TRAINING UP-DATES

BOARD BALLET

This post refers to the system through which Grant taught me to get rhythm in my turns. The goal of our session was for me to turn myself without his prompts, so basically going from left to right to left (without obviously hitting the pillars on the right when I go right and without hitting the wall on the left when I go left) At first grant told me to count after each turn.. So we would go left and then I would start counting 1 2 3 4 and then I would turn right and count 1 2 3 4. After a few runs we hit a high of elegance I hadn’t experienced up to yet, Grant who at all times been riding behind me, comes by my side, and starts humming dad a dad a da…dum dum…dum dum… dad a dad a da… dum dum… dum dum. He was urging me to ride by his side. On the Da Da's we would ride to the right and on the dum dum's we would ride to the left. I’m sure we broke numerous snowboarding fashion norms. My sincere apologies to all :-)

Talk to my friend as the blind man ain't listening...

An interesting phenomena most blind people face and indeed most people with an obvious disability face, is people refusing to speak directly to them and opting instead to speak to who ever is accompanying them. After a few cool looking runs on my first day with Grant we were approached by a snowboarder.
Random snowboarder:“So is he blind?”
Grant:“Yes he is”
Random Snowboarder:“So how long has HE been riding for?”
Grant:“Why don’t you ask HIM?”
Random Snowboarder:“How long you been riding for?”
Me:“I started this year and have had about 20 days on the snow in total”
Random snowboarder:“How’s he finding it?”
Grant:“Dude just ask him”
p.s. really loved Random Snowboarder it was very nice of him to approach us and we really like it when people do.
p.p.s. maybe it was nothing to do with my eyesight but my sheer muscle and pure good looks that scared him from asking me directly!

New Instructor for the UK

Eventually getting back on the indoor slope I had a new instructor as Daniel Lloyd finished up with me for the moment as he has recently become a Daddy to a lovely baby boy. I got a Scottish lad called Grant Gallacher. He is at the same instructing calibre As Keith McIntosh and has ridden with him in France. He narrated a little story of him and Keith riding back country. On approaching a small cliff he seen Keith in the most calmest of fashion perform a beautifully executed back flip off the cliff (and I was always under the impression that Keith was a fat guy thanks to Neil McNab’s descriptions of him).