The weekend

My first normal non-sick Tokamachi weekend in ages, Friday night I taught loads and then met Martin for some chicken-gizzards-on-a-stick. Saturday I relaxed but had a good night out at Kaori's, playing drinking games and just being goofy.

Late Sunday night I went to a showing of some ski videos and slide shows by my friend Take and his ski buddies, plus a team called CMV who are former Japan National Ski Team members that are now free skiers, who have a little production company and are producing their own videos now. They live down the road from me in Nozawa Onsen and manage the Nozawa freestyle park. They are a bit younger than me and are considered part of the 'New Generation' movement in skiing which revolves around more creativity in using terrain, rails, backcountry, and of course pushing the limit in the air in the park and halfpipe (borrowing from snowboarding in those areas).

Take's brother Yuzuru skis sometimes with CMV and was in the video. It has some footage of him in Taos, New Mexico (one of my former home hills) hucking and landing a front flip off an 80-foot cliff in the West Basin of the ridge. Take and Yuzuru and a guy named Maru (who lives in Joetsu) took part in Taos's freesking comp last year and that's where they shot the footage.

We went out to an izakaya afterwards to relax. I couldn't drink cuz I was driving back home but they promised they would come to Tokamachi and have a good night out there. All these guys are incredible skiers and it was fun that some of them know and have skied with my friends back home like Ely and Gabe. It was great that they were familiar with things about New Mexico that few people in the world know anything about, and gave me a sense of renewed connection with my life back home.

And again it was of course great to see my buddy Take. He has a huge heart.