As we close out the rollerski season and start our snow dances, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on our fall Learn-to-Rollerski gatherings and share some photos and videos with you all. This fall we were grateful to connect with a whole variety of wonderful people across the East and share the joy of rollerskiing and being outside.
Our first rollerski clinic of the fall was a unique opportunity to collaborate with an organization outside the ski industry. NENSA worked with See Change Sessions to provide rollerski opportunities for attendees of their in-person session at HULA Lakeside in Burlington. This two-day event brought people together from around the world and across industries to learn from one another and start addressing some of the world’s biggest problems.
Our next event brought us to Mt Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid for a BKL/Youth rollerski skills session following the Keys to the Castle Event. We really enjoyed collaborating with our New York Ski Education Foundation (NYSEF) and Olympic Regional Development Authority (ORDA) friends on this fun clinic and were impressed with the improvement we witnessed amongst the young people who showed up to roll. They practiced the ramp bumps, went under the limbo arches, and slalomed around cones. A few brave and more experienced young people even took a tour of the whole sprint course loop!
While it was not the primary focus of the 2022 Bill Koch Youth Ski League Coaches Education training, this educational offering hosted at Dublin School in Dublin, NH wrapped up with an optional Learn-to-Rollerski opportunity for all attendees and almost all the participants gave it a try. In addition to rollerskiing, this event also included a presentation on BKL Philosophy & Long Term Athlete Development, a group discussion, and a grass skiing session in which we covered some basic drills and exercises for building general comfort on skis and played a variety of games to further develop those skills. While rollerskiing is a fun way to engage with skiing in the no-snow months, it is just one part of being a well balanced athlete and it’s important to stay in touch with other activities and fun ways of being active hence the multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary nature of this educational offering.
Next up we road tripped to Boston for the second annual Youth Enrichment Services (YES) Rollerski Clinic where we shared a sunny morning of fun and games on rollerskis with YES and Eastern Mass Cross Country. The goal of this clinic was to introduce young people in the Boston area to the summer version cross country skiing, build stoke for the winter season, and provide an opportunity for YES participants to get acquainted with the EMXC athletes who assist with coaching YES’s winter ski program. Peep the fun recap vid below! Working with YES and EMXC is always such a pleasure and in addition to NENSA’s dedicated sponsors and grantors, this event would not be possible without the support of our generous donors, the Weston Ski Track who provided boots and poles for the clinic, and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation & Recreation for the use of their Tenean Beach parking lot.
And last, but certainly not least, we visited the 2022 NENSA Club of the Year – Ford Sayre – for an agility-based rollerski skills session. It’s inspiring to see how this club works towards their vision of fostering a lifelong passion for being active outdoors and gliding over snow and we so enjoyed getting to roll with their young athletes.
While that’s a wrap on the NENSA rollerski season, we will be back at it next summer! If you would like to schedule a rollerski clinic for your club or camp for next season, check our info page HERE for more details and then reach out to [email protected] and [email protected]. We do our best to fit in as many clinics as we can.
We will close out by saying a big thank you to our NENSA associate sponsors who make all this programming possible – Salomon, LL Bean, Swix, and Fischer – as well as our contributing and supporting sponsors, and our official suppliers for their dedicated and ongoing support of NENSA. We are also grateful to Enjoy Winter and Swenor Rollerskis for supplying use with an awesome fleet of rollerskis so all our clinic attendees can learn to rollerski on top-of-the-line equipment.
Next up, skiing!