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Posted by Markus on

Season edit, a near lose and a win.

The snowboarding season is really over for this year. ‘Tis the season of champagne and beer.

Look I made a poem.

No seriously, it’s been a great, though challenging year. I’ve learned quite a few tricks, but I’ve also battled with lack of motivation and destructive thoughts.

Right after new year I caught the feeling that snowboarding just wasn’t fun anymore. My riding felt really off, even though I did tricks that I had never done before, and I just didn’t get happy from snowboarding. Which really sucked.

I am lucky enough to be able to work with something I love, and help other people as devoted to snowboarding as me to get better. So not only did it suck because it didn’t make me happy. I also felt ashamed and ungrateful that I had those feelings.

But what helped get me out of my funk was doing one of the things that got me into snowboarding in the first place, that I’ve neglected the pas years since it’s quite time consuming. And that was to get creative.

Since the times with the Quite Alright crew I’ve looked at spots and dreamt about what you could do there, where the camera angles should be and how you could edit it to make it look even better. I often point to spots and tell my students what I see. But I just never did anything with those thoughts.

So with my camera, my snowboard, a shovel and riding around my home town on my bike, I hit the streets and tried out the spots I had pointed out. It became like therapy for me.

Just focusing on the task, by myself, alone with my mind and my snowboard and the trick I wanted to get. Not to make a video project, but to make me feel good. It dawned on me that I had been doing the same thing over and over, waiting for the feeling to change. Becoming a slave to monotony and habit and the thing that broke me out of it was committing to creating something.

My solitary street missions lead to solitary hike missions up on the mountain and soon I started to enjoy the park riding as well. Riding with my girlfriend, my brother and my mother was fun and not boring or dull, the thing I dreaded to feel. I will keep on going back to my filming roots next season, and hopefully someone will join me this time around. If anything it saves a lot of space on the hard drive if you can help each other to press record on the camera.

I’ve put my clips together in a little edit, and recorded some lo-fi music to go with it, and I won a prize for creativity with it the film festival at the school. It means a lot to me since it was students voting for the film they liked the best.

So here you go. My, rather long, season story accompanied by my rather slow season edit and my rather bad singing. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Markus

 

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Posted by Markus on

New collaboration!

I have great news!

I am happy to announce that I will be working together with the Icelandic ski- and snowboard association this year. My job is to design and carry out a course for snowboard coaches on Iceland.

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The Icelandic snowboarding scene is probably best known for the Helgason brothers, Eiki and Halldór. Who for the last couple of years have been some of the greatest influencers in street and contest snowboarding.

But Iceland has a simmering snowboard community with a lot of young riders coming in the wake of the Helgasons. The Icelandic ski- and snowboard association are keen on making the best of their possibilities and give these new snowboarders the best opportunities to develop their skills.

I am glad that the Icelandic ski- and snowboard association are willing to invest in the youth through investing in their snowboard coaches. I am honored for the opportunity to start this journey together with them and I think it will be great!

This year I will be going to Iceland twice. First for a three day seminar on preseason training for snowboarding and after new years for an on-snow seminar. I can’t wait to get there and start this new collaboration which hopefully will last into the future!

Let’s make Icelandic snowboarding even greater!

//Markus

PS. If you have any questions or inquiries feel free to contact me on rehn.coaching@mail.com, I look forward to hearing from you! DS.

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Posted by Markus on

The snowboarder physique part 1

I would like to take the time and talk about my views on training, how you become a well rounded snowboarder (or human) and what I think might be beneficial to focus on.

I want to start off by saying that, although I base my views on training and fitness on a foundation of science proven facts, these are my personal views and how I feel is the best way to implement what i know. I always strive to be better than I am and to gain new knowledge in this field so I am up for discussion and would very much like to hear any other aspects of the subjects I will bring up here.Since I work in snowboarding, this text will focus on training to snowboard and snowboard well, but if you’re just after some good workout tips you can keep reading anyways. Let’s begin.

In this part we’ll start off by establishing what the sport demands of us and what physical qualities we need to develop. And then look at what we should focus on when we’re not snowboarding to be better at snowboarding and to get to snowboard more.

Acrobatics:

Freestyle snowboarding has become a sport where the top athletes are highly dependent on their acrobatic skills. Nowadays they need to be able to perform not only double corks but triples, and in some cases quads. Wether you’re a top level snowboarder or just a happy weekend warrior, acrobatic skills will benefit you in more ways than one. You’ll be able to land more tricks, making your everyday riding more diverse. You will have more fun, feeling that you can take your riding to the next level and doing tricks and spins every way possible. You will feel safer trying tricks you’ve already done off snow. You will be safer, being able to save unsuccessful tries and do as cats do and land on your feet. From my experience riders with great acrobatic skills but poor strength can be less prone to injuries than really fit riders.

