 Skiing
with the legendary "Beast from the East" Bill
Brzoza. He’s the best, inverted jumper, and first inverted jumper the
East has ever seen! And he's huge. Bill's hand, from knuckle to knuckle
is wider than most people's fingertips to wrist measurement. If you don’t
believe me, then you’ll find out for yourself some day if you go to
the Nationals or Eastern Region tournaments. Billy called me back in
February to book this clinic with a bunch of guys on his lake. Billy
also wanted to get some quality instruction in for himself since he
qualified for the World Championships in all three events this year. He’s
by far the best skier on his lake that everyone looks up too!
I arrived early from the Massachusetts clinic and got
to enjoy Billy’s boy’s 1st birthday (Max). Everyone from
around the lake came over in their boats and we had a fun and relaxing
night with too many soda’s, if ya know what I mean. Woke up the next
morning and went for a ride around the lake and helped the hang over
doing some endurance shoe skiing back to the dock. That night we went to
Harbor Side, which is a restaurant on the ocean that one of Billy’s
buddy's owns. Well, a couple drinks on the house got us to where we
wanted to go and we made it back somewhat early for Monday morning.
Monday started off a little slow with just a couple
young guys foot’n that learn extremely fast. The two footers that we
had to nick name was "Kat" and "Quail." Matt (Kat)
is Billy’s training partner that is 20 years old and coming on the
barefoot scene fast! Kyle (Quail) learned a back deep in one set and was
doing turns on the Extreme Footers on his next set. It was good that we
didn’t have to many footers cause Billy and I need to get some serious
training in for ourselves before the Worlds in Austria!
 Monday
night, the same person that owns Harbor Side (Gary) won a free trip on
an 80 ft. sailboat. So, he invited about twenty people from around the
lake, that he and Billy hang with, to accompany him. We brought our
coolers of food and what not and had fun sailing all around Newport,
R.I. It was beautiful because it was overcast. You’re wondering why I
liked the overcast? For one, I didn’t want to be in the sun any more
that day and I forgot my sunglasses that I live in! We were out for
about two hours and caught a gorgeous sunset! The smell of the ocean is
so different! I remembered jumping at the X-games in San Diego on
Mission Bay and the starting dock that we got dropped off at. My mouth
was so dry after skiing in the salt water that I couldn’t even talk.
We figured out if you bring Skittles with you on the dock you can eat
those and get that awful taste out of your mouth. Skiing on salt water
isn’t too fun! You’ll find a picture of Capt. Ron that didn’t want
his picture taken. When I asked to take his picture he told me that
pictures take your soul! I told him to get ready anyhow cause I was
going to take one regardless.
Tuesday was slow as well but I wasn’t complaining
and Billy wasn’t either. We skied hard and had Billy’s old training
partner Larry Mageaux (’92 Overall National Champion) ski with us. He
looked great for not foot’n in two years with surface turns flying
left and right. He even attempted a toe back and hit it on his third
try!
Wednesday started to pick up and we were booked all
day. We had glass water till 2:00pm and if boats came out they had a
small cove to go to. When I say small I mean 600 ft. tops! It’s great
for working on starts or shoe skiing. Other than that all you can do is
get up on the boom and have time to throw one trick in. Not long but
always mirror conditions!
Thursdau was the same and we got a treat from Billy’s
wife’s sister Kate. Kate is married to Jamie, who is a Captain on a
lobster boat and pro surfer! He saved ten lobsters for us after his day
on the ocean trapping the lobsters. We had a meal that was unbelievable!
He literally took the lobsters out of the water and brought them to the
pot within two minutes! I’d say that’s as fresh as it comes. We all
ate till we couldn’t put anymore down!
Friday we had about six to seven skiers throughout the
day, all footers from the lake that knew how to have fun in the boat. It
was like I was back in high school with everyone cracking jokes on each
other. We enjoyed laughing at people’s falls and busting on each other
most of the day. Everyone learned something new and had enough to keep
them busy the rest of the summer.
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From left to
right:Ray, Alex, Don,
ME,Smitty, Bill the "Tulip",
Derek, and Neil. |
After the clinic on Friday we packed our bags and
drove six hours south to Philadelphia for the Eastern Regionals. I
decided the week before I’d just ski on the Extreme Footers. I wanted
to try an experiment to see where I’d stand after just shoe skiing for
the whole week. It was a great work out and I probably skied two to
three sets a day, Mon. through Thurs. Friday morning I took two passes,
just my front and back trick run. My line turn run went well but I fell
on my reverse toe back. I didn’t want to beat myself up and footers
were waiting to ski, so I called it at that and rested before the
tournament.
We had 37 skiers at the tournament, which was good for
the East. When it came time for the tricks event, I told myself to do
everything just like I was doing on the Extreme Footers! Started with my
four line turns followed by four 180’s and two line step 360’s. I
felt great on my feet except for the dump truck I was towing behind me!
Skiing on the shoe skis all week gave me the opportunity to feel a
perfect glide going all the time. The pull on your feet is obviously
much greater, so I had to adjust quickly. I then completed my second
pass with four toe turns, one side only being feet to feet and followed
by my 360’s and four one foot turns. To be honest with you, I felt
extremely comfortable on my feet, even though I felt like I weighed at
least two fifty! I completed both trick runs but only scored 7950. My
actual run comes out to be 9500. I concluded that shoe skiing is great
but should only be 50 percent of your skiing and not 100%. You need to
be ready for the stronger pull on your feet.
A couple other fantastic feats at the Eastern Regional
were Mark Williamson jumping behind the boat for the first time in a
tournament! He landed his first jump at thirty-five feet! Billy Brzoza
jumped past the World Jump record set by Brett New out of Australia! The
original record was 86.1 ft. and Billy surpassed it by 0.1 foot, which
is a lot when you’re jumping that far. This will be a pending world
record set at 86.2 ft. and a new US National jump record, formally held
by myself! Damn! Thanks for the good time and great hospitality to the
Johnson’s Pond crew!
Thanks,
KSO
For more information on Keith St Onge
and Gliding Soles Barefoot Camp, be sure to visit
www.GlidingSoles.com
Keith@GlidingSoles.com
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Rhode
Island's "Beast from the East"
