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.