MJ's Ski Blog

Spent some time over the New Year in L2A – the weather wasn’t great, way too much snow and bad visibility days but I still had a great time skiing with David Bilsland and managed to pull a bit of footage together for a short edit.

I hope you enjoy it!

Had an awesome time at Norfolk Ski Slope on Saturday – skiing in a 4 hour grom camp and learning a few new tricks.

At the end of it I was stoked to be selected along with my fellow team mate Monty to compete in the London Ride at Earls Court next week. We will be competing on the Saturday so make sure you come along to cheer us on!

Had a great time skiing in L2A over the summer - had a few camera issues and also lack of a camera crew to follow me but here’s a short edit from the few video sessions I had.

I hope you like it!!

 

Earlier this year I spent a few days being coached by Dave Young.  Check out these great instructional videos he filmed for Fall Line magazine – featuring me!

Big thanks to Dave for pulling these together.

Hey – here’s my entry for this year’s BSG comp – Hope you like it

A couple of weeks ago my Dad’s friend Dean took some photos of me while we were at the Bracknell Jam – what do you think of them?

 

Woop woop!!! I’m on the Bawbags team – check out the goodies they sent me a couple of weeks ago!

http://www.mjski.com/SponsorsBawbags.html

The past month has been amazing! I have been skiing at my best in a while and to my luck this month there has been three comps – the first and second legs of the Southern Freestyle Series and the Oakley Grom Games!

Swadlincote – Southern Freestyle Leg 1

The first of the month saw the first leg of the Southern Series, which was being held at Swadlincote dry slope. The competition was great with a fairly good atmosphere. Everyone was throwing it down, especially Tom Coe and Kiki Patel with his wizard tricks…
At the end of the day I walked away with the 1^st under 14’s male title.

Oakley Grom Games

Next up was the Oakley Grom Games which, the same as the year before was being held at the Chill Factore. When my family and I got there we signed in and then went off to catch up with people we hadn’t seen in a while. When I finally got out on to the slope I saw how sick the setup was. After skiing for a while I started to get the feel for the flow of the course and from the way everyone one had skied during the jam I didn’t think I was going to get a podium at all (as my category was 12-17) but to my surprise I was called up for 2^nd place!!

I then was even more amazed when I found out I was in the finals with James Machon, TJ Harding and Murray Buchan, who had all been skiing really well. It was a sudden death final and in the first round I was drawn against TJ Harding but because of my bad choice of line and his sickness I didn’t beat him. So I then competed against Murray (as he didn’t win against James Machon) to decide the 3^rd and 4^th places. I corrected my line and beat Murray for 3^rd place overall with James Machon in 2^nd and TJ Harding in 1^st. Pat Sharples put on an amazing games it was totally awesome – can’t wait for next year!

Chatham – Southern Freestyle Leg 2

The final comp of the month was the 2^nd leg of the Southern Freestyle Series which was at my home slope Chatham. As soon as I got there the atmosphere was already fun and intense and everyone wanted to go up and ski as the setup was really good. Everyone skied really well throughout the day especially Tom Coe, Tom Saunders, Kiki Patel and Ollie Powell.

The finalists were then announced and I was one of them. After a short break, everyone put down their final runs… there was such a high standard. At the end of a fantastic day, it was time for prize giving – I was called up for 1^st under 14’s and 2^nd overall.

Now all that is left is the final comp at Bracknell. So let’s wait and see what happens.

Kent Sport have written a case study on my involvement with the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust!

You can read all about it here:

http://www.kentsport.org/london2012/heroes_future_back_talent.asp

My case study is towards the bottom

I spent some time in the awesome snowpark in L2A over Easter – here’s the result:

Leave me a comment if you like it!!

The first of the summer comps kicked of in CasVegas last weekend.
The Jam was a 2 hour session, the set up was amazing with lots of awsome rails. As the Jam started, me and TJ Harding headed out to start warming up. After the first few runs I had really got used to most of the features, I was straight in doing K-feds, Super Feds and 450′s out.  By the end of the night I had landed tons of sick tricks like nose tap 5′s and 630′s!

