Counselor's Game Night, Speedball, and Swimming

After dinner tonight, all the teams split up for a busy evening activity session of jumping in the river at Foster's, and games of speedball, tank, and blanket volleyball. It was a fun filled night, and everyone was ready for a snack when we returned to the Round Hearth.

Tomorrow morning we'll have our speed instructional session with Danny Noyes on skates at the Stowe Lot, with a hike up Mt. Mansfield in the afternoon!

Skate Park!

This afternoon we headed to the Johnsonville Skate Park! We had a great time trying new skills, and everyone did a great job of pushing themselves out of their comfort zone and having success on features they hadn't tried before.

It was a really impressive showing - a record number of campers dropped in on the bowl, and almost everyone tackled the half pipe!

After dinner, we'll make up our scheduled swim at Foster's, and play speedball and field games!

Morning Field Session - AGILITY

This morning our field instructional session was focused on the second part of BASE - Agility. Justin Sperry, the Head Alpine Ski Coach at Colby-Sawyer College and our Assistant Director for the week, ran the campers through 3 stations of agility ladder and cone drills. He asked the campers to focus on precision, intensity, adapting to changing conditions, and pushing each other through competition.

The campers put in a ton of effort and maintained focus with the high temps, and the session ended with a game of Quebec ball that engaged the whole camp!

This afternoon we're excited to head to the Johnsonville Skate Park to put the BASE skills we've been working on to good use!

Camp Life is SWEET

Video Analysis and Movie Night

Tonight's Counselor Game Night, Speedball, and Swimming at Foster's was postponed due to thunderstorms in the Stowe Area...but we were able to be flexible and move our planned movie night forward a day!

We started off our night session with video analysis of our morning athletic stance work on skates, with campers and coaches identifying strong techniques and things to work on in our next few days on skates.

Afterwards campers had the choice of watching Ugly Dolls or Shazam to round out a relaxing evening avoiding the weather!

The campers were excited for a restful night after a long day, and that should translate to a great day tomorrow with an agility field session and a trip to the Johnsonville Skatepark!

Empty Tent?

An empty tent with only towels and slides in sight means EVERYONE IN THE WATER!!!

We spent the afternoon (with high's in the high-80's) at the beach!! A great lawn provided space to play, and the sandy beach brought out the sand-engineers of the group, but most of the time the group was splashing around with keep away games in the water.  We returned to the RH for our weekly slip'n'slide.  We encourage all the campers to shower each night, but it didn't hurt that the primary substance to make the slider slippery is Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo!!

Morning Skate Session with BALANCE

This morning we hit the gondola at Stowe Mountain Resort for our first instructional session of the week on skates.  With the focus of Balance, we took some extra time after our dynamic warmup while we were still in sneakers to work through balance and stabilizing exercises before transitioning to skates.  The camp learned that stabilizing the core is extremely important for balance in all sports, and it certainly is for skiing and balance through movement and jumping on skates.

After our warmup on skates and moving through our Basic Athletic Stance progression, we took the time to organize the groups to capture video of all.  I will be uploading 2 clips of each camper to a video program called Sprongo so we can pull them out on the big screen tomorrow night and review with each camper before we return to skate drills on Thursday.

Looking ahead, we are excited to spend a hot afternoon at the lake!!

FLASHBACK to the First Night THUNDERSTORMS...

Water gathered in several places... including the top of the tents.

THE SWIMMING HOLE

We know its early in the week, but we just couldn't wait any longer to get our weekly session in at The Swimming Hole.  Complete with a diving board, a water slide, and a basketball hoop, our camp splashed away the sore muscles from the two heavy sessions today.

SWIX Ski Prep with Jerry Murphy!

Thanks to Swix and Jerry Murphy for coming to SDSC tonight to give a run through of the work it takes to make our skis fast.  I know most (all?) kids have parents, relatives, friends, or ski shops handle this responsibility, but hopefully after tonight they all have a little better appreciation for what it takes.

Mountain Biking at Cady Hill

This afternoon we had a mountain bike adventure on the rec path and at the Cady Hill Trail System! Campers had the choice to stay on the rec path or ride on the singletrack trails at Cady Hill, and almost all of the campers elected to try the singletrack.

Mountain Biking requires balance, agility, speed, and explosion, and along with discussion of how to incorporate these into our riding, counselors drew parallels to ski racing tactics in cornering. 

Florence, the perennial favorite flow downhill trail, was a big hit, and the campers were all smiles after their descents! Depending on how long campers rode in the woods, afterwards groups went for a swim in the river, went out for ice cream, or both!

After dinner, campers will learn about ski waxing technique from Jerry Murphy of Swix, and head to the Swimming Hole to hit the slide and use the diving board!

Field Session With Featured Coach Julia Ford

Our first instructional session of the week was with Julia Ford, an Olympian and former member of the US Ski Team, and the program director at Cardigan Mountain School in New Hampshire.

She set up four stations for an introduction to our BASE concept - Balance, Agility, Speed, and Explosion. Julia emphasized the importance of general athleticism and playing a variety of sports for success in ski racing, which fits perfectly with our camp philosophy. Her enthusiasm was contagious and our campers put in some great effort this morning.

After the stations we played a game of Swedish Dodgeball inspired by the Cochrans, and then left some time for a Q&A with Julia about her experiences at the Olympics in Sochi, her time at Okemo, Holderness School, and the US Ski Team, and her experiences as a standout high school athlete in 3 sports.

This afternoon we're hitting the trails on Cady Hill, followed by swimming and a tuning talk by Jerry Murphy from Swix!

WELCOME TO WEEK 2!!

