Final Evening Together

Well, it's happened again. Here we are, at the last night of SDSC for 2017. And as has been typical of the wild and fun ride that has been the last couple weeks, we finished with a fun party. The celebration was full of dancing, games, and s'mores cut short slightly by a passing downpour. The kids were able to dry off quickly and have now spent the allotted time packing for tomorrow's departure. As we wrap up yet another edition of SDSC, it has been great to see the energy from this group once again here at the end of one or two weeks (depending on the camper), and what seem to us as lasting friendships that will hopefully continue after everyone leaves the Round Hearth tomorrow.

Thank you all for tuning into the blog this week, and we look forward to seeing you all tomorrow for closing ceremonies after we have one final field session with games in the morning.

Afternoon Hike at Trapps

This afternoon we bused to the Trapp Family Lodge to hike the paths.  Originally we had Mt. Mansfield on the schedule, but we studied the weather last night and made the call to change the elevation due to a high chance of Thunderstorms this afternoon.  Fortunately for us, we got all the way up and back without a raindrop.

The trails at the Trapp Family Lodge are made for Nordic skiing but are some of the best in the country due to their hilly climbs and descents and elevation gained to the top of the climb.  Last week some of our groups made "The Cabin," and this week almost all did!!  Our two oldest groups even continued on and made their way on the snowshoe trail up and around Round Top, adding more challenge to the adventure.

Since it was so hot the last few days and we are pushed to the limit after two hard weeks, we had to make a quick stop at the river on the way back for everyone to get one last SDSC jump in!

Explosion Session with Gar Trayner

This morning we were greeted with sunshine and humidity for our last field session of SDSC 2017.  Gar Trayner, Director of Athlete Development at Killington Mountain School, joined us as the featured coach.  Gar enjoyed an incredibly successful career as an athlete on the British National Team, and competed in the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, finishing 22nd.  When Eric introduced Gar to the camp this morning and shared that he skied in the Olympics, the level of awe wasn't quite where it should have been.  I interjected:  "Does anybody know who Bode Miller is?"  The answers of YES came out of all mouths.  "Well Gar beat Bode Miller in that Olympic Slalom,"  and the crowd went nuts, and several sought out his autograph at the end of the session.

We've been very fortunate the last two weeks to have staff coaches (Eric, Micaela, and Danny) who know what the campers are getting for instruction and curriculum daily so if there is a hole of info or guidance they are missing, we are prepared to fill it.  We are EVEN MORE fortunate that our two guest coaches (Martin Guyer, US Ski and Snowboard Eastern Region Director of Development, and Gar Traynor) have brought unique ways to think about the same topics we instruct daily.  While we all may have the same end goal, there is more than one way to get there and we need to bring as many different ways of thinking and explaining to our sessions.  These two guest coaches really increased the value of our education with their approach, their energy, and certainly their accents (Martin is from Australia and Gar is from England)!!

The Swimming Hole!

Tonight we took one of our favorite week one activities, The Swimming Hole, and stretched it out for the whole evening.  The Swimming Hole is just a few miles from the Round Hearth and always a camp highlight. Having an hour and a half to swim let campers perfect their dives off the diving board and figure out how to master water volleyball. It’s always interesting when you get a bunch of athletes in the water, they just can’t seem to stop competing! Whether it’s handstand contests or seeing who can go down the water slide faster…. plenty of fun was had. We returned home to pretzels and bedtime, looking forward to our explosion session with Gar Trayner!

Cady Hill Mountain Bike

This afternoon we made our long-awaited return to the Cady Hill Mountain Bike Trails in Stowe. While some groups continued on the Rec Path to get ice cream in town, others zipped up into the woods for some serious single track biking.

We returned to the camp favorite trail, Florence, which is full of bank turns and smooth rollers. Campers were hooting and hollering, smiling, and having a blast. Even some of our youngest groups made it into the woods for the first time! Although we had to shorten the ride a little because of weather, we still had quite the afternoon! Plus, the rain cooled us right down on our way back to the Round Hearth. Perfect timing!

