I have over 30 years of experience teaching and coaching people who are seeking personal growth or dealing with strife in their life. I offer a free consultation so you can decide if I am a good match to work with you. I have extensive experience working with:

- Stress management
- Emotional Balance
- Parenting
- Grief and Loss
- Life Direction and Personal Growth
- Relationships (couples, family, friends)
- Mindfulness and meditation

From L. emovere ”move out, remove, agitate,”

from ex-“out” (see ex-) + movere ”to move”.

Sense of “strong feeling” is first recorded 1650s; extended to any feeling by 1808.

To not let your feelings move out results in emotional constipation.

Experiences discovering the spectacular and subtle intricacies of life foster more attentive observation and a more thoughtful awareness of how things work and interrelate.

How does the structure of an orchid function for seed fertilization, what are the far-ranging effects of pesticide use, what effects do certain mining practices have, what do we need to do to maintain a safe and prosperous environment?

A deep connection with the natural world is both soothing and disturbing: soothing in the observation and awareness of the spectacular magnificence of life, disturbing in the awareness of the detrimental effects produced by negligence and ignorance of human impact on the environment.

A deep understanding of life and our environment cultivates an enlightenment that transcends cultural bias, racism, consumerism, excessive waste, and wanton greed.

Nature is not some