Nose tap 5

After the jam we had a quick break and then got back on the slope for a team event.  The rules were that we had 4 runs in our teams to go mad and crazy. The whole event was about creativity. Our team captain Adam came up with some fun ideas and we put them into practice in our first 3 runs and on our 4th we put them all together.  We had Liam lying upside down with his skis up in the air for us to tap or ski slide. Then we had Tim sitting behind the gas pipe with his poles in the air for us to jump through and finally, we had a guy grabbing our skis/boards and spinning us on the box!!!!!

Results

At the presentation I was called out for second place in the 13-16 year old category, Josh Jenkins got third place and Tyler got first.

And yes, I was stoked!!!

Last week me, my Mum, my Dad and my sister got up at 4 o’clock in the morning to make a twelve hour journey to Laax in Switzerland for the Brits! On the way there we got lost a couple of times but one of the worst was when we got lost in the roadworks around Zurich. The Sat Nav just kept us going round in circles! Eventually we got there and we were ready to go!

(Click on the photos to get the full picture)

Day 1 – Halfpipe

The first event of the week was the half pipe. We got up the mountain for half past nine. I got loads of practice runs. In my first competitive run I threw down some big air out of the pipe with solid, tweaked grabs. I tried to keep the style into it with a big 540 at the end! Unfortunately, I did not land my second run cleanly as I tried back to back 540′s and crashed on the last one…The pipe was running well and there was some stiff competition but I was pleased with my runs and I landed a silver medal!

Day 2 – Protest Slopestyle

On the second day, it was time for the slopestyle. The top part of the course was a awesome setup of boxes, rails and gas pipes. The bottom half were three booters! On my first run I landed the top part of the course with loads of technical moves on the boxes like K-feds, Blind switch ups and stalls! I came down to the booters and got a styley 360 with a nose grab but then on the second jump I overcooked it and nearly wiped out! On my second run I landed everything I wanted to! I walked away from the comp with a bronze medal!:)

Day 3 – Trespass Skiercross

Day 3 brought the skiercross. A day earlier, on the lift I had a chat with a boarder who was in the GB team for boarder cross. He said that the course was bad at the moment and bits of rock on grass were showing! On the day of the comp they still weren’t covered up which meant a really long wait for the comp to start! Finally it got underway, we only got one run and somehow I managed to miss a gate? Apparently loads of people missed it.

Day 4 – Giro Big Air

It was time for the final Brits event of the week – the Big Air! I had been hitting the big jump, getting styley threes off of it! So I did a huge, styley three with a nose grab off the big kicker for my first run. On my second and final run I did a 720 off of the middle kicker! I didn’t think I was going to win a medal as Tom Saunders really pulled it out of the bag with his run! In the end I think it all came down to the cleanness of the landings…it was a close one but I just managed to get the bronze medal!

Overall

I had a brilliant time competing in the Brits this year – as the youngest in my age category I really wasn’t expecting to land any medals, so to come away with three medals out of the four competitions was absolutely amazing!! I even won a light sabre for showing off my moves on the rails in the Stair Wars event!

I had tons of fun messing about and having fun at the freestyle academy.

I also want to say thank you to all of my sponsors for your support and gear (Adidas eyewear, Ski Bartlett, K2 Skis, Kent Reliance Building Society and Waterbird ) and a big up to Pat Sharples for giving me a few pointers throughout the week to help me achieve my goals!

Fantastic day at the Brits in Laax today – I was competing at the Youth Mens Half Pipe comp which is for under 16′s – I was the youngest person in my age category and ended up finishing in second place with a silver medal, placing 14th overall out of 28 male entries in total!! 

Absolutely chuffed with my result and a brilliant way to kick of day 1!!!!!!!!!!

If you haven’t already seen it yet, here is the edit that Quiksilver put together for me from their UK final at Tamworth:

http://static.quiksilver-europe.com/www/soap.quiksilver-europe.com/html/upload/videos/20110302192418VIDE383724199606dmlkZW8=_480p.mp4

If you haven’t done so already – go to the following link and click on “Vote for this Rider”

http://quiksilverlive.com/radar11/rider.147.php

The prizes that I won for coming first in the Male under 16′s Westbeach Backard Jib video competition finally arrived this week!!  Here’s a photo of me opening my prizes – they were awesome.

Thanks Westbeach!

You can check my winning video out on YouTube or watch it below: