A Swift Half

Hi Board Geners

Happy New Year to all and I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and celebrated the New Year in the appropriate manner… yeah that’s what I thought… you smashed it didn’t you?

So, what’s been happening since the last Swift Half…?

Well the summer came and went; I live in the North of the UK and it was crap!

As the summer came to an end myself and a few of the AFPST gang got ourselves on a Board Tech course run by Callum Highet at Anything Technical in Kendal, Cumbria and all of us found it to be an insightful and informative course that went a long way to dispelling some of the myths and misinformation around the art of snowboard tuning and waxing. Well worth doing if anyone is wanting to keep their snowboard sweet. Huge thanks to Callum, Andy and the guys at Anything Technical.

After the ‘Tech Course’ myself and four of the instructors from the Team got the opportunity to do the BASI Level 1 Adaptive Snowboard Instructors Course at Milton Keynes Snozone. Our BASI tutor Renelle Mortimer made the week enjoyable and informative giving us plenty of opportunity to role play different disabilities and scenarios which were occasionally testing to say the least. Many thanks to BASI for their forward thinking in helping to enable someone with a disability to embark on this course. I achieved a pass and a big thanks to fellow student (Rich Stephenson) who demonstrated the few skills I was unable to demo myself ?.  

Two weeks later we were in Stubai, Austria on a BASI Level 2 Coaching Course under the expert tutelage of Rob Norton. The weeklong course was great fun, and hugely helpful in our aim of getting snowboarders with disabilities out there on the comp circuit.  Oh! and we had a couple of days of full on powder which needless to say was taken advantage of… massively. And to top it all off, I bumped into (not literally) Stale Sandbech. I first met Stale in Laax and watching him ride is always a pleasure and inspiration.

We had a few weeks off snow then it was off to Breckenridge, Colorado for the Hartford Ski Spec.

We had a cracking flight over thanks to the help and generosity of the British Airways crew and staff who properly looked after and dare I say pampered all of us the entire flight, thank you BA.

The Hartford Spec was, as always a fantastic event for anyone with any disability that wants to have a go at or up their skills in any of the Snowsport disciplines. As AFPST we took part in the Snowboard Race Camp which gave us a week under instruction with Kep Keoppe (US Paralympic Snowboard Team Coach) along with Reggie Showers (Double Below Knee Amp) Cristina Bruno, Keith ‘Grizzly’ Gable (Single Below Knee Amp) and Noah Elliot (Single Above Knee Amp) both US Paralympic Champions together with James Sides and Mike Spiney both US Paralympians. What a week we had, great snow, great coaches, great resort, all culminating in a morning of races that really boxed off the week.

Scott McNeice (Single Above Knee Amp) who has recently joined AFPST and has been fortunate enough to receive the game changing BioAdapt Snowboard Prosthesis was able to not only have a chat with Mike Shultz the inventor and user of the leg but also ride with Noah Elliot who has been winning medals all over the world using that leg… Scotty was in good hands and his riding has progressed 10 fold. Ben ‘Tiny’ Shaw the totally blind snowboarder in the team, had an awesome trip as well with some fantastic days on the hill really enjoying the freedom of the wider and relatively empty piste.

Kat Brown and Daisy Duke both ripped it up gaining in confidence and skill.

By the last day all of the AFPST Athletes felt a sense of development and a progression with their skills during the trip to Breckenridge. Having to overcome the jetlag and the fact that we were training at 12,000ft ASL was a big task and all did a fantastic job of making the most of the Rockies.

So, here we are back in the UK now and just about to set off on a full season of training and comps. Starting with a week in La Plagne, France then onto the Royal Navy Champs in Tignes for a week with the goal of getting to the Inter-Services Champs in Meribel, France and after that we have the BRITS again in Laax Switzerland just after another visit to Saas Grund for the Bibian Mentel Foundation Mentelity Games which is a great focus for people with disabilities of all ages from all over Europe and beyond who want to or already participate in Snowsports.

You may have seen the festival film ‘People Who Rize’ posted earlier in the year, well that’s out there now ready to be streamed so take a peek and if that wets your appetite then there was a short piece on BBC2 5^TH Jan Ski Sunday Programme at 18.00 that if you didn’t get a chance to see then here is the link to it.

The season has got off to a great start and mountains are screaming out for us to go ride them… what are we waiting for… lets ride.

Til the next Swift Half everyone.

Ride Free

Swifty