Weekend in Laax with Red Bull, Paddy Graham and Katie Summerhayes
So I don't think anything I write could give my weekend in Laax with Red Bull justice. Safe to say, it felt like we were all treated like royalty organised by the lovely people at that small energy drinks company, Red Bull. I think I'll have to buy a lot of Red Bull to pay them back, cue a very hyper Rachael!
We barely arrived at the Signina hotel when we were whisked to the Freestyle Academy which for those of you who haven't been there is like a giant foam pit with trampolines and kickers, pretty much heaven for any freestyle skier. Here we met up with Paddy Graham and Katie Summerhayes who would be coaches for the weekend. After a good couple of hours of bouncing about learning mistys, backflips and flat spins, we headed back for dinner. Not gonna lie, one of the best things about the weekend was the copious amount of incredible food but I will try not to go on about un-ski related things. Hmm...
Up early and raring to go, we headed down to a breakfast of champions... Smoked Salmon!? Yum. Filled up, it was time to head up the mountain and hit the park. It was the first day of the season so they 'only' had a rail line with about 10 features to play around on all day. With Katie and Paddy to give us all pointers we were pretty stoked by the end of the skiing day and get back all those tricks from Hemel Snow Centre on the big boy mountain.
Later that evening we headed back to the Freestyle Academy for a session on the kickers. Having been petrified of kickers for quite a while, I was hoping I'd finally get over the fear and after a lot of coaxing and persuasion that speed IS my friend by Paddy, I sucked it up and feel like I'd conquered at least a little bit! I worked on spinning unnatural into the foam fit and was happy to have managed a right 540, just need to take that onto normal kickers now! Everyone else was killing it in the foam pit; Chloe Dace was trying misty 5s, Millie Scott and Becca Austen with 3s off the giant kicker. After this, we had an 'Injury Prevention' session with Red Bull's specialist Faye who taught us how strengthening muscles will prevent injury, very useful!
Done with copious amounts of exercise for the day, we headed out for a three course meal and the Laax Opening Party at the Riders Palace. It was a great night full of Red Bull, slight inebriation and some lovely people to enjoy it with! I could tell we weren't going to be as eager to get up as the previous day!