Tonight we are heading back to The Swimming Hole to make up for the other day, and although we are all a little weary, excitement certainly hasn't diminished.

Speed on Skates

This morning, SDSC traveled up to the Mount Mansfield parking lot for our last instructional session on skates. Today we focused on speed, starting with running form to again link all the different elements of B-A-S-E into thinking about speed. Then after working through proper tucking form, Danny set up multiple GS and SL courses for the kids to run. For those who haven't seen an SDSC skate session in full, it's pretty impressive. Today we had four lanes as if on the top of a glacier in France, with lanes to work on athletic stance, hopping, and then two full lanes for GS and SL.

Danny reiterated much of what we have been working on all week. Mainly four key elements of skiing and turn shape: identifying the transition, being balanced in the transition, rolling ankles to start the turn, and identifying the rise line. It was cool to see campers focus on those, and then look for more and more speed as they got comfortable. So much of ski racing (and SDSC) is about pushing our limits in a controlled way, and today was a perfect example of that mentality.

This afternoon we are back to Cady Hill for more singletrack mountain biking!

Rest and Relaxation - Movie Night

Today was an awesomely action packed day – it was beautiful out but it was HOT! After we returned from Johnson Skate Park there were lots of sleepy faces so we kept tonight's activities to a minimum and had some room cleaning and relaxing before movie night! 

We try to teach campers to push themselves to the limit during both our instructional and alternative sessions but also emphasize how important rest and recovery is to optimize athletic output. The agility session really worked campers physically and the skate session challenged them mentally. After warm showers and a nice big dinner of chicken and risotto, campers grabbed their pillows and headed to either a showing of Sing or a showing of The Lego Batman Movie. Can you guess which was more popular?

And When We're Done Skating... We Find a Different Way to Train

Johnson Skate Park WEEK 2!!

After a hot morning of field work, we bused over to Johnson for our weekly visit to the Johnson Skate Park.  At first glance, the park looks like a tarred platform with obstacles thrown down wherever space needed to be filled, but once you spend time rolling it becomes clear that the spacing of ramps and bowls and quarter pipes come together for a nice flow from one end to the next.

Last week we had our first skate instructional session cancelled due to 20 hours of rain and then hopped into the skate park.  This week, all of our young athletes benefited from yesterday's session testing our balance, working on athletic stance, and testing movements with speed.  From first attempts at the 8 foot bowl drop to first attempts at the quarter pipe to first attempts at the low ramps to slalom turns in the cones at the far end, everyone tested themselves in new ways.

It was exciting as coaches to hear phrases we are trying to drill into our athletes repeated BY our young athletes to us AS WELL AS to each other.  "Athletic stance, tighten your core, hands out in front, flex your ankles," etc.  Repetition is the way to break old bad habits and make new PROPER movements become new habit.  1000 reps or more, to put it in a ballpark figure, but those repetitions have to be done exactly the right way.  That's the main reason kids get bored and want to move onto thinking about something else or trying something else.  It is a challenge to keep them patient enough to repeat and repeat and repeat enough times to make it stick.  Those here last week are getting close to that number, but where do they take it from SDSC?  They have to keep the right phrases and images and feelings in mind, because just as we were able to build form and improvement, its much easier to wash it away.

So a breakdown of Basic Athletic Stance as it was instructed at this camp goes as follows (perhaps parents can keep the practice going at home...):
  Feet shoulder width apart
  Toes pointing forward (we don't ski with our toes point out, right?)
  Ankle and knee flexion
  Spine Angle straight, slightly leaning forward
  Hands out in front armpit height, like you are ready to catch a ball
  Tighten your core

Here's Dana doing it over a roll perfectly.

