CXC Elite Team Blog

Ski & Tea Clinic #1

Well, the first Ski and Tea Clinic was a huge hit! The weather was amazing and the number of women who came was great too! A couple days before the clinic only 6 women were preregistered, and by the time we started at 9am on Sunday (Oct. 18) there were 18 skiers ready to trudge through 4 hours of technique work.

In case some of you aren’t familiar with the Ski and Tea group, they are a group of women who are all tied by the love for skiing and the outdoors. Their group meets regularly to put in some intense training as well as enjoy each other’s company. They are a truly inspiring group, and a ton of fun to be around. Throughout the fall and winter the women of the CXC Team Vertical Limit are holding 5 clinics for the Ski and Tea women to work on ski technique. The CXC women’s goal is to support the Ski and Tea ladies by helping them with technique, while the Ski and Tea ladies support us by donating all proceeds of the clinics to the CXC women.

For the first portion of the clinic, Kristina and I went on a short, warm-up jog with the group, and then completed a few coordination and balance drills with them. The next portion was dedicated to a ton of classic technique work, followed by a somewhat shorter version of skate technique (just a precursor to get the women ready to work on more skating during the next clinic). And finally, the clinic was finished off with an hour of roller skiing or ski walking. The clinic lasted for a little over 4 hours, and though technique work can become somewhat grueling after awhile, the Ski and Tea women kept it fun!

Here are some photos of the clinic. Looking forward to the next one : )

Loosening up with some leg swings

Kristina and I demonstrating the classic body position

Working on the classic "impulse" kick from the foot

Skate technique on roller skis!