Casual Clothing: Sometime in the next few weeks you will have a chance to order R&G casual clothing. Coach Dave had some samples there last Tuesday. They are quite nice and at attractive prices. You can choose from long sleeve denim shirts, Sport/Golf shirts, long sleeve sweaters and t-shirts, all with discrete R&G logo's on the upper left chest. Suitable for workouts, ski parties and golf.

New Year's Day: I think we should do the traditional New Year's Day ski at Elm Creek. With all the new snow the entire palce should be open. It's quite nice terrain when you can skii the whole area. Possibly a little instruction, maybe some videos but maninly just skiing. Bring a lunch. More later. Also open to changer if conditions warrant.

Writers Competition: Remember you are included in a drawing for gift certificates at Joe's and Finn Sisu everytime you submit an article for the newsletter. Click the link on the web page to send it to the Editor (Shad) Pictures too. Let the "Muse" stike you.

Pretty good turnout for two days before Christmas. I think we had around 70 people out there. That brings up a good point however. When I asked how many beginner skaters there were when we were upstairs only about 10-15 people raised their hands. When Coach Ed counted heads he had 40. Please try to be upstairs before about 6:40 so we know how many people we have in each group. Last week we could have shifted some coaches around had we known what the head counts were. So again please try to be on time and go with your assigned group.

We had about 30 intermediates. After e brief warmup skiing over to the Lexington Hill we made everyone V1 up the hill so we could see what ability levels we had. I assumed we would have a lot of people who were struggling with V1 but to my surprise we only had 3 or 4 who needed basic help with their V1. Dave volunteered to take that group. We split the remainder into three groups and we all did "Solo Coaching". Dave's group and the other three got the same V1 introduction, we seperated the ability levels so the members were with people of similar ability.

Steve's Group: We started off by "Free Skating", skating without poles. The conditions were really good and fast so we had no problem actually Free Skating up the hill. It's good to practice skating without poles as it develops your balance and "skate off". We tried several passes really emphasizing the skate off. Concentrating on agressive skate motions and exagerated weight shifts. A common problem is that people stand up too straight or if they do get down initially they rise back up on the strong side as they pole. So we made people ski up the hill in a severe crouched and bent over position. This is not proper skate position but it's used to show people how much power they are missing by standing up too straight. Everyone was amazed by how much more power they had in that lower position. We worked on the skate motion in this lower position for a while and then had people dial the position back to a more typical stance. Staying down is very important. People were typically sitting too far back when they did this but that problem can be fixed after you develop the low body position. Then we worked on the forward lean to get the weight forward. I find breaking V1 climbing down into these two concepts to work quite well for teaching proper V1. Get low first, get used to it, then work on leaning forward to get out of the "Back Seat" We spent about an hour on V1 and then finished off the night working on V2. More on V2 next week. No one wanted to go home we were out there until almost 9pm. A very nice night

Kurt's Group: Although the breeze out of the East occasionally tempered our enthusiasm, it was a very nice night to ski. My group of intermediates mostly work a medium-grade hill near Lexington Avenue, practicing V1, double-poling, some downhills and a bit of V2. Since our group was small and had been out several times already this year, we able to focus on some of the finer points. Starting from a relaxed posture and then trying to remember to relax those same muscle groups while skiing. Getting a slightly better push by planting the pole baskets a little closer to the ski. Focusing on how your center of gravity can be a little forward, or a little backward, and seeking the happy medium. Using the hands to 'steer' when you are skiing downhill. Hopefully all of the folks in the group got a chance to incorporate these thoughts into their future outings.

Dave's Group: Our small group worked on V1 up hills by skiing with no poles to work on weight shift and then adding in the poles. We especially worked on poling all the way onto the off side ski and everyone seemed to 'get it'. With some practice skiing on the new snow, I think they all will improve their ability to climb hills.

We also spent some time on Open Field Skate and a bit of V2.

Tip of the day: Every time you go out to ski, hold onto your poles for the first 5-10 minutes but don't use them. Ski without poles is always good practice to get your rhythm and smooth weight shift before you bring in the poles.

Ben and Todd's group of approximately 20 skiers enjoyed nearly perfect conditions while we practiced our V2. After our warm-up Ben video taped us as we did no poles V2, double pole, V4, and finally a "normal" V2. We did not spend a lot of time analyzing the video, but took a quick peek at our "true" body position as compared to our "perceived" body position. The V2 points that were emphasized: a quick, powerful accelerating the ski kick, good alignment over the ski, getting our hips forward by flexing in our ankles, getting on top of our poles, starting our compression by bending our knees. We we went to the long gradual hill by Lexington and displayed our new found technique. Just a reminder that hills usually act as a magnifying glass that illuminates any faults to our technique. Try to monitor what was going wrong before you passed out. Finally, most of us completed the rest of the lap at Como at a social and probably festive pace anticipating the huge white gift we will hopefully be receiving.

Here are some times from the Como Championships:

Mens 10K:
Peter Aggen: 30:56
Kurt Ware: 33:48
Tim Nelson: 36:32
Thomas Kunau: 38:07
John O'Connell: 39:07

Sue Richardson started but didn't finish. Conditions were much better than you'd expect after the amount of rain we got!

Words from the editor - Shad Holland

Well, last Tuesday was my first day on skis in the Advanced group. The worst part about advanced is that Ben carries around a video camera.....and a player so he can show you how you did right away. In my case, how bad I did....:-).

Okay, so in reality I love the technology being brought out to class. Seriously....what a better way to show someone instantly how they skied! Not only that, after seeing myself fumble a no pole V2 on the video.....I made sure I put in a lot more effort so I didn't look that bad again. That is a good thing because I know I am trying and learning.

Advanced is a whole new level of skiing. I am not sure I can call myself advanced yet, but I feel I will get there by pushing myself to the next level!

Awesome snow and really great weather we have been having. Go out and enjoy it while you can.