Welcome to week 2!!

The thunderstorms really crashed down on us here in Stowe all the way through drop off.  The power even went out, but we recovered and started our orientation in the (partial) dark.

After dinner we hit the rec path for our first outdoor activities, with a speedball session, a mountain bike obstacle course, and also a dip in the raging waters at the river.

We're ready to start off our instructional session Monday morning with our featured coach JULIA FORD!

Important Notice about our Closing Ceremony Saturday Morning @11:00am

Hello everyone, we look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow, and we would be excited to have you join us for our closing ceremony at 11:00am. While I know it's tempting to arrive early, remain outside the building until 11:00 so we can keep order to finish up a great week. 

Our top priority is your children's safety and we have maintained a safe environment for them all this entire week, and we want to make sure to keep that all the way until we turn them over to you at noon. Don't worry, the kids will be all packed so it won't take very long to get you back on the road home. We really appreciate your cooperation and understanding as we do our best to wrap up an incredible week.  

Waterbury Center Reservoir

Nothing like getting in a lake on a hot summer day, which is exactly what we did this afternoon with SDSC. We bused over to the Waterbury Center Reservoir and made the most of a couple hours at the beach playing games and building sand hot tubs.

We surprised the kids when we got back to The Round Hearth with a massive slip and slide. The Round Hearth staff have been incredible hosts all week, even letting us use their personal backyard for the slide. We need to take a moment to give them thanks for all their work.

What a day, what a week, and what a great group of young people to work with!

EXPLOSION with Eric Barthold

This morning I had the pleasure of running an explosion session with camp and had an absolute blast. As we talked about in the session, explosion is all about movement in a very short amount of time, like exploding out of a start gate in a ski race.

We went through a progression of 4 stations: Broad jumping, medicine ball throws, box jumps, and parachute sprints. 

Often we reach Friday's instructional session and kids are dragging from the week, but I was once again impressed with how this group raised their level to finish strong. 

With a trip to the Waterbury Reservoir and then cookout to come later, this day is looking better and better as we go!

Movie Night!

As we traditionally do near the end of the week, we took a quiet night to reload on our energy by watching movies on the big screens.  In the living room we showed Wonderpark, while we turned the dining space into an indoor theater for the showing of Captain Marvel.  Hopefully we have rested athletes for tomorrow morning's session of EXPLOSION with Eric.

Mountain Biking Round 2, Cady Hill

Today marked our second time entering the woods at Cady Hill.  Campers had a little better idea of what to expect, what was hard, and also where to make adjustments.  For those who entered the trails, there was a minimum of 14 miles biked.  For those who stayed on the rec path to the end, it was still an expedition of almost 10 miles.  SDSC got plenty of pedal spins in today.

The ideal trip included the single trek, then a stop at Stowe Sweets for ice cream, and then a quick hop in the river.  Team USA even squeezed in 10 minutes in the hot tub on their return!

Morning Testing, Shuttle Run

Speed Session, Danny Noyes

This morning we went back to the Stowe parking lot for our second instructional session on skates.  We built off of our first day and also our video session the other night where we introduced a few tactical elements for the group to keep in mind.

The lanes were twice as long as the other day, and by the end of our progression the campers were ripping through timed courses... and THAT'S WHEN one of our biggest lessons was learned.  Once they were on the clock, most of them threw EVERYTHING we have discussed and worked on our the window!  We recapped the session with a nice discussion and question and answer session relating what we are doing to their training days on snow.  We try to change our skiing to become stronger and faster skiing, so why wouldn't we keep the same focuses when the clock is on or when we are in training courses on snow?  The message got through!

Nice Job!

As of Wednesday night, we are already over halfway through camp! Nice job campers!

Night Activity

We had several parts to our night activity... so do your best to keep up!

1. First, counselor Mika Smith led our camp through a nutrition discussion using her power point she created as a Health and Nutrition student at the University of Vermont.  Just a few weeks ago she presented the same information to the athletes at a GMVS camp.

2.  Tonight was also SKIT NIGHT, and the teams took turns taking prompts and props to tell us "their story."  We pride ourselves at SDSC with our well-rounded curriculum, and events like this one certainly help our campers with socialization, performing in front of peers, and taking strength and comfort from teammates to do something they perhaps wouldn't have done on their own.  Tons of laughs, capped off with our traditional counselor skit, had the laughs and cheers rolling through the Round Hearth and out onto the lawn.

3.  Finally, we sparked up the camp fire to roast some mallows to add to the grahams and chocolate.  While the camp was stuffing the s'mores, they collectively sang pop song after pop song right up to 9:15, time for round up.

Afternoon Trip to the Johnson Sk8 PARK

This afternoon marked the second time of the week on skates, although this one wasn't an instructional session.  We'd like to think we took some of the skills we established the other day with our Basic Athletic Stance and implemented them to be more successful at the park, but you could also say that it was more a session of courage, trial and error, and then correction... And then more courage.

The park is filled with ramps and bowls and quarter pipes, all features that change our center of balance.  The strong position was helpful as a start, but a constantly changing center of balance through movement allowed us to work through major challenges and triumph.

Agility Session with Amber McHugh

This morning we welcomed Amber McHugh to SDSC for our second instructional session on Agility. Amber coached at Burke Mountain Academy for 10 years, primarily as a FIS coach for both men and women. This past winter she was the head women's FIS coach at Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club in Colorado. We were so lucky to have her!

Amber brought a session that kept the kids engaged for the entire 2 hours, from an animal themed warm-up to a relay race at the end. Even though we had a tiring hike yesterday, the kids rallied and put in some amazing effort for Amber. It was fun to watch!