Day one on skis again. Always interesting. Always fun.
This season, my 31st, it was Zermatt, Interski Training and what a way to start the season.
Amazing weather, iconic mountains, perfect snow and intense skiing with an inspiring group of skiers.
We had one run to warm up and find our feet, then straight into picking up the demos from where we left off at the end of last season in Hintertux.
We started with “4 Snakes playing”. Slowly to start off with, even walking through the demo to ensure we all remembered where we were and our particular role. 4 lines of 3 and I’m at the back of the 3rd line. We are wanting to have 3 changes of pattern in each demo, making the demos visually exciting and interesting but simple enough so we can still focus on high performance skiing and make our skiing strong and representative of BASI’s philosophies.
Number 3 in line 3, I follow. This is a good one for me to settle back in, tune into my skiing again and focus on being precise. Without any space or capacity to be distracted by my inputs, it is all about directing the skis where they need to go for me to stay on the line and get the spacing right. It’s going well.
Demo 2 is quite different. Three interlocking diamonds – “Funky Diamonds”.
I lead the back Diamond of 4. Shadowing Amanda leading the front diamond for the first 9 turns before switching my focus to crossing with Lynn, the leader of the second diamond. As Amanda’s team peel off, we continue to cross with Lynns diamond for a further 4 turns before she peel’s off. I have to remember not to go with her, but keep the same tempo as they break right. We then put in a further 4 turns before breaking left into punchy turns and joining the end of the line for the finish.
I struggled with this one to start with, getting the turn shape and tempo from Amanda and then figuring out when my focus needed to change and where to change it to. The last couple of runs at it were better, not being distracted as the pattern changed, and able to tune more into the quality of skiing.
Tomorrow brings the revamped version of probably our best run at the last congress “Tickle, tickle, bang, bang” and another day working hard to show the very best of BASI to the rest of the world.