Back to Business

Hey there,

I'm in Calgary right now for 2 Noram halfpipe and 1 ASA slopestyle contests. My friend and fellow athlete of Whistler Valley Snowboard Club (WVSC), Kyle, has been kind enough to put our coach Joe and I up in his house for the time we're here. In the last couple of weeks I've been getting back to business. I've started back on my regular training schedule with WVSC and I've also started back to university. I'm taking chemistry once a week at UBC and spending the rest of my time in Whistler. 

I've been training a lot in the pipe lately getting ready for the Noram, that and my slopestyle board was being fixed. Brad at Showcase fixed up my board and it's all good to go now, thanks Brad! I've been working on my backside spins in the pipe, one of my weaker spins. I've been able to do them in contests in the past but haven't been really confident about them. I'm putting in the time and effort to get them right this time. It's hard to have the patience to take a step back in order to take 2 steps forward but in the long run it will be a lot better.

My first contest is a night contest under the lights of Canada Olympic Park (COP). That will be really cool, I've only ever done one contest at night before. We're going to train at night today to get a feel for it. It should be a good time!

Side note: Check out Flight of the Concords It's Business Time for a laugh.

Take it easy,

Andrew

Summer Video

Hey!

I'm trying out the video posting tool. This is the video I made from my summer trip to New Zealand. It was an awesome trip. They have some of the best terrain in the world for that time of year (August). Not only that but the country has amazing landscapes and tons of sheep!

Enjoy!

Park Pictures

Happy New Years!

Here are some pictures my brother took of me in the park recently. The park is really fun right now and it's only getting better. I'm stoked that the parks and pipe are up now. Looks like its going to be a great season!

On the weekend I'm planning on going to Mount Seymour to film my first Westbeach Airtime! It should be fun.

Best of wishes in the New Year,

Andrew

                                      

First Post: Colorado

 Merry Christmas everyone!

Thanks for checking out my new blog. I'm still trying to figure this whole blogging out so bare with the weird format. I hope you're all having a great time over the holidays. I'm spending the holidays with my family in Whistler, getting some awesome riding and training in here. It's finally snowing hard and the conditions are improving. The park has been open for a while and continues to showcase new features everyday while the halfpipe is set to open any day now. It's been a slow start to the season in BC so in order to get some good early season training my coach, myself and two of my friends (who are also competitors in Whistler Valley Snowboard Club) decided to head south to Copper Mountain, Colorado where they already had a world class halfpipe. There are some huge competitions in Colorado in December which all but guarantee that the resorts will build amazing halfpipes early in the season. With this in mind we booked our flights, packed our bags and saddled up for a new adventure.

We arrived to find a halfpipe in near perfect condition! The down side, an average of -20 degrees celsius weather forecasted for the entire week. Being from the north I felt right at home riding in these conditions. The first day I spent getting comfortable riding a halfpipe again as well as getting used to my new board. We were riding alongside some of the best riders from all over the world who had also traveled to Colorado to ride this amazing halfpipe.

 

After riding we did some video review and had a great session of preseason goal setting with our coach Joe. We also waxed our boards in order to ensure they were as fast as possible the next day. This became routine for the trip: riding hard all day then waxing, reviewing video and goal setting. I was excited to have the opportunity to ride such great conditions in the early season and to have a crew pumped on achieving our goals.

During the week I was focusing mostly on my line in the pipe, riding position, straight airs and small rotations. Why wasn't I doing back-to-back inverted 1080s you ask? Well, by focusing on 'the basics' I will be able to BOOST out of the pipe higher than the American flags, that were soaring high over our heads, in no time. I made a lot of improvement over the week on my consistency and feel like I have a solid foundation of skills to build on over the course of the season.

On the last day of the trip we  spent the day training in a different way... instead of hiking the halfpipe relentlessly or riding the park until the last chair, we spent the day watching other people snowboard. We made the short drive over to Breckenridge Mountain, where they were hosting the first ever Winter Dew Tour, to see how the world's best works their magic. We were watching the finals which included the likes of Shaun White, Danny Kass, Hannah Teter and Kelly Clark, all of whom are Olympic medalists (3 of them gold). The way that these professionals performed was amazing! It was really inspiring to see this level of riding. 

Thanks for tuning in :)

Andrew