I had expected a big turnout for the first night on snow, but the road conditions must have really cut down the attendance. We had 35-40 students in total

Wax party: The "Gang Wax" is at 10 am at Thatcher’s place in Withrow. (8 miles NE of Whiter Bear Lake) Watch real skis being waxed and get help and hands-on practice doing your own skis. We’ll get you started with your base prep if you have new skis and demonstrate glide and kick waxing. Afterwards we’ll have a Potluck lunch. Bring a dish to pass. The club will provide beer cheese soup and beverages. Bring cookies, bars, salsa, salads, breads etc. Whatever you like. Bring your own tools and wax. If you haven’t bought wax yet or need some extras. I will have a limited amount of wax and tools for sale that I picked up at Joes for 25% off. It’s yours for my cost. At a minimum you’ll leave knowing what you need to buy.

Clothing: Check out samples at the wax party. I want to get the order in by next week. Check out the size charts on the web site. Get you order to me ASAP.You can pay when you take delivery.

Forum: Be sure to join the forum and view and ask questions. No new subjects since last week. Ride and Glide Forum

Jan Road Trip: The trip is filling up fast. With all this snow it should be just like the good old days up there. Waist deep snow. Jan 3-6. People leave Thursday morning, Fri morning, and Fri night. Car pools of course. Skiing at Blue Hills, Birke Trail, Wolverine, and ABR. About $35 per night for Fri and Sat in Montreal Wi. Thur night is free at my cabin. Let me know. Spouses and SO’s welcome. Blue Hills and the Birke Trail will actually be skiable for a change. Should be epic.

Seeley Classic: Price deadline for the Seeley Classic goes up on Dec 15. There’s a form on our website. The Seeley weekend is a great trip. You can race if you want on Sat and then skate the birke trail on Sun. Or just free ski both days. Everyone really need to ski the Birke Trail. It’s a real treat and doable by everyone. Need a place to stay Sat night?

Weekend skiing: Fantastic snow conditions everywhere. Get out there. My favorite areas are William O’Brien SP, Willow River SP, Elm Creek, Baker and Lake Elmo. But you can’t go wrong anywhere. Enjoy it while it’s here. Some of us will be at William O on Sunday. Probably around 10am. E-mail for more info.

Steve Thatcher comments...

We had about 20 intermediate skaters. We spent a few minutes warming up and getting used to the feel of snow again. We skied without poles for a few more minutes. Free skating or skiing without poles is a very good way to warm up and a good way to get the balance back at the beginning of a ski session. Everyone could benefit from free skating for 10-15 minutes at the beginning of your workout. Especially in the early season. Work on relaxed skate and glide from side to side. Nice and easy long glide to help develop you balance on one ski. We then skied over to the Lexington Flats area. We split up into two groups judged to be "high intermediate" and "low intermediate" Kurt and I took the "lows". We spent more time on V1 and then moved on to V2. I suspect Tom’s group went pretty quickly to V2 as the soft conditions made it good for V2 work. With deep snow it’s important to set your ski down flat so it floats over the snow instead of digging in like it would with the more edgy V1 technique. V1 is your "Bread and Butter" technique. You need to have a good V1 to get you up the hills. Flats are easy and most anything works and that's where V2 and Field Skate are used a lot, but in the long run if you can't climb hills you'll be miserable. So we spent at least half the night working on an easy relaxed V1. We did this on flat terrain. True V1 is a hill technique, but you can really work on the important timing aspects by just doing an easy V1 on the flats. Back off on the arms. Just use them for timing and to keep you moving. We practiced the V1 in a big loop with everyone being pulled out for one-on-one work with an instructor. Review the V1 article on the website and check out the images and video. You intermediate and advanced skates should really study the video of Ahvo (lower left) doing V1. That’s how you want to ski.

Tom Harris comments...

We started out the night with a short V1 review. The V1 starts with a 3 point thrust/landing (1 ski and 2 poles) to the strong side. The movement feels a bit like skooching a refrigerator with your shoulder and hip. You push sideways, and both the shoulder and hip push simultaneously. Getting a powerful strong-side start is what fuels the V1. This energy is carried through the whole stroke with the pole push and the weak side recovery.

We then moved to V2 since the soft conditions favored learning this stroke. The rhythm is pole-skate...glide...pole-skate...glide.... We get our bodies high and aligned over the gliding ski and then execute the pole-skate. (We pole over each ski.) The poling is straight back, not offset and the poles are planted parallel. A good drill is to first review the basic double pole and then practice double poling with most of the weight on one ski. Switch to weighting the other ski after several pole pushes. A final pointer describes where to look while executing the V2. The body tends to go where we look. I found if I look slightly to the outside of the track of the gliding ski (during the high and aligned glide phase), the weight gets positioned over the glide ski better and I glide farther--try it.

We did a few more things, but I'm out of time. I'll try to write more about the other strokes in the weeks to come.

We had a small group, but a great time! After a short warmup ski, we created a small loop where we could ski uphill using no poles and work on both specific strength and knee drive/accelerating the ski as we push. On the way back down we rode each ski as long as we could balance on it – working on balancing from the core and not just the lower let. Once finished we picked up our poles and put it all together, good feet, quick explosive push and good body position. After a cool down ski we were done.

Jyneen Thatcher comments...

Gene and I split the group and found a corner of the course to work in. My group started from the very basics, just like dryland, but now encumbered by long slippery sticks on our feet. But the group did very well, catching on to the subleties of knee bend and arm reach. All of those present had been on skis before, so we didn't need to spend much time on downhill survival techniques. Much of the time was spent skiing without poles, or with adapted poling techniques. We did a fine job skiing in a practice loop, and received several compliments from the Sisu-Skiers who were out there.

So, if you didn't make it last night (and I know that a lot of folks made a cautious decision to avoid driving) get out this weekend to play in the snow. Even with the amount of experience my group had, they were still a bit wobbly for the first few runs, until they regained their feel for gliding around.

Another reminder for future classes (or free-ski days) pack along dry gloves for the drive home, and think about bringing a dry shirt to change into for the drive. If you get covered with snow, it melts in the car and you get wet. Or if you dress warm enough to stay comfortable while talking through a drill, you can get sweaty while skiing. And remember to plan for recovery food and beverage. Whether you prefer a sports/protein drink, sugar and caffeine, or drive-thru burger, you need something to replenish the calories expended. I don't want to hear about any car-crashes resulting from low blood sugar.

Gene Goldenfeld Comments...

The group's first night on snow was primarily devoted to getting familiar with those muscles again and working on body position, rhythm and timing. A lot of fun but not so easy in several inches of powder, supplemented with skied-in tracks. At the start there was a sorting process; those who are still sliding their skis, as opposed to having developed a real push (kick) and glide, were sent over to work with Jyneen. Readjustments can be made later as skills evolve.

After some no-pole striding, we went over to the SE hill and practiced a jogging or running herringbone. Low hands, lower than many realize, are a key here to getting a good push while allowing other body parts to contribute.

Our typical approach to the use of class time will be some instruction and practice of skills, followed by taking them skiing. We covered a good amount of terrain last night, culminating with a climb to the Como's high point and a ski off. Making it down through deep powder on long classical skis takes some skill.

Since class members will no doubt be skiing this week (except for one snorkler), I thought it important to introduce double poling before we called it a night. The key is to pole down into the legs from a strong position with an ab/shoulder crunch (and ankles flexed), rather than pull against oneself with hands way out in front and straight legs.