Springtime and Landes ski instructor part 2

It didn't take me long after coming back home to Riga to realize I have something very important to get done this spring! I had that now or never feeling that I must not miss this course and wait for the next year. 

It had been about two days since I came home that we planned the departure date to Austria with my brother and for the first time my mum was coming with to visit us there.

Easter week and English school group week went by fast and in no time the Landes ski instructor part 2 had begun. With 5 days of snowboard instructor level 1 it started off as a big laugh. Day to day all we did was fooling around, learning flat tricks, being taught the right sequence of snowboard basics step by step, loads of lunch entertainment, warm up games and so on. Don't get me wrong, it's a serious course, but with all my wakeboard and snowboard experience I had no doubt about passing it, so along with learning those were the most fun days in the course because I was so relaxed!

Now to skiing. First day first run off-piste in quite a fast manner for me. Second run: still off-piste! It was really tricky as the snow was a mix between soft, hard and crust, so I never knew what to expect. It for sure took a lot of energy, but it was well worth it as I would have chose way easier lines to ski down from. Good push! Then my group was going for the box and jump section, that too was great fun and I learnt some new tricks, yay! 

After lunch no more fooling around, had to ski rhythm change so they can split us into the right groups. With a bit of luck I got into Klaus's group just as in Landes ski part 1 and I was stoked! I knew it was going to be hard work until the very end of the course, but with this little skiing as I had done in the season, he was probably the only one who could get me through the course with success.

From there on it was lots of technique training and teaching methods. Comparing to part 1 this course was 10 times more intense, because the requirements are much higher and along with the three terrain skiing exams we also had to prepare for the giant slalom and 'school' runs. And all that in the same amount of time. Every day was really hard work and I felt how much I've missed out on skiing by travelling back and forth instead of doing a whole season.

For example going down the X1 route in Kitzsteinhorn with race carving??? Since I had barely done any terrain skiing this season, I was satisfied with getting down in a controlled manner with no falls. What Klaus said about it? 'Technically good, but 10x too slow. I didn't say 5x. I said 10x!!!' All I could think at that moment was 'Somebody kill me please, before skiing does!'

 

In the little time we went into moguls I couldn't do them as I had strained my wrist the day before. Trying going there without the poles was even worse. With tons of tape and bandage we managed to block the movement that hurts, so I got the poles back in my hands. Not for long though as on the giant slalom training I crashed. On the same wrist. I think that was the worst breaking point. For a moment I had that 200% feeling that there's no way I can make it. 

Then I found a way to motivate myself. I was thinking 'dude, you tried a Railey behind the boat in Autumn and you're still alive. Railey!!! Your worst fear in the whole world! Why are you having mental trouble with skiing? It's the easiest thing!' This thought really helped and got me going again! 

On my teaching exam I got to do build up powder skiing. Soooo stoked! The only hard thing about it was the fog! We couldn't see anything further than 20 meters. I was so dizzy and dislocated I had no idea if I can even show the exercises without falling over, hahaha! Luckily I somehow managed!

Skiing exams? First day was terrain. My worst nightmare. Honestly I had a really bad feeling about it the whole morning. And this time none of the motivating phrases worked.

Happy that it started off with rhythm change, where I had some confidence left. Next up terrain. Good start and feeling ended up with me smacking and rolling down after the 3rd turn. I think I lost my ski before I fell, but I'm not even sure. So try skiing just as fast after that! Anyway, somehow I made it to the bottom, extremely frustrated, but in one piece. Next up moguls. We had a little break in between so I practiced down the course once. And ended up landing on my other wrist. So my mogul exam run after that was a disaster. Quite embarrassing knowing that I got the best mark in Autumn. 

Next day? School runs. A completely different feeling than on terrain. Confidence. Hadn't had that much in the week. Basic carving turns, long turns and short turns. More or less, they all felt good. 

Now only the giant slalom left. I was happy we had some fresh snow during the night! I really wanted the slope to be soft! Again with that Railey motivation I stood on the start and gave it a go. Usually as I go down the beginning is really good and I start doing mistakes from the middle. This time I did the worst on the top part and actually got into the rhythm as I was in the bottom. It was really strange having a good feeling at the end of the slope. After a long wait for the results I had made it!

And in the afternoon they let us know the other results! I had made it all! So excited! The hardest 10 days in a long time, but the result was well worth it! Next season? Of course I'm going to be out there in the mountains at least good 4 months to catch up what I missed this year! Starting off with the Alpine course that I still need to do to be a full Landes instructor. Where to then? Still deciding!

BIG SHOUT OUT AND THANKS TO: my amazing snowboard and ski group! FRITZ for such a wicked time on board! KLAUS for the huge effort to improve my skiing and gaining my confidence about it back! CONNY for taping my wrist together! SVETA for the bandage, because the damn Chemists was closed! My DAD for servicing my skis and board! BENJI and GÜNTHER for giving me the best teaching exam topics! FRANZ adjusting the bindings on my new skis when I was still sleeping in the morning, haha! Camera guys and girls! And of course everyone for a great apres-ski!

Live your passion!

Lauma

Where has she been all this time?

I had fantastic three weeks of mountain life in February, being on the mountain everyday!

Me and my sister both had an afternoon off, so we went skiing on our own. I was too lazy to carry the skis up, so instead I decided to do the Treppenschritt nach oben!

So happy about my friend Elīza, who made it out here for a whole month too!

Excited about meeting everyone from previous years and getting to know more awesome people!

I have no idea what's the telepathy about me and Diablo meeting in the exactly same spot on the way to Sonnenalm without any notice, but it's happened twice now!

The days I took off from ski school were so good for my skiing, trainings with Anthony and then more on our own, one day we went on a Saalbach/Hinterglemm tour.

My regular pair of skis broke, so started working with my twintips on that I would normally use either in park or sometimes moguls. Just as this happens at a short notice I get a 14 yo young man going down blacks at a decent speed. Oops!

The weeks ran quickly and I was back in Riga again!

January update

Wishing everyone a successful 2013! 

This year has begun with new ambitions and a few more clearer goals to reach in the nearest future.

I've started taking drum lessons! It's been something that has crossed my mind here and then, being involved in the dance games for so long gave me the rhythm and dancing in general most of my life has given me the passion for music.

Yesterday I had such a great day taking my 4 year old niece skiing! She did amazing! We only did a couple runs as the low temperature got out feet, but she loved it!

Not much left until I head to 3 weeks full of skiing and boarding, the thought of it keeps me going now! Also a good motivation to workout more! 

Have fun!

~LI

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.