March 5 Update

Hi!! It was another great day here. Sunny sky's, cool temperatures hard snow. The GS and SL training was good. Challenging coaching both sets! I felt that it was a productive training session though! GS tomorrow. Suppose to be sunny again! Nice! The picture is of the guys asking for more training runs again! They are so aggressive!

Monday training

It was a sunny,cool, hard snow day! Well, same as the weekend. ICY!!!!!!! I was very surprised to see over 15 racers training today! Thanks season members! I am enjoying watching your progression into fast ski racers! I set 2 sets today. One very challenging, the other the same rhythm top to bottom. Both courses set at 25m distance between gates! A few new racers so I spent much time in the basic ski areas! I will set GS and SL tomorrow. One on #6, the other on #5. See you soon!

Weekend Update

Busy weekend! Thank you all for coming out! Still busy for Monday! Great job to those who raced on the weekend! Great results!

Ski test Update

Today was Rossignol test day for Accel Ski System! Takasawa Miho and I tested many new models. The sun was out and the temperatures warm, so the snow was on the soft side. In those conditions, with the course set at 27m between gates and medium offset my finding were as follows. 35m radius 195cm- I had to really keep my line high and start my turn right after the gate. Balance pressed down is the key with these skis. I had the most difficulty on the flat. It was soft snow so there was very little rebound from the ski. Again, the key was to keep the skis under my body. Next was the Masters 23 m radius 185cm- My line was much straighter with these! I could move side ways much quicker because of the bigger side cut. Lots of rebound from the ski. Easy to control on the steep and flat. TIME WAS THE FASTEST WITH THIS SKI! Easy and fun to ski on! Next was the 30m radius 188cm- To me this ski felt like my 185cm, 27m radius ski. I could start the turn smoothly on the steep and flat. The ski accelerated nicely. This was the second fastest ski. My overall findings- The 35 m radius ski needs a lot of weight, and power to turn it. Balance must be right on too! Takes work to turn it! The 30m radius turns nicely with good balance on it and aggressive power. A nice choice for a technically strong skier, with good power, and strength! Masters 23m radius 185cm- Easy to turn, fun to ski on , and fast! Some leg wobble on the odd turn because of the strong side cut. A good choice for skiers with less power and ones that have power. FAST! These findings are on soft snow! Not sure about icy conditions! I hope that helps you!

More pictures from testing

Special thanks to Takasawa San for taking the pictures!

Ski test Update

Today was Rossignol test day for Accel Ski System! Takasawa Miho and I tested many new models. The sun was out and the temperatures warm, so the snow was on the soft side. In those conditions, with the course set at 27m between gates and medium offset my finding were as follows. 35m radius 195cm- I had to really keep my line high and start my turn right after the gate. Balance pressed down is the key with these skis. I had the most difficulty on the flat. It was soft snow so there was very little rebound from the ski. Again, the key was to keep the skis under my body. Next was the Masters 23 m radius 185cm- My line was much straighter with these! I could move side ways much quicker because of the bigger side cut. Lots of rebound from the ski. Easy to control on the steep and flat. TIME WAS THE FASTEST WITH THIS SKI! Easy and fun to ski on! Next was the 30m radius 188cm- To me this ski felt like my 185cm, 27m radius ski. I could start the turn smoothly on the steep and flat. The ski accelerated nicely. This was the second fastest ski. My overall findings- The 35 m radius ski needs a lot of weight, and power to turn it. Balance must be right on too! Takes work to turn it! The 30m radius turns nicely with good balance on it and aggressive power. A nice choice for a technically strong skier, with good power, and strength! Masters 23m radius 185cm- Easy to turn, fun to ski on , and fast! Some leg wobble on the odd turn because of the strong side cut. A good choice for skiers with less power and ones that have power. FAST! These findings are on soft snow! Not sure about icy conditions! I hope that helps you!

Feb, 26 Update

No day off! Yes, I did still coach. It was only a half day, so I did kind of have a half day off. Better than nothing. Only one racers so it was kind of a private lesson. I think I should bump up the price for those! I went down to Suzaka see if you recognize the picture! Testing the new 35m GS skis tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes!

Monday Update

We were lucky with good weather! Sunny day! Great training! I was able to ski around with the group and give very specific advice in each basic ski area! They responded very well! Everyone is starting the turn much faster, there fore arcing more down the fall line. Nice work group! Looks like a day off tomorrow! Yeah!!! It will be nice to have a little rest! Thanks again everyone for the successful weekend! The picture is of the group asking me for " One More Run"!!!!!

