Burton Hi5 at MK

Its been a couple of late nights for William this week, poor lad, he still  does struggle past 9pm.
He was at MK 's Thursday freestyle night , the park was quite simple but he got a sneaky peak at  the park set up for the Burton Hi 5 on Friday. He took a while to warm up but by the end of the evening he was  having fun  on  side hit rail and the gas pipes.

Friday night was the Burton Hi5 event, which was a very long evening as we had'nt realised the competition did'nt start till half 9. William really enjoyed the park set up, especially the big A frame shooter thingy, and he was chuft to bits that he managed to boardslide the length of the very kinked rail ( seeing is believing). It was good for him to ride with some of his local snowboarding buddies, but he does still get intimidated by having so many good riders around him at the same time.. But we are assured that he will get more used to this over time and experience..Special thanks to Jeff  Menday (Becky's Dad) who boosted the little mans confidence by complimenting him on his riding..

At least we know he enjoyed it, as he asked when the next Hi5 event  was and could he go.. But then it might be the lure of the stickers and badges that he collected..

Saturday at MK

Will went along for an afternoon to join in with Definition's training session and generally have a play on the slope. It had been ages since he had seen Gav ,so it was really nice to catch up with him since he has had a few big events recently keeping him busy and off the slopes..

Will and Cerys were chatting a mile a minute to catch up all their news but Gav kept them busy too , practicing  on the box and on the jump doing some shift jump thing that looked abit like a BS shifty to FS 180.

Then after a great family meal at Pizza Express it was time for Park Strife for what turned out to be  a very quiet night.  For Will , it was a mainly rail night with  a big cannon jump at the bottom . Which given Will's small size he had to nail to get the speed to clear. He had a few tumbles which had us and a few fellow spectators gasping at , but like always he had a great time and was asking when he could come again.. The car ride home was interesting as Will recounted  in great detail all his tricks and crashes..

Why Aint You Jibbin camp at Landgraaf, Holland

What an exciting  week, Will  and his Dad have just arrived back from London's Freeze Festival. Sounds like it was amazing to watch the Snowboard competition  . Will's highlight was watching Jamie Nicholls , and asking if every person with a Red Bull helmet was him.


Thursday we came back from a 5 day snowboard training camp with Steve Addicott at Landgraaf.. Will had an amazing time and Steve got him working on some new tricks.. Including BS 360 spins, BS 180 tail grabs and he had a go at frontflips..
Steve compiled a great video of his tricks

Will at Landgraaf, Holland

Indoor British Championship at Castleford

What a week ! Last week we travelled up to Leeds on Friday night to be ready for the Williams first major snowboarding competition. He was really excited and keen to do well, but totally ignorant as to what do, how it worked ect.
Pretty much everyone who was anyone in the British Ski and snowboarding scene were there to do their stuff. Luckily Williams Junior class ran first together along with the Youth and Women categories, so he got out on the snow nice and early and practiced on the park for the two hours before the actual competition started..
During the competition William tried his best and managed some awsome tricks, although he did fall down during  both his box  runs , which really scuppered his chances of getting high marks..  His rail runs were brilliant and no falls this time either most probably becuase he was much more comfortalbe with what was happening and actually quite chilled about it all.....So proud of the little man...

this weeks news

Will went along to this weeks Thursday Freestyle night  at MK where he's becoming a bit of a regular.. He had a really good session where he managed to practice most of his current freestyle tricks including his 360 spins which he had been a shy to try out lately..
Then on he went along to see James on Sunday's breakfast club and managed to try out some new tricks inclulding 180 jump onto rail, BS 180 jump ons and off. FS 180 off amongst others.. James also made him practice his switch riding by making him do the actions to  "head , shoulders , knees and toes" whilst riding switch turning all the way down the slope..

Saturday's Who's Afraid of the Park and Parkstrife sessions

Will  went along to the afternoon Who's afraid of the Park session at Milton Keynes this Saturday. It was a perfect opportunity for him  to have a practice on some lovely features without having to stay up really late for once.. So he bombed around practicing  a couple of small kickers, the rainbow rail and the cannon jump   for a few hours. When it finished he was chuffed to bits to win a Snozone tshirt to add to his ever growing collection of oversized tshirts, stickers and lanards. Then after a quick food stop at Pizza Express it was the Parkstrife session when some of the larger features where opened up . Once again some really cool pictures were taken of the session by Wilf of the freestyle crew, including some of Will's tricks..

Freestyle night 1st September

William's new Union bindings arrived just in time for him to try them out at MK snowzone last night and have a play on the freestyle park. He was made up with them as they look really cool on his lovely Capita snowboard .It was mainly gas pipes (a couple of big kinked ones) and boxes, but did have a couple of small kickers. He had  a great time with his friends including fellow Definition team mate Cerys . Special thanks to  Wilf from Lots of Pic's  who managed to get a few really nice pictures.

Will's Freestyle adventure begins

William is 8 years old and has caught the snowboarding freestyle bug!

He has been snowboarding since his first snowboard lessons in November 2009 when we decided it would be lovely if our then 6yr old could join in properly when we went on the annual family winter holiday.

He had about 5 one hour lessons with an instructer and then came away with us for a weeks holiday to Val d'Isire in France. He snowboarded every morning with us and loved every moment. He easily managed mostly blue runs with the occasional red runs ,although he did get quite tired as the week wore on...

Once we came back from our annual holiday it seemed a shame for him to forget his newly aquired skill's and so around April time he joined into the Snozone "breakfast club" for young snowboarders which runs for 2hrs every Sunday although he only went every two weeks or so..

By the summer holidays William was much more confident with his riding, so we booked him into a weeks summer camp again at the Snowzone at Milton Keynes. It was then that he discovered Freestyle, as they introduced some easy jumps and simple rails for the more able snowboarders to have a go at..

So the next thing was attending the Buton training camp at Tamworth where he had a chance to get a training session taught by Burton sponsored riders on freestyle techniques..He came away from that first snowboard freestyle session buzzing with enthusiam having "won" a couple of prizes and having heaps of praise and encouragement..

Since then Will has gone on to be supported by a snowboard training company called Definition run by a lovely man called Gavin Learmonth with help from Chris Skinner, where gets free training on any freestyle courses running.

Will's ambitions have increased as his ability has and he now wants to be part of the Olympics..

So this blog is to chart how the little man progresses with his ambitions..