Alpine Ski Club, Collingwood, ON – Feb 27 & 28, 2019
Although the road to Interski starts long before the event with Technical Team applications, tryouts, and selections it is at this final two day team camp leading into the event that it all starts to feel real.
Although our primary focus while at Interski is to collect knowledge and information from the other attending nations about their teaching methodologies and technical models, the team also feels a certain amount of pressure to be the absolute best representatives of CASI on the world stage. It is this second component that was the focus of our final team camp before the event.
With team members hailing from around the country, limited budgets, and conflicting schedules and commitments we don’t actually get to be together as a full team very often. This camp offers the team an opportunity to further develop the all important team dynamic while finalizing and polishing our technical demos, on snow, and indoor workshops.
Mornings were spent fine tuning our riding demonstrations and increasing our comfort riding as a team, at speed, in tight proximity. Our goals here are to showcase the CASI technique in a way that is exciting to watch within the format of an Interski demo slope. Riding in close proximity without sacrificing performance is an interesting challenge and we have chosen to limit the complexity of the formations in favour of stronger technical riding. Both short and long turns will be showcased along with some switch riding to highlight the versatility of our technique.
In the afternoons we took time to fine tune and review our on snow workshops. Each country is given 90 minutes to share with the other nations some information about their organization. Topics can vary widely in content….and quality! The Canadian sessions are typically very well attended as we are regarded as leaders in snowsports and our hope is to highlight some of key teaching strategies that we feel make our instructors successful at all levels. Watch this space for more details as the presentations are finalized and presented at Interski!
The final part of each day was spent working with our colleagues on the CSIA Demo Team to work out our runs for the opening and closing ceremonies. Incorporating snowboarders, skiers, and ultimately telemark skiers into one coordinated run that showcases the strengths of each discipline is not an easy task! The is made especially challenging by the lack of time available to slide together on one slope. Teamwork between all the members of each team is critical for success and the Canadian delegation was impressive in how well the teams worked together to quickly adapt to each other’s needs to create an exciting demonstration. Laughs were shared, crashes were kept to a minimum, only one of our team was buried in a wall of snow by a speeding skier. Success on all fronts!
It was a very full two days which helped prepare us and set the tone for the Interski Congress. We are all honoured to be a part of the National Technical Team representing CASI on the world stage at Interski and we very much look forward to sharing this journey and the knowledge we gain from it with the CASI members.
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