, but slow. Listened to one of my favourite songs on my iPod and off I went. Held the speed OK, but I felt I wasn't steering the skis all the way through, the thing I could only do when going slower. Happy anyway!

Now off to carving turns. Christian (another instructor) made me laugh when he said 'whoever thinks he's positive on the first two can go home!' That obviously made me relax and as I pushed off for my start it helped me to put everything I learnt over the week together in one run. That along with the perfect slope and steepness gave me a feeling I really did my best there! 

Done! Now we went up to the moguls once more to film them, but I was so relaxed and unfocused I couldn't even finish the course! So we decided to go down and wait for the results. 

 Sitting in the classroom and hearing my name. Georg (the boss:) goes 'zwoa eins eins, wo ist die Lauma?' Beating my goal I managed to get an overall 1 in skiing! My eyes were probably the size of a golf ball for a second! I couldn't believe I got the best score and the best of the course! It felt so surreal! For sure a motivation to get through the part 2 quicker.

A big shout out and thanks to everyone there for the great time and experience! Ernst for snowboarding, Klaus for skiing, my group for helping me whenever the German part was too fast, Jordy for lending us his car, Lukas for taking pictures and many more!

Now doing my Uni stuff that I've missed, working as a waitress, training in acrobatics and planning my winter season! 

Keep in touch!

~LI

Wakeboarding video from Spain ' 12

Enjoy!

Thanks to everyone who has helped me to get this far! It's been a progressive season and I'm looking forward to 2013 already, having new goals to reach and tricks to land!

Thank you Ronix Wakeboards Latvia and www.gymnastics.lv for supporting me and allowing to get better at what I love to do!

Remember, live your passion.

~LI

On my way home.

Weeks like these remind myself how much I love wakeboarding! 

And it's been so good, tried Raileys off the skate, started going for switch Frontrolls and switch Scarecrows. Just like every new trick I rushed way too much, but still they were so close, I nearly had that switch Scarecrow done in one set. First new trick next season for sure. A couple of Tootsie Roll attempts, switch TS 540 close and I have switch Tantrums solid now! A sketchy TS Backroll, and got back Scarecrows. Nice week!

Thanks to team Xtreme Gene for taking care of me and Manyasha! Thanks Carro, DC, Dylan and Andres for coaching!

London gave my body a big shock when I walked out of the Gatwick terminal. +1 C was unexpected for sure! Quick run from train to tube to train to cousin's house begging her to let me in, haha! 

She shared her warm clothes, pair of warm socks, because my shoe choice is flip-flops or Crocs slippers and went to Hyde Park and Camdens later on. I really like how different London can be from part to part. Now looks like we are going out to a Halloween party! Should go and get ready!

Pictures coming on the next post from Riga, the cables are packed too deep to get them out now. 

Have fun!

~LI

Spain, Xtreme Gene 5

Went to Cordoba last night, had a great time with Team Xtreme.

Raileys today!

Being here the whole week, watching others riding and pulling away all those tricks is really inspiring to get out there and try it myself.

Finally I did it. Tried the Railey off the skate behind the boat. I managed to go all the way out! Early take off and standing up tall towards the boat made the landings bad though. However I'm really happy I gave it a go! Definitely achievable!

Thanks to Carro and DC for being in the boat, making sure I don't die out there and encouraging!

Tootsie Roll drills after that and one attempt, where I managed to tap the handle, but didn't grab it yet (chicken noise).

Raining now so looks like more rides coming up tomorrow.

Spain, Xtreme Gene 4

Sunny and warm out here today! 

Been a tiring day, taking a lot of crashes. Started off with TS Backrolls, overthrowing all but two. So a couple more under my belt. 

Beginning of the next set did some of the regular tricks, a solid Frontroll landing and then a super early Tantrum take off which literally made me eat the wake and then smacked me on my back. Ouch! Kept going, landed a sketchy Tantrum, went straight into a switch Tantrum and did it so much better than the other! Still can't believe it! 

