Hey Everyone,

    So every week the New River Academy has a competition on or off the water. The idea behind a mandatory competition is to condition everyone competing to the everyday competition you encounter in life. And the rest of life such as trying to to get into college or applying for work. We did some training sessions in which everyone picked the moves they were going to do in competition and repeated them over and over again. This repetition helps everyone cement the correct motion before having to link each move together in a 45 second ride.
    So after a few days of intense training and instruction from myself and David Spiegel the competition was on our doorstep. We had a pre comp meeting on land to go over a few last things and then geared up and put on the water for out flat water warm up. As soon as both schools were in the eddy, we started off with the less experienced class athletes at the lowest wave on McCoys named Babyface. The New River Acadmey Athletes took the top three spots in the first rodeo. David Gorski who got third was the most consistent in his rides with clean spins and a blunt. Emery Tillman who was one of the only girls competing in a large class of junior men but not only held her own, she got second beating out every single world class junior in the competition. And last but not least for the babyface competition was Zach. Zach took first by staying consistent for most of his ride with spins and then at the last second when he was about to crash and flush off the wave gave into the water and threw a big back panam ending up in a frontsurf to win the whole competition.
    The Corner wave competition was just as exciting with our New River Academy Athletes taking the top three spots once again. Isaac Holden in third with some blunts a clean blunt and a back stab. Jason Craig in second with an unheard of loop on corner wave as well as some high end moves thrown in there for example a pan am and a helix. Now, Keegan Grady pulled down the top spot in the advanced class blowing away the competition with almost every move in the book. Keegan finished his ride with a score to beat most of the top pro men in the sport!
    Over all as a coach I was proud and impressed by the athletes poise and consistency under pressure. Everybody stepped up and performed to the top of their ability level as well as took time out of prepering themselves to help out with the logistics of the competition, asking "what can I go Tino?" numerous times which is something that shined through to make them winners of the competition as well as incredible and supportive team mates and competitors.

Here is the video update of the competition made by Ross of the New River Academy Video Class




Paddle Hard,
Tino Specht