Whistler (BC), Canada – While many young shredders have traded their skis for summer activities and their schoolwork for leisure pastimes, their grownup coaches are fully immersed in an intense freestyle training program in Canada known as the Super Coach Academy.
Seven candidates from across the British Columbia are in Whistler for three jam-packed weeks learning to teach air, moguls and halfpipe from some of Canada’s elite-level coaches. They are joined by another 11 “Super Coach Light” candidates from Ontario who are on a condensed two-week program to learn just the mogul and air portions of the curriculum.
Candidates have to be extremely committed and motivated as they work long days on their dryland, trampoline, water ramp, airbag, and on-snow skills.
Whistler, with its glacier, water ramps and first-rate gymnastics facility, is the perfect location to it learn it all in one place.
Chip Milner, development coach for the Winsport Academy at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary is the lead facilitator for the program. He described it as “a gigantic learning environment where the best coaches in Canada come out to pass on their skills.”
This year National Mogul Team Coach Adrian Taggart is lending his expertise to the program, as is Olympic gold medalist Alex Bilodeau’s private coach, Michel Hamelin. The Canadian Freestyle Ski Association (CFSA) has also brought out top coaches from other complementary, disciplines, like trampoline, so candidates can learn the myriad skills they need to teach all the right freestyle acrobatic moves in a safe and fun manner.
The Academy, which graduated eight coaches last summer, is aimed at generating quality instruction opportunities for the Freestylerz (9-12 year old) program. The skills and techniques candidates learn are aligned with what Canadian National Team coaches want to see in the next generation of athletes.
Milner said the contribution of last year’s graduates has been “tremendous.” And he added a prediction, “Better coaching for kids of younger ages will grow the sport exponentially and we already saw some of that last season. We don’t even know where this thing is going to go.”
CFSA Sport Development Director Meredith Gardner said the program was developed, in part, to meet the skyrocketing demand for qualified coaches across the country. “We have seen unprecedented growth in freestyle and with it a big demand for trained coaches. We’re trying to meet that demand with quality growth of coach programming through programs like the Super Coach Academy.”
The Academy runs until July 21.