Then tried Tootsie Rolls again, starting to understand the pull, but still freaking out once upside down, so didn't reach for the handle even when I'd turned it in. Oh well.

Third set switch 540s, still taking off super-early so missing a little bit on the rotation.

Looking forward to something completely new tomorrow, time to figure out what's it going to be! 

~LI

Spain, Xtreme Gene 3

Been a good day out here!

First set trying billions of Indy Shiftys to prepare for the Batwing which I never got, haha. 

Second set did a massive switch Tantrum, then tried HS BS 180s, quite close, but still coming down on my heels, then went for switch TS 540s, it was totally not my day for them and it never came around. 

Delicious chicken breast salad for lunch, going in the boat, watching DC and Carro ride for some inspiration and then off to my sets. 

Tried the TS BR, I'm so freaked out about under-rotating that I kept doing 1 1/4 rolls the whole time. On the final set for today I managed to land two, hooray! Then started trying Tootsie Rolls. Went for two tries, it feels weird, but definitely achievable, so that's something I want to keep trying while I'm here!

Resting now and preparing for tomorrow!

Spain, Xtreme Gene 2

Hey, hey!

It's been a great day out here! Had two good sets behind the 210 in the morning. Had a good warm up with some inverts and HS 360, then went on trying toeside 540s. They're nothing close to ride away, because I start spining so early it throws me off axis and out of control. That's something I still need to work on a lot. 

Then on the second set went straight into switch Tantrums, it took me ages to set up, but when I started doing them every next one went better and better, after 3 good tries and letting the handle go I finally landed one! Then Carro was shouting from the boat to do a Halfcab Roll which ended up looking like a switch Backroll where I let my hands go once upside down. Got it all the way round, just still have no idea where I am in the air. Haven't worked them out on the trampoline either, so it's a bit tricky travelling that direction. 

Anyway. After that got straight into another 2 switch Tantrums in a row! Felt so good as if I've been landing them for ages. Then another Halfcab Roll attempt, this time I actually made it closer to it, but still letting go half way up in the air. 

Got windy in the afternoon, so we decided to wait for our sets and get some tan. Instead of calming down the only thing the wind brought was cold air and showers, so more riding postponed to tomorrow. 

And thanks to Manyasha my today's sets are in video, that's a start for a montage!

More news tomorrow.

~LI

Spain, Xtreme Gene 1

Started riding yesterday and had a super-nice first set, did most of my tricks and then started working on switch toe 3. I've landed it a few times, but it's nowhere near being consistent as I keep over rotating. So today I started going for the switch toe 540, got the spin around, but ended up back foot heavy as I obviously took off early. 

Then on the second set today I decided to give a go for the Scarecrow again, focused really well on doing it just like on the trampoline and landed my first one way out into the flats! Felt so good! Then tried Indy Tantrum, but my energy was so low by then I kept on missing the board, haha! Finished the second set with a clean Frontroll landing, so happy about that! It's only the second time this season I've done it! 

Will take my camera down for the third set so I actually have some footage from Spain. :) 
 EDIT:
It went cloudy in the afternoon so video shooting is postponed. I had a nice third set, got that Scarecrow massive and out into the flats with the first try again! Then went for the Toeside Backroll, it's pretty close every time now, just have to fix that bending on the last part of it.

I did a lot of stretching after my set, so it's a bit easier. Then Carro and Dylan went out for a set each. Carro did insane, throwing Whirlys and Raileys like it's no big deal. With Dylan I actually had trouble recognizing tricks, had never seen a Front Mobe, so impressed!

It's moments like these when I get my inspiration, I see someone doing it, so it feels real and achievable. Looking forward to tomorrow!

~LI

Amazing photos from 2012 by E.Glotovs

For more wakeboarding photos click HERE.

One day in August

Here's an awesome video we did with TravelOutThere.
Riders: Lauma Ildena and Vita Valheima.
Camera: Ivars Veiksa.
Boat: Ivars Ildens.
Riding at Udensklubs.

Summer review

Hello, hello :)

I've had a great summer wakeboarding, teaching others to ride, working as a waitress and simply having fun. The heat hasn't been an often visitor and I switched to long suit in middle of August already! (Last year by this time it was still boiling in a shorty!) Since end of Aug I'm riding in my new Billabong Synergy 5/3 2013 Winter wetsuit which keeps me warm for an hour easily so I can continue longer trainings as the Autumn sets in.

This year I opened the season extremely late, around June 12, so I'm willing to have that bit of extra riding before the long (I mean loooooooooong) winter comes. Also to extend the wakeboard season a bit me and my friend & student Anna-Maria will be going to have a week of riding at Xtreme-Gene, Spain this October. It's been 4 years since I was last there and I'm anxious to meet everyone and see the new site!

I've spent a lot of time in the Olympic Gymnastics Centre to prepare for the season and now restarting the trainings to stay in shape for Spain in October and ski instructor courses later in November, a big shout out to www.gymnastics.lv for supporting me the third year in a row now!

This season I'm riding with the 2012 RONIX Faith Hope Love board and boots, it's a brilliant ride I get to use thanks to our local dealer Uģis from Aquasports.

As we counted in the Udensklubs ride register book until August 25th I've been on the water for a total of 13.5 hours, including a set on mono-ski, hydrofoil and wakeskate one each. I've added a few hours as I'm writing this post, but it's still surprising how little it's actually been this year.

Here's an edit my dad made from a set earlier in August.

I've been focusing on learning those backside spins a lot, I've always known how to initiate the spin, but I was never able to land one until this year in a training I just felt the urge that I HAVE TO try them again. Been working on them every set from that day on and finally getting the understanding of where exactly I am in the air. 

Another great week was when I went to have some sets on the System 2.0 with Jonty Green coaching and that being my first week on the System I learnt the air Railey! So excited! I really want to bring it to the boat, but my brain's still saying not to do it. Oh well, later then.

New boat trick of the season is a Switch TS FS 360.

However I'm still very inconsistent with my spins as I work very little on them. It's getting better now, but it's still a long way to go.

I've been trying to get the TS BR back, but I rush it so badly on the small wake there's no chance I could ever ride it away like that. I've tried a couple of other switch inverts, they're missing some pop on the toeside jumps and holding on to the handle on heelside, haha! I'll keep working.

Another news you might not know yet I've started my University studies as a Nutritionist. Should keep me interested! 

My biggest goal now is to save up enough money to be able to go wakeboarding to Florida the next summer. I know already that my salary won't make it within this time (unless I find a much better paid job), but I really hope there are great people around able to help and if it's meant to be then things will sort out.

Starting from Monday they say the weather is getting warmer and the wind is calming down. Can't wait to set up a photo shoot with Eduards Glotovs (www.eduardsglotovs.lv) it's been way too long since we last did one! I'll keep you updated.

Live your passion,

~LI

25th of February from Zell am See

This has been a hard week for my body and mind and I was more than glad to have my day off. Since it’s been warm the last few days and snow has turned into slush, I decided to take my Oxess out for a ride this morning. Went up to Gipfelwelt, through the tunnel along with 4 other crazy German guys I met on the way. As we did not want to walk back up there was no other choise but to take the ski-route. Not a problem on a fine sunny day. The thing is, all we could see was a plain white cloud everywhere we looked.

So, aiming for good luck and laughing that if we go wrong it’s going to be 5 of us climbing back up we started travelling down. That was the second time I got dizzy at the top of Kitz. First one was early in the season when it was storming and the Gipfelbahn was stopped halfway due to wind. But this time I had my board on and was riding down somehow.

Boy, how happy I was to see the first slope marking! It was the only object that wasn’t plain white! The slopes were perfectly groomed and not to mention that we were the only ones travelling down from the very top. I did have a feeling I’m going fast, but since the Oxess board is so stable and visibility still wasn’t giving any clue, I realized the speed when started to brake to catch the T-bar up once more. Took at least twice as much time and effort as I expected to actually stop.

Kept travelling down, still no clue about speed or terrain, so returning to Alpine Center in one piece was a great feeling!

Although cloudy and even rainy in Zell village, went out for a walk, some shopping, went on the lake to watch some kite-skiers, then around the lake back home, met some lady on the way offering to tell my fortune to which I declined. 

Looking forward to next week!

See you soon,

Lauma

15th of February from Zell am See

It’s been an exciting month! Much fun working and improving skiing. For a while had a really nice evening job, waitring in a restaurant. Too bad they have enough staff, I’d like to continue it!

In the beginning of the month had a 6 year old Russian boy who I had to train for some competition back in Moscow, that was a nice week, we were able to start the morning with going down a black run.

The last two weeks I’ve been changed from private lessons to intermediate children groups. First week was an impressive test, had a tri-langual group: German, Russian and French!

This week began very intense, Sunday morning I had a group of 14 kids! Good thing I had someone to help me, because when I was nearly at the bottom of the baby-slope, the last kid had just barely started moving from the top, haha! In the afternoon the group was split and with 9 kids we already went up to the real slope.

Two 7 year old cousins are Danish, one 4 ½ year old Russian boy and 6 English kids. They are such an amazing group together, when someone falls down they help each other to get up, even the smallest one did it! He gets picked up earlier from the group, because he still needs to have his afternoon nap :) Everyone’s doing the exercises, hitting the bumps and half-pipe, willing to race and even behaving on lunch time!

The best thing I heard today was one of the girls saying „no, daddy, I don’t want to ski with you, I want to go with Lauma, because I feel safe skiing with her!” I’m really looking forward to tomorrow to see who is going to win the race, they’ve done such an amazing work during the week, I can’t stop smiling! :)

18th of Jaunary from Zell am See

The previous week has been very fun and interesting! 75 % of the lessons have been on snowboard, so I might demand a green uniform!

Friday the 13^th is always a lucky date and this was no exception. I had an amazing ski training, starting off with carving and short turns. Later on as the others had to leave for work, at the end it was just three of us hitting off-piste and moguls! Off-piste is still a mental challenge, but I really love moguls now! Although it was an exhausting morning, that was the best day of skiing in the season so far! Thanks to our amazing instructor Anthony!

Friends from Latvia drove over and brought a package from our Mom. Some good Latvian food & beer, yummmiiiiiii!

Sunday was a fun day, had a friend from Kaprun visiting, so we hit Sonnenalm slopes with our snowboards. Tried out the Ski-Movie, although on snowboards, haha! Right after that took the T-bar with 53% steepness. That was the hardest lift I’ve taken in a long while! We nearly rolled down in the powder snow just getting started on it, haha! The red uniform gave a motivation to hold on, but I for sure know which lift is crossed out of the map now. Still have a bruise on my leg! :D And Liva had a great laugh, because she was going behind us and on skis. Ha-ha-ha.

A perfect noon to ride for ourselves!

A cold wave had stopped by, one morning the car termometer said it's -18 C. No wonder it felt chilly outside! :D

 

 

The car used to be blue, but someone re-coloured it!

 The next afternoon went to visit Blizzard ski factory in Mitersill. That sure gave a lot of insight! A lot of the work is done by machines, but even more is actually hard work. And the costs of the machines are insane, now I can understand why the ski costs that money and no less. Did you know that some skis have up to 100 layers of different materials? Having this insight of how stuff works was really cool and definitely going to be useful!

Yesterday and today had very cool guests snowboarding, quick progress and at the end of the lesson both got confused and struggled to remember which one is their front foot, haha! And also both days have been in English, which made the whole thing super easy!

For tomorrow morning have a complete beginner snowboarding, so let’s see how that turns out. Too bad that the weather is getting bad again, I would sure enjoy more of these sunny days! Hopefully it’s going to be some fresh powder and not rain as some forecasts say.

Fresh snow and sun, can it get better?

Come visit Zell am See/ Kaprun!

Greetings,

Lauma

11th of January from Zell am See

I can’t believe it yet, but it stopped snowing! The sun was out bright today for the first time in a long while. 

 These few days have been very challenging and examining. Difficult students to work with and two emergency calls within the last three working days. Hopefully there won’t be any in the future, thank you, that’s been enough.

Yesterday went out to Diesel Kino, watched Carnage. A good movie, although serious, some of the phrases were hilarious. After that our little company agreed to have a drink in B17 which also turned out to be a very nice place. We nearly agreed to sing karaoke, but couldn’t choose the song, so left that for the next time, haha!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings, hopefully it will go good.

Zeeee Russian speaking instructors

Cheers,

Lauma

7th of January from Zell am See

It’s been snowing impressive the last two days! The snow piles in front yard are nearly over my height, the slopes are amazing soft. The funniest thing today was doing turns on a narrow slope down from Cafe back to slope and on the side the powder snow looked exactly the same as the packed one. Within 0.1 seconds my skis disappeared under the snow and I found myself lying head downhill and hopelessly trying to figure out what happened!

When the day seemed to be never ending it all changed up in the meeting point, so I worked with a very frightened woman in the beginning (thanks to her two amazing friends who inspired her by telling how they broke their leg and hip when skiing). However, as the day continued we increased the speed so it started to look like skiing. I was very satisfied with how she worked and she loved my company, so we’ll continue tomorrow. :)

The day before yesterday went to Saalbach with my three amazing black-piste kids. Had an awesome time doing exercises all day long, what they loved the best was the price for being so awesome on skis, we just took them off and went to have fun in the deep snow! They wouldn’t care that it took like 10 minutes each to get the skis back on, haha! So I got invited to their house for Russian Christmas, first in my life. They had put enormous effort to make a concert, three kids took our attention for at least 20 minutes telling and showing a fairy tale.

The only thing I don’t like is the fact I’ve caught a bad cold and bit of fever too.  Don’t feel it when skiing, because there’s so much else to think of, but once off the skis and have to carry them around feels like they’re going to take me down to ground. Other that the fever and being misjudged as hangover it’s going good! Day after tomorrow is for sure a holiday, maybe that’s going to get me back on feet properly.

Warm and soft greetings from snowy Zell am See,

Lauma

3rd of January from Zell am See

I’ve had amazing time on and off the mountain! About 80% of my lessons have been in Russian so been speaking the language every day for nearly two weeks. What surprised me the most, I’ve been asked twice now by native Russians if I come from Russia. I guess my accent isn’t too bad. Also had a couple of lessons in English and one in French; that was my favourite! 

On Christmas evening I baked an apple pie, so we had a delicious treat before sleep. A few days later received a package from home, full with Latvian sweets, om nom nom! Went down town on the December 30 with some friends from Anwaerter course, had a great time there. As we continue working, on Silvester night I only made the room tidy and went to bed to wake up in the next year. I really needed that sleep; it’s actually amazing how good my body is trained now to wake up early. I wish I had this discipline while I was in school, haha! 

This paragraph is for native Latvians: my sister was checking the weather forecast and I asked: “Ko tam saka?” To which she replied: “Nezinu, pasmatries pati!” A nice conversation in Ratvian we had there. :D

The last two days had a private lesson with a 6 year old Russian girl. It was her first time in the mountains, but we had such an amazing time! She was very talented and amazingly clever. We even discussed other skiers while on the chairlift; she noticed the differences in techniques. And as I was saying that this or that is wrong she figured out why all by herself. Unfortunately as the season is on its peak there was no way I could continue skiing with her, the next days were already booked for me in December.

Now I’m having lessons with 4 kids aged 7 to 12, all have been skiing very long comparing to their own life time. Was going on red slopes in a polite speed and they kept following. We went over to a black run, did it half way down and as we stopped I answered the question that ‘Yes, it is a black run’ they would say ‘Oh, I thought it was red!’ So we even did some exercises and they still kept following me really close by. Will be having them for a couple more days, looking forward to it! 

The winter is surely flying by quickly, chasing it to enjoy as much as possible! 

Take care,

Lauma