Agility with Micaela Holland

This morning the camp traveled back to the POLO Fields for an instructional session focused on agility. SDSC's own Micaela Holland was our featured coach, and the kids did a great job of working hard on a hot day in the sun. Micaela brought all of her experience as a U16 coach at GMVS and now the head coach at Bates College to design a terrific session.

Micaela took the group through a series of ladder activities before breaking the group into smaller pieces to bring up the intensity at multiple different stations. Campers were doing box jumps, toe taps on medicine balls, quick sprints in at T-shaped cone drill, and a partner mirrored agility drill. To finish, we played a great game of sprinting tic tac toe that pieced together all of the coaching points at each station. Competition was high, and we finished with the whole camp cheering on games between the youngest group of kids.

It was a great start to the day, and we are excited to hit the jumps and ramps at the Johnson Skate Park this afternoon!

Staff Meeting each night

After Round up to bed each night, we spend a little time getting the campers settled in and moving in the direction of brushing teeth, lowering energy, etc.  At this time the staff meets to review the day and turn to the next day's schedule, taking anywhere between 45-75 minutes.  Thank you to your SDSC coaches and counselors for the major commitment they make to ensure SDSC is a great experience for all of our campers!

Evening Scavenger Hunt and Speedball

Tonight camp traveled down the rec path to play games in an unusual way. Each country was given a list of tasks to accomplish on their way as SDSC secret agents. As their mission letter stated (with a few examples of tasks):

Dear SDSC Agents:

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to complete as many of the following tasks as possible on the Stowe Rec Path.

- Spell SDSC in some way and take a picture of your creation.

- Locate a gazebo and have everyone sing a song while sitting together in the gazebo

- Find a heart-shaped rock. 

After the scavenger hunt, we all met at the Stowe Motel Fields for some intense speedball matches. Teams played for almost an hour, pushing each other and really impressing their coaches with their sustained commitment as we reach the halfway point of camp. Tomorrow we look forward to a great agility session with Micaela, followed by a trip to Johnson Skate Park!

Afternoon Trip to Waterbury State Park

After a killer morning focusing on balance skills through dynamic movements, and then transferred onto skating with courses, we shot just outside the Stowe town lines to Waterbury State Park.  It was a crowded afternoon for the park, but we carved out a nice section right at the edge of the lawn and claimed some territory in the water as well.  The main lawn wasn't the only space we stuck our SDSC flag in... as we kept to tradition and set up our enormous slip n slide on the main hill.  Wet, Slippery, and Fast is how most of our campers flew down the trek.

While its important to have time to focus and work hard and learn new things, its just as important to create opportunities to play games and have fun.  That's one of the things that makes SDSC a great structure for youth training.  Campers learn from some of the best in the industry, they attempt and improve, and then they play games and have fun and realize being active is one of the most important characteristics a young athlete can have.

Fun night ahead of biking, speedball, and a scavenger hunt.

Balance with Danny Noyes

This morning Danny walked us through a balance session on skates up at Stowe. Danny has been the head coach at Colby College for the past ten years and he knows better than anyone how important balance is in ski racing. Here at SDSC we use roller blades to replicate many ski fundamentals The session started off with campers in their sneakers while Danny walked everyone through a dynamic warm-up that was specific to balance. He focused on the stabilizing muscles in our ankles and knees, and emphasized the connection between mind and body. Next, campers moved into a jump progression where they practiced jumping over bamboo sticks, hurdles, and walking the balance beams. 

After the balance warm-up, skates were on and athletes were cruising through our skate session! Danny coached us on rolling our ankles at the end of our transitions to begin the next turn, and those stabilizing muscles were definitely hard at work. After buzzing through last week’s jump progression on skates (bamboo, small hurdles then large hurdles), counselors set some SL and GS courses for campers to go through. It was really great to see our returning campers improving on last week's session while newer campers pushed themselves in something that they may have been unsure about at first. We were also very impressed with how the athletes were able to translate what they work on in skiing into this skate session. Looking forward to the Waterbury Reservoir for some water fun this afternoon!