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!

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

Amazing photos from 2012 by E.Glotovs

For more wakeboarding photos click HERE.

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

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

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

Nationals final stop VIDEO

The new 2011 Latvian champion - Lauma Ildena! 

The link for 3rd stops photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karte_foto/sets/72157627470831825/

Here's the video resuming all three Nationals stops!

Enjoy! :)

Nationals stop 2

So last week-end was the Nationals 2nd stop, had an official training on Saturday where it went really good, nailed all the tricks I wanted. On Sunday when the competition started, in the beginning was going easy with grabs & 180s, finishing the 1st distance with a sweet Backroll which I was stoked to ride away in competition again. Had in on training runs after Worlds all times but one on Saturday morning when took a set at the lake before the official training when it cost me a mysterious good morning sunshine back edge.

Then for some reason I decided I could throw a Frontroll without really pushing off the wake which ended up with a just drank half the lake fall. Went for another toeside jump, followed by a Tantrum (which is no doubt my favourite invert now!) and then into a Scarecrow where I once again forgot to take off, haha.

There's so many tricks now I want to go out there and try while riding, but I can't figure out where to start from and the worst thing is once I start riding I keep forgetting I was up to try something new. Instead I just keep drilling my existing tricks to perfection. Have to remember the next time! Another trouble is that autumn is coming so quick, the water temperature has dropped to +19 C which is not exactly the kind of water you want to stick in for too long despite all the wetsuit opportunities. And it's getting hard to fall in too. But I'll be giving it my best as long as I can.

Now here's some pictures, enjoy! 

Life's good; news about June

So to start with, June 17th was my graduation in secondary school. Despite of all the travelling and busy days earlier I managed to be one of the rare to finish with excellence, receiving an honour medal. Have to admit I was very surprised and pleased about such fact. My window sills were full of roses and other flowers I don't know names for in English for more than a week after, an enormous thanks to everyone who made it to see me.

 

With my class teacher.

With principal.

My  ex class 12A

All graduates with teachers.

I don't remember if this was before or after the 17th but at some point this month I managed to land a switch toeside 540 with the very first attempt. Imagine my surprise! Now for the rest of the month all I've been working on is spins, spins, spins. Mainly on the handle pass as that's the slowest thing happening up in the air for me, haha. 

Soon enough, on the 23rd and 24th it was time for Midsummer celebration. As most years I did it in a 100 year old country house as a kinsfolk reunion, sleeping in hay, picking wild strawberries, eating fish smoked on a bonfire and grandma's delitious bakery aswell as a good bottle of beer and some activities. Ofcourse, my sleeping rhythm always sets me up on Midsummer night and when everyone's supposed to wait for the sunrise I went to have a nap. As the alarm went off at 4 AM so I could get up to see the sunrise, it was too warm and cosy under the blanket to get out and actually watch it. HAHA, next year, again! 

From the roof top. Mom's cousin on the right working to get the honey out of the bee house.

There it is, have a look!

At the bonfire with my Mom & siblings.

Just across the field, mhouuuuu.

Where history and the 21st century meets.

Two days later, some relatives came over and had a great day on the water, both parents had a ride on waterskis and we taugh the same to their 6 yo daughter, although scared, but she loved it! 

For now as I am back in the city, going to the lake and working on spins again. Since it's really windy the last couple days for tomorrow I decided to go to the gymnastics hall and get some shape back there. Other great news is that thanks to company CBI I am sponsored for a weekly training camp here with Adam Dennis. That surely will help before the start in IWWF World Wakeboard Championships in Milano, July 13-17.

Live your passion!

~LI

One more day in FL before the cold Latvian spring.

Feel free to listen to this song while reading. 

 

As a complete opposite of the storms last week, my final day of riding was super sunny and hot, and it had the best sunset too!

The pressure I put on myself on week three was enormous and at some points it was my best friend, but some my worst enemy. As all the inverts were so close I wasn't ready to go home with an "almost" trick. April fools Friday was when I got down my Switch Roll which took less than 10 attempts. I think that was the moment when I understood what Andy meant by saying that I have to believe I can ride away from the trick and not expect the magic one. And if I can do two inverts switch, why couldn't I land all those in regular?

Monday. Giving every new invert a go wake to wake. Then second set going for the Tantrum until I finally got it. And not just lucky one, but three in a row! Stoked! Third set was my fun ride in the beginning, though obviously too excited about the day, took the worst Frontroll crash I've had. Just as I was thinking of really over rotating to do a pretty landing instead of the ugly butt slide, didn't take enough momentum and caught my edge on the second wake which was followed by a mercy less full body slam. No way I'd end up my trip with that, so got a couple more passes with fun stuff when Andy said let's go for Toeside Backroll. For some reason my legs would resist to jump high, but they did enough to make me ride away!

Lauma Ildena, Amber Hansen.

Joni Hansen, Lauma Ildena.

Once again in this trip I was speechless for a second. Two inverts in one day? I though I was dreaming, but thanks to the boys it's caught on video.

From being scared of even trying a new invert, within three weeks I landed five. And I'm sure that's nowhere near to stop. When I first saw some pro videos many years ago, my favourite trick became Whirly Bird. And back then I told myself laughing "I'll become good enough to land one someday!" without really believing it... the thing is...... now I finally DO! 

Whirly, Lauma Ildena, Andy Hansen.

Most likely that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't rode with Andy. The amount of my fear was insane, because trying something new might mean going out of control, fall, getting injured and being forced to quit wakeboard, snowboard, dance and pretty much anything else my whole life has been built around. But Andy found a way to get the lines out of my head and go for it. Well... for a good while I was still going for the trick with the lines in my head, haha. But I was actually going for the trick and that was huge! Then later on not only going for it, but landing! I truly admire Andy for all his incredible skills, the positivism and encouragement he gives out and the patience he's got to tell the same things over and over again. I wish every wakeboarder could experience that amazing feeling I had while being in WWC.

 It took 5780 votes from all over the world to help me win the contest and get there, and I really can't express in words how thankful I am to all the people who believed in me and made this dream come true. Wakeboarding is the passion I want to live through and they gave me the start. What I now hope and pray for is that I'll have the opportunity to continue riding more and more to get ready for the 2011 IWWF Wakeboard Worlds in Italy, July 13-17 as well as later on this year the Europe & Africa championships which will take place in South Africa in December. More trainings in Florida please.

Nothing is coincidence, love ♥

Lauma Ildena

Words are not enough.

I told you this place is golden.

Hansen's WWC.