World Cup Motivation

Cab 540 tail grab, B Ma photo

The last couple of weeks have been pretty intense. I competed in my first ever World Cup in slopestyle followed just after by the Burton Open Global Series stop in Canada where I competed in both halfpipe and slopestyle. The level of riding at these competitions was the highest I've ever competed against. At this stage in my season and career, I'm focusing my efforts on improving my riding and skills, rather than trying to win at contests. I need more practice with bigger, more difficult tricks before I can step up to this level of riding. I feel good about the progress I've made so far this year; I'm excited to get back to Whistler to keep at it and have a great time while pushing myself to new limits.

Gap 270, B Ma photo

These contests served as a huge wake up call for me to really start to giver with my riding. It was pretty humbling not making it to finals in any event over the last couple of weeks but it was also very motivating; I'm now focused on improving as much as I can before my next big competition. It sucks not making finals. That being said, I was happy with my riding in the competitions. I was riding better in my competition runs than I was in practice; Nothing like a little pressure to get the adrenaline pumping! I landed some new tricks and figured out how to improve on some others. I also learned a lot from watching some of the worlds top riders killing it, double corks!

Switch Backside 540, B Ma photo

My brother (B Ma) happened to be in Calgary running a training camp for some Arctic Winter Games hopeful kids from the NWT during the World Cup. I was able to do a few laps with them and reconnect with where I started, pretty similar to them. They were really excited to have a chairlift and some nice jumps to ride. Good luck to those boys and all the NWT riders in the upcoming Games! Brendan took some cool photos of me competing in the World Cup (above). Thanks bro!

My friend and Westbeach team rider Robby Balharry placed third at the Burton Open Slopestyle, beating out sick pros like (Air and Style Winner) Marko Grilic. It's pretty huge for an amateur rider to podium at a prestigious event like the Open. Way to rip Robby!

- A M

World Cup Spot Clinched!

It came down to the last minute for me to even compete in the Calgary NorAm. I suffered a back injury the week before the contest while riding the pipe. It seized up and I was in rough shape. My focus suddenly changed to doing everything I could in order to get my back better. In the course of a week I attended 3 physio appointments as well as 3 chiro appointments. I was improving every day but it wasn't fast enough for the start of the competitions. There was a halfpipe competition on Friday and one on Saturday followed by a slopestyle on Sunday.

On Friday I made the tough call to drop out of the halfpipe contests. It was more important for me to get my back healthy for the rest of the season. The following day, I felt well enough to ride and tried a few jumps on the slopestyle. I was able to compete in the slopestyle the next day and felt great. This scenario reminded of my experience at the Canada Winter Games a couple years ago when I competed with a knee injury, completely cold turkey and placed 5th. That is one of my most memorable athletic achievements to this day.

So here I am, standing at the top of the course, headphones blaring in my ears, bindings done up tight, trying to breath and relax while getting stoked at the same time. The starter radios in "Andrew Matthews, dropping in switch" and gives me the go ahead. I land my switch back (s/b) 5 really well and remember thinking 'Andrew, that was one of the best s/b 5s you've ever done, you better land this run!' I then line of for my front 7 mute. I spot my landing and, oh no, I'm still flying through the air. I send it deep but stomp. A few seconds later I'm sending a backside 5 and it's the same thing: there was the landing, there goes the landing. 'This is going to be really good or really bad,' I think to myself. Boom! I land clean. Then before I know it I'm in the rail section but I wasn't able to set up for the right side because I went so deep. I improvise and just get through the course.

That run got me through to finals where I only needed to land a run in order to make the upcoming World Cup (again in Calgary) as 9 out of 10 riders in finals made it. On my first run, I was shaky but stayed on my feet. On my second run (best run of 2 format), I did the best front 7 of my life, double grab mute and stalefish. Unfortunately I went down on my next trick, a backside 7, and so too did my chances of standing on the podium that day. My first run was good enough for 7th place and a spot at the World Cup!

So I'm off to Calgary again next week for my first ever World Cup slopestyle followed by the Burton Open Global Series slopestyle and halfpipe. Stoked!

-N Dub

Holiday Craziness

Happy New Year!

The holidays have been jam packed for me this year. I was home for an all to quick stay, fitting in as much as I could in the time I was back. Despite the craziness, it was amazing to be home in the winter. Some of the highlights were seeing my friends; snowmobiling; playing hockey on the lake; charades with family and friends; amazing food; and snowboarding in Yellowknife again.

My family traveled down to Whistler with me to spend New Years here. Our trip back to Whistler was pretty crazy. I made a video of it because, let's face it, that's way cooler than just reading about it.

With the Calgary triple header Noram less than 2 weeks away, I'm working my butt off to meet the goals that I've set for those contests. My goal is to land runs in the pipe with backside and frontside 5s and back to back 7s, upping the ante from last years at nationals were I was doing 3 different 5s and a 7. In slopestyle I'm also looking to step it up by landing my first 9 in a contest. These contests have a way of creeping up on you and before you know it, it's go time! I have to get my game face on pretty soon. That being said, I've been feeling really confident and stoked lately so we'll see what happens.

All the best in the New Year!

Cheers,

Andy

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday.

As for an update of what I've been up to, the last month of 2009 has been... epic? Yeah, epic pretty much sums it up - see also: legendary, grand, monumental. My coach and I decided that since the conditions are so good in Whistler, it made more sense to stay in Whistler to train rather than go to Colorado for the pipe camp/contest. Again this year, I'm focusing a lot more on my athletic/riding development than on competition results so this just seemed like the best thing to do. We have a really good program going this year, in addition to tons of on snow training, video review and photo shoots, we also have trampoline 2 nights/week and dryland with Eric Soucy one night/week.

Core training with Eric

Backflips all around! Ettore going large

Me laying one out

Louise helping Grame learn a backflip

The snow finally stopped around the start of the month and was replaced by some cold but sunny days. I've had some great days in the Black Park. I've got most of my tricks back that I was doing last year and a few new ones to add to my repertoire. I've been working with Rob on really dialing in my tricks this year. I'm trying different grabs and spins to try to stand out from the pack of talented riders that I compete against.

One of the riders in my club recently bought a new digital camera that takes really good slow motion video and we were playing around with that the other day. Check out the video edit below.

It's snowing like mad in Whistler again which made it tough to come home for the holidays. I had to change my flight to squeeze a few extra days in while the snow was awesome. As for now, I'm back home and enjoying the comforts of being home, seeing all my friends and nursing a frostbitten toe from last night's snowboarding session. I guess I'm not used to snowboarding at -20 anymore. I'm looking forward to snowboarding at some of the spots I grew up riding while I'm back so I better get used to the cold pretty quick.

Best wishes over the holidays,

Andrew