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One evening around July 6th, I received a call from Chris
Morrison. He was calling me to update me on his decision to ski
the 2006 Junior Worlds. Chris had been unsure about competing
because he felt he had lost his desire to barefoot anymore. He had
become run down by all the politics in the sport and really didn't see
much upside to his competing. Besides, he was enjoying show skiing
and riding his air chair. But after about a month of thinking
about it and getting the advise of skiers like Keith St. Onge, Mike
Salber, myself, and most importantly, his parents, he decided he would
take the opportunity to ski in his last Junior Worlds.
During our conversation, he informed
me that he had not gotten much water time and was unsure of what tricks
he needed to be working on to make a good showing at Worlds. So I
invited Chris to come to Katy, Texas and ski with me for two weeks.
I told him we would ski as much as he could stand it and he'd go home
with some new tricks and a whole new trick run. The goal for Chris
was to first learn multiple turns, then figure out how to fit them into
his trick run.
About a week before I spoke to
Chris, I had a conversation with Nolan Lough's parents. Nolan
lives only about an hour from Houston and I explained to his parents
that he had an open invitation to ski with me any time. Knowing
that Chris and Nolan got along real well, I took the opportunity to call
the Lough's and invite Nolan to train with us. Nolan had 3 turns
on his shoes and was on the cusp of learning a front to back on his
feet. I informed him that in the next two weeks he would either
learn his turns on his feet or die tryin. I asked him if he was up
to the challenge and he quickly replied YES!
So that's how it all started.
Over the next two weeks, we skied every day, had a lot of fun, and
learned a lot of new tricks. The videos below are somewhat of a
diary of our experiences.
During their visit, I asked them to
attend the YMCA Camp Grady Spruce clinic I do each year at Possum
Kingdom Lake, west of Fort Worth, Texas, about 6 hours from Houston.
They would make the trip with me and in the process pick up Keith St.
Onge in Dallas, who was scheduled to attend the camp clinic with us.
We would all then return to Houston for a final 3 days of hard training.
The videos below chronicle our
experiences. Enjoy!
I'd like to thank the Lough's and
Morrison's for allowing their son's to come visit with us. We had
a GREAT time and hope to see them again next year.
Chuck Gleason
Nolan and Chris are sponsored by
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