A little sun, a little rain

Another successful weekend up at the ramps in Lake Placid.  I was a great weekend, mother nature blessed us with a beautiful day on Saturday, and this weekend held off the snow on Sunday (thank you!!!!).  We saw a few new faces this weekend and even had a new comer to the ramp.  This weekend we saw Sterling Crescimanno, Lizzy Smith, Allison Benedict, Devon Savino, Darius Baradaran, Tyler Wadhams, Jeremy Gravell, and new comer Ari Schnider.  We had morning ramp times both mornings so everyone had the pleasure of waking up early and being in the gym at 6:45.  And when we weren't on the ramps, we had a blast playing Knock out (its a basketball game) in the gym at night for about 3 hours.  On Saturday Jeremy won 11 games, DJ won 3, Allison won 2, and sterling won 1.  Believe it or not the killington team has almost become descent at basketball, we're still not good but we're getting better. 

This weekend on the ramps, the athletes got a ton of jumps.  I saw a ton of backflips, some cork 7's, and a bunch of spins.  This weekend Sterling was working on keeping his head up and taking off more upright in his cork 7, and lifting in his back X.  Ari on his first weekend at the ramps, was working on takeoffs and his spins, and spins with grabs.  Lizzy continued to work on her 3's thinking about an even takeoff and staying "T"ed out in the spin.  Lizzy was also working on staying in the front of her boots on takeoff and finishing her lift in her back X.  Allison worked on her 360, and 3 X on Saturday morning, and then got to work on her back layout thinking about finishing her takeoff, and staying locked out.  Devon kept working on staying in a laid out position in his back layout and finishing his takeoff, and not kicking out when he is finishing his rotation in his cork 7.  Darius continues to perfect his back layout thinking about keeping his shoulders forward on takeoff, and also worked on his cork 7 thinking about being patient on his set.  Tyler spent the weekend working on his backflip thinking about finishing his takeoff and getting his hips through.  Jeremy worked on not trailing his feet in his back layout, and taking off more upright in his cork 7, and having a more patient set.

It was nice to have a visitor from the KMS staff, Anastasia Tirio KMS's Director of Development.  Anastasia paid us a visit on her way through after going to an alumni meeting for St. Lawrence University.  We thank you for stopping by and checking out what the freestylers do during the off season, come back anytime!!!

I just wanted to say thank you to David Schnider.  David is Ari's father, he took a few pictures for us on Sunday and posted them on line.  Please check out his photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/Runs26point2/2009_06_07?authkey=Gv1sRgCK3T0vvW1bmufA&feat=email# .  Thanks again David!!!

It was a great weekend, looking forward to seeing more of you come up to the ramps.  We are having a blast and getting a lot done.  Keep up the hard work and see you all soon.

Coach DJ

First ramp camp of the summer...or so we thought it was summer...

As Alta, Nick, Devon, Jeremy, and myself (Coach DJ) were driving up to Lake Placid we couldn't believe that it's already ramp camp season.  When we arrived at the pool on Saturday morning it hit us, everyone was smiling and pumped to start the day.  We had first ramp time so everyone suited up to take their first jump in the nice warm water.  Actually the water was 50 degrees and everyone had their full wetsuits on prepared for the chilly water.  Our group was pretty small and really productive, Nick Marino, Alta Curtis, Sterling Crescimanno, Lizzy Smith on saturday, Devon Savino, Dan Sullivan, Darius Baradaran, and Jeremy Gravell were the campers for the weekend.  All of the athletes got a ton of jumps in throughout the weekend allowing us to work on some basic skills, jumps, and then get right to business on the tricks they athletes wanted to work on.

Nick Marino started getting his back flips going, gaining confidence getting the flip around and then working on take off with the top down and the top up.  Alta Curtis was working on her Johnny Moseley 3 Mute, and then her back layout focusing on vision and arm position.  The Sterl D O Double G, worked on his bag of trick really focusing on his cork 7 thinking about patient take off and not dipping into the spin, Sterl also threw down a few loop truck drivers to mix it up a little bit.  Lizzy Smith started saturday off working on some big 360's thinking about not leaning into her take off, and with her back flips spotting out more on take off.  Devon Savino started right where he left off last season with his backflip and he is working on staying in a laid out position throughout the trick, Devon also got his cork 7 started landing everyone of them.  Dan Sullivan focused mainly on take off in all of his tricks, his 360's, 3X's, backflips, and loops.  Darius Baradaran worked on his back layouts which were awesome I have to say, and got his cork 7 going thinking of being more patient on take off and lifting off the jump.  Jeremy Gravell worked on his back layout thinking of staying strong throughout the flip not letting his feet trail behind him, and thinking of being more patient with his set on his cork 7 take off .

It was a great weekend, very productive, and really fun!  We got a ton of jumps, about 30 games of knock out (its a basketball game), and the ever popular interesting weather of Lake Placid.  IT SNOWED!!!!!  Yes I did say that it snowed, we couldn't believe it. 

Great job everyone, see you next weekend.

Coach DJ

Oh did I mention it snowed.

Teammates in the News...

http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20090513&Category=MCWTW03&ArtNo=905130351&Ref=AR

Hope everyone is enjoying the spring!

Everyone should be updating their training blogs at least every other day - Kudos to Alta, Darius, Ben and Emerson for keeping the coaches up to date with their training!

See you at ramp camp!

Coach Deb

Killington Spring Klassic Update

Ahhh..moguls are shoveled...still need a SERIOUS amount of stepping....woah!

The top jumps are built and we will get right on the bottom ones first thing in the morning.

Come as early as 9am to begin stepping. Be sure to do mobility before you come out!

We will see you on the course.

We will do video review in the KSC after training at 3pm.

Killington Spring Klassic

Hello All!

We are scheduled to build the course tonight and shovel tomorrow. Course, it is pouring rain - ahh! We are expecting to be able to offer training on Thursday - Mother Nature is in charge though. We will let you know on Wednesday after our day on the hill what the status is.

We are going to need lots of volunteers to help us run the event this weekend so if you are available - please email Sherry at salbert@killingtonmountainschool.org.

We will not have our annual KMS athlete evaluations during the weekend as DJ and Deb will be too busy running the event.

See you this weekend!

KMS '09 US Champs Team Arrives at Squaw

We are here!

The course looks fabulous and everyone is psyched to train today. We saw the TD, Ed Albert, at registration yesterday so we know everything will be to spec. I will share the specs with you later today. The course is right at the bottom of the hill. It should be a great event! The forecast is for warm temps all week and sunshine! (Course our crew is hoping for rain, cold and firm temps - we just like that better!)

We are staying pretty much at the mountain - our house is on the shuttle and the owners are right on site in an apartment over the garage (where they lived when they remodeled the home last year). Mike and Pam, the owners and parents of former Squaw freestyle team members, actually cooked a great dinner for us last night and you could tell that they missed the "freestyle community" that we are all still enjoying.

Enjoy your day! We are off the kick the courses' ass!

A weekend to train....

Looking forward to a productive weekend of training on Conclusion. See everyone at KSC at 8:30 on Saturday and Sunday.