Happy New Year 2019!

Happy new year skiers & riders!  It's been far too long since I last posted; my new year's resolution: write more content!  I won't make any excuses, but the at the end of last season I was far too busy actually skiing to have any time to write about it!

It's January 1, 2019, and the busy holiday period is all but over.  I have the luxury of a day off today, which isn't such a bad thing as it's liquid snowing outside and I'm trying to get over a cold.  The end of last season was a real high for me.  I was awarded a Logan Scholarship to attend the PSIA National Academy 2018 at Big Sky, MT.  I've not skied out west for a few years so to do some big mountain skiing was amazing.

I was asked at my ski school fall refresher to say a few words about National Academy, and for me the biggest take away was career development.  I got to ski with multiple National Team Members, as well as Ed. Staff coaches from other divisions of the PSIA.  I've only had about 4 weeks on snow since then but I already feel my skiing has changed and improved massively.

So onto the 2018/19 season.  I am psyched to now be considered a staff trainer at my home mountain of Stowe.  The season kicked off with leading a bunch of on snow clinics for our returning veteran staff, and being asked to lead groups during our Fresh Tracks was an honour.  Fresh Tracks is our own in house mini academy to kick off the season.  This was followed by a quick 5 day stint in Colorado to do some free skiing.  I met up with a couple of people I skied with at National Academy, and those few days really cemented my NEW short and long term goals.

Now is a great time to set some goals for yourself.  Want to reach the next certification level?  Need to take some continuing education credits?  Or just want to improve your personal skiing?  Now is the time to link up with a trainer at your home mountain and set those goals.  January is a great month for this as the mountain is quiet and the event calendar doesn't start ramping up until February.  I, of course, am only too happy to help anyone with their goals so leave a comment or shoot me a message!

For me, my goal this season is to improve my understanding and execution of the exam assessment activities so I can better help coaches at Stowe reach their certification goals.  There is also an Eastern Division Tech. Team tryout in March that I have my eye on.  Longer term, I hope to understudy as many PSIA events as possible in my role on the DEV Team, ultimately making the ETS and becoming an examiner.  I also have another goal I'm working towards, but I'll keep that one to myself!