Feb 20 Update

Hi!!!! It was as warm , Sunny Day!!!! It has been a long while since we have had a day like that! GS was the discipline we trained today. We worked on the basic drills and had some very good question and answer talks. That is the nice part about working with a small group. The drills are great if we are doing the right movement and if we know when to use it! No use in doing an edging drill if you are doing the wrong movement. I will do my very best to work in those areas and help you understand how to do the drill properly. If you can not do edging at slow speed in basic training, there is no way you can do it in a course! Another question was, do you have to use power? No, you do not have to use power! You will just ski slower than a person that is using it! If you have any questions please ask me! After meeting video viewing!

Doug's Update Monday

Hello !!!!! I am just resting after a day of training. We trained GS today. It snowed through the morning. Very wet snow! And because of that snow the track we skied was slower than usual. Great training conditions to improve in. We did get very wet, but all the racers focused and improved! I must say how happy I am with the season so far! I am so lucky to have so many racers that want to train with us here. Thanks everyone for your support and determination to improve! I hope to see you soon! The top of Tsubakuro today! Very grey!

Feb, 11 Update

Hello everyone, I would like to thank everyone for coming out this weekend! It was the busiest weekend of the season. Thanks for all of your support! It has been a exciting year for us so far. Many racers are skiing at new personal bests! Great job! It very rewarding to watch you all progress! Keep up the good work! We are training GS tomorrow. It has snowed quite a bit the past few days. Very icy in the rut though. Skiing is a exciting sport but accidents do happen! For those of you that have been injured we wish you all a speedy recovery! Please take care and we hope to see you soon!

Day Off! No shaving? New skis!

Oh, my first day off of the season! It was nice to have one day off the ski hill. As you can see by my fuzzy face in the picture,I did not shave my face and stayed in bed all day!!!!!!! Hee Hee! I actually did some other off hill work. Tune up some new test skis for next year. A pair of 165 cm SL, 155cm SL, and 182cm GS radius 23m. Of course Rossignols! We are training GS tomorrow. Should be good!

January 30 Update

We had GS training today! I set a course starting in the traverse run going to #'s 4,5,6! So again we had a big left hand turn going into the pitch

. Unfortunately the fog rolled in. No video and no pictures! Sorry! We are skiing GS again tomorrow. We have the whole hill to ourselves so I will set a course from the traverse once more. We have a mix of adults and kids so it should be an awesome day! Just a boring picture of me!!!! Hopefully I will have some action shots tomorrow!

Monday traianing

Hello! I hope you all had a good weekend! I enjoyed mine! Monday was a great day. It snowed for the first hour, then cleared off for the sun!!!!! We trained GS from the traverse at the top of # 4,5,6! So we had a left hand swooping turn to the left down the steeps. We were able the use 4

,5, and 6 so the set was very unique. Great day! SL training tomorrow! Bye for now!

Takeshi invades my room!

We trained GS today with all adults. A very good day. The snow was much harder, but there were a few ice balls around! Not too bad though. Tomorrow we will train SL Junior poles only! Takeshi has 2 more days of training here. He has been staying in my room because there are no other kids here. He has a lot of gear! As all racers do! See you soon!

Jan, 22 Update

Hi all, It was a wet day today. Wet snow and rain! We did train till 11am. Trained GS and did a lot of basic training drills. Takeshi did a great job going through them all! Kind of tired him out! Nice work! Did not take any pictures skiing. Too wet. Just some shots from dinner.

Monday training

It was a sunny and warm day today. I had three junior racers training. We skied GS in the am. SL in the pm. The sets were tricky. The guys did great! It is suppose to snow tomorrow. Maybe even rain! UUGGHHH! That would be bad. We will see what happens! Bye for now.

Camp Update

Hi Everyone, More races scheduled this weekend! Good luck to everyone! Just focus on simple things. Good course inspection, imagery of the course and your basic movements And FULL POWER!!!!!! All of you have been so focused in training! I am so proud of all of you! Keep up the good Work! We did get more new snow! No thank you very much!!!!!! I sure miss those icy conditions. But the soft snow is much easier to ski on to improve basic skills. With that hard icy snow comes more speed and less time to react. So in reality the conditions have been perfect! Only 4 trained today so again the racers got lots of runs in! See you soon!

Last nights fire festival

It was the fire festival last night. Fun to watch! Japanese culture is so interesting!

Gs training Tuesday!

Hi!! It was another awesome sunny day. We trained GS! The conditions were very good! Hard snow with lots of grip! We had mostly adults today! I felt all racers improved in some way! A successful day! Enjoy the pictures!