Strength:

Squat ’til you drop. No doubt about it, you need strong legs to be able to withstand the forces of impact when you overshoot a jump or drop that parking garage to get the ender for your video part. Other than brute leg strength you will need a solid core, mainly to keep you on your feet for a whole day and to keep everything together but also to minimize the risks when you fall. Other than those two key muscle groups you need to be overall fit just to minimize the risk of minor (but sucky) injuries like shoulder dislocations and broken wrists.

Stamina:

A beautiful long distance run on top of a mountain.

How bad do you want the shot? In some cases you will be forced to keep going even though your body tells you to stop. It can be when you’re hiking to that sick line you’ve been eyeing for weeks, waiting for snow. It could be when you’re out battling a rail in the middle of the night, trying to get that last shot. Or it could just be trying to land a new trick and being fit enough to try one last time to get it. Either way, it’s always nice if you can ride all day without your legs giving out and you can hike that line and be fit enough at the top to make the run count.

Board control:

Some people have it and some people don’t. Sometimes you see someone ripping so effortlessly and you just want to steal their board control and feel what they feel. Maybe some people are born with it but most people have to work really hard (consciously or not) to get there. Just like any other skill this is one that is highly trainable, but there are a few things to keep in mind when you practice it.

I believe these are the key elements to snowboarding. If you break it down into trainable qualities that is. And I know a lot of people don’t want to think about these things and just snowboard, and that is great! I love just riding with my friends and not thinking about anything else than what’s in front of me. But I also know that there are people who do think about these things and like to get nerdy about stuff they like. So I guess this post is for the latter type of people.

This was the first post in a series. I don’t know how long it will be but I do like to discuss these types of things (it’s my job, duh). So if you like something or don’t, let me know. Or just enjoy the read.

//Markus

 

 

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Posted by Markus on

The Orange Open

The Orange Open Makes Quarterpipes Great Again!

A week ago in Riksgränsen the Gälka Warriors crew dug out a perfectly shaped quarter pipe in the infamous “Apelsinklyftan” (the orange gully in English), and thus brought the quarter pipe competition back to Sweden. 

The quarter pipe itself was quite a mellow beast, measuring about 6m in height and 20m in length, with a step up to a “bowl” section on the far right. The latter was upgraded for the second session with an extension in the form of a picnic table.

The first session started out on Sunday and everyone was hyped but a bit hesitant due to the fact that almost no one had ridden a quarter pipe in years and for some, or the majority, it was their first time.  After a while people started sending it, working on hand plants or trying to beat Mr Terje Haakonsen in height. Terje did a perfectly executed nosebone to fakie, catching some 4m of air over the lip. Check out @chocorompe on instagram for an awesome pic shot by the talented Daniel Bernstål.

On Monday the time had come for the second and final session on the quarter pipe. The weather gods had blessed us with perfect weather conditions and the features looked mint. Although people were a bit sore from the previous day’s session and hiking, everyone started charging and trying out new tricks. Terje took out his snow skate han started doing tricks that most riders dream of doing on a snowboard.

The picnic table soon became one of my favorite things to hit and i tried to do as many tricks as possible and to be creative. Didn’t win any of the spot prizes but I had heaps of fun, although I took a lot of slams.

Some highlights of the day were Johan Nordhag’s chicken wing McTwist (@johannordhag), Abbe Hjellström’s one foot to fakie (@abbe_hj), Terje’s height and Len Roald Jørgensen’s creativity (@sirframeface). The ladies charged hard and Ylfa Rúnarsdóttir (@ylfarunars) sent sick handplants and McTwists, Julia Lundberg (@julialundb) went huge an Rebecca Bodin (@rebeccajbodin) did handplants in places handplants should be impossible. A special shout out to Tomas Johansson a.k.a. Tompi a.k.a. Knoddas who borrowed Terje’s snow skate and did an airwalk to fakie first try!

After a long day of hiking and shredding I tried to get a final trick and went for an alley-oop transfer from the high part of the quarter to the low part. But my legs were too tired and I didn’t get the airtime i needed and caught the lip of the lower quarterpipe and fell backwards on to my arm. (You can se a similar bail in the video.) The pain was instant and I thought that my arm was broken. But after I was taken care of by the medical team (thanks) and got checked up at the doctor’s office it was concluded that I only had suffered a sprained elbow.

Here’s a few tricks that I managed to put down, filmed by Jakob Dahlberg (@jdahlbergg). I can’t wait to see the official video from the event!

 

It was two days of pure snowboarding joy and I think everyone found a new love for quarter pipe riding.

The winners were announced at the bar Grönan and competition boss Jacob Söderqvist said that it’s way more fun with a lot of winners than only a few. So best handplant went to Markus Östman for a Fs invert to fakie. Best trick went to Abbe Hjellström for the sick one foot to fakie. Highest air and best tweak went to Terje Haakonsen. Female rider of the day was Ylfa Rúnarsdóttir and male rider of the day was Len Roald Jørgensen. But wait a minute, didn’t yours truly win anything? I sure did, I won price for sending it the hardest and I’m very proud.

Thanks to everyone involved for making quarter pipes great again!

/Markus

 

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