First Class Night: The 2007 Winter season kicked off on Nov 6. We’ve got over 130 members and 14 coaches this year.

Coaches - Beginning Classic (19 students)

• Jyneen Thatcher
• Ken Tobacman
• Arvid Krogsven (may help with intermediates)

Coaches - Intermediate Classic (11 students)

• Gene Goldenfeld

Coaches - Beginner Skate (37 students)

• Ed Corazalla
• Hank Carbone
• Jon Kosbab
• Todd Nesvold

Coaches - Intermediate Skate (42 students)

• Steve Thatcher
• Tom Harris
• Kurt Ware
• John Bradford

Coaches - Advanced Skate (20 students)

• Ben Popp
• Erik Erickson

The night began with introductions and information on how things will run this year. We will meet upstairs at Como Golf Club House at 6:30 and usually be out the door by 6:45 for the evening’s activities. The room will be open by 6:15 or sooner. So you can come in and put on your boots and warm up. Don’t leave anything inside by the time we are done for the night the doors will be locked. Full session of dryland start next week Nov 13. Watch for e-mails every Monday on what’s up for the coming week.

Check out the Website often as it is updated at least once a week on Sundays. Additional e-mails near the weekend if any weekend activities are planned. The contact e-mail list for the club is ski@rideandglide.bizland.com. This will get you everyone in the club. Be careful if you do "Reply All", your message will go to everyone. I will send out a list of all club member’s e-mails soon. Just names and e-mails. No phone or address.

If you are reading this and have not received an e-mail from me via the above address, please contact me, there must be something wrong with the address I have for you our you ISP if filtering the messages. sdthatcher@att.net

News from Steve…

Welcome back: Long time club member Eric Nevialinen has returned from Iraq after over a year’s deployment. It’s good to have you back in one piece. Good job. Check out this picture of Eric in Iraq standing in front of the Ziggurat from 2006.

Dryland training: We hope to get in at least 2 or 3 sessions of dryland before we start looking for snow. We can teach the movements, especially to you beginners, better on grass than on snow. If we don’t have snow by the first week in December we may consider heading out to Wirth Park or Elm Creek or even Trollhaugen to take advantage of their man-made snow, assuming it exists by then. It’s a long drive for some so we’ll still have dryland sessions at Como as well. We’ll just split the coaching staff. The practice we do on grass is very important in learning the proper motions in a controlled environment without long boards on your feet and sticks in your hands. Don’t blow it off, It’s important. For the advanced people it’s more of a strength and fitness session. They won’t learn as much technique during dryland given their experience. Their technique work is better done on snow. Beginners and intermediates will move into more of a workout as we progress though the movements and you begin to master them. Then when the snow flies you’ll be ready to go. Please be sure to take in a 2 or more dryland sessions before it snows. Otherwise you won’t know what your instructors are talking about. We always review so missing classes is not a big problem.

Thanksgiving Trip to ABR: The annual trip to ABR to get some early season snow is scheduled for Nov 22-25. Most of us leave Thursday night, after Turkey Day dinner. Some people drive up Friday morning. We are staying right on the trails at ABR in the River House. We can handle 8-12 people depending on the mix of couples and singles. I’ve got 9 people signed up so far. Definitely carpooling. Lodging about $30 per night. There’s snow on the ground up there right now. They plan on opening this weekend. Let me know. Similar trip again in Jan (3-6th).

Clothing: I have several pieces of clothing left over from our last purchase. We can make another order. Let me know your interest. I’d like to get the order in by Thanksgiving. I have a lot of hats at $12. We also have long and short sleeve bike jerseys. A long sleeve jersey makes a great ski top. Vests and jackets. Vests are a very versatile item of ski clothing. Everyone should have one even if it isn’t in our "Gang Colors". The jackets are great for training. I use mine most of the time while training. I save the lycra for races. We don’t have training/warmup pants but they really work well for training. You just slip them on as apposed to wrestling with tights and they are warmer. See pricing and size chart on the web site.

Equipment and Sales: If you need equipment, your first stuff, or you need to upgrade, we will have an equipment day at 2 areas ski shops. Joe’s and Finn Sisu. Joe’s will be next Thursday Nov 14. 6:30 I think. Finn Sisu date is still TBD but will be on a Sat or Sun morning, most likely Dec 1 or 2. Joe’s has a limited selection and will work better for classic than skaters. Finn Sisu is the best choice all around. The way this works is that I meet a group of you at the shop. We talk about your goals and then I help you decide classic or skate. Waxable or waxless, Race or touring. And then, with the budget in mind, we select the best stuff for you. Accessories and wax as well. If you’re looking for clothes or wax Joe’s would be a good choice. Also Midwest Mountaineering’s Winterfest is a good bet for clothes as well. Equipment not so good. I also have several pairs of new skis, wax and accessories I got from a former club member. I hope to have them available for viewing at next week’s class. Needless to say they will be excellent prices. Watch for e-mail warnings next week.

Wax party: After you get all your new equipment you need to figure out how to take care of it. We always have a wax party on a weekend in December out at my place in Withrow (NE of White Bear Lake) Here you’ll see actual skis being waxed and be able to do your own with help from our expert instructors. Afterwards we have a potluck lunch and sometimes head over to Trollhaugen to ski if the snow is good. Watch for it. If you have questions about equipment or waxing check out the links on the web page and feel free to e-mail me or talk to a coach.

We hung around indoors to go over basic positions and motions. We covered V1 only as an introduction to skating. We covered the strong side hand position, see the picture on the web site at the bottom. The we stepped through the V1 motions counting 1-2-3.

Ok Lets review.

Check out the V1 position article on the website

After the indoor session we went out side for 45 minutes to try the movements at a faster pace

Finished up with a spirited Snow Dance

After introductions, the Intermediate Classic group spent the evening inside shuffling and "gliding" on the carpet in socks. Working inside - best on a hardwood floor - is an invaluable way to introduce (or review) striding, since it offers a way to learn the proper body position, movement and rhythm of skiing and poling without having to worry about balance on sliding skis or dealing with the elements. Moving slowly across a floor also immediately exposes skiers' strengths and weaknesses, providing an opportunity for instructors to model proper technique and help make corrections in a contained area, while students get lots of repeats. With the invaluable support of Arvid, the group made great strides (pun intended), to the point where with a little reinforcing practice, just about everyone is ready for snow.

I'm not sure whether the group got divided up as planned, due to the usually first-night chaos. Hopefully, you all found a suitable group to work with. If not, be sure to let us know about it, so that we can clarify instructions better. But over all, that was a good introduction to how the evenings will go - inside the building for organization and announcements, then outside for the physical work. Until there is skiable snow, the building is opened specifically for our meetings, so don't expect it to be open after our workouts. This week was a longer than usual session inside, with a corresponding short time outside. Because we focus on technique and drills during class, you will be standing around more than if you were just doing a workout. So dress accordingly, with gloves, breathable jackets, and comfortable shoes. We do trust that we can find the right level of accommodation between the tortoises and the hares in the class, usually by sending the hares on multiple laps, and showing the tortoises the short-cuts. That way, we keep the group together.

Another point- the classic group doesn't always keep rigid separation between skill levels. Often, if there is a small turnout, we keep everyone together. The four classic instructors have different teaching styles, which we like to think of as complementing each other. And sometimes it's just fun to hear a different voice. So, let us know if you aren't quite getting "it" from your regular instructor. Also, let us know if you have suggestions or requests on how we organize the smaller groups. You can send your complaints to Steve (so they can be handled discreetly) but feel free to speak up during class if you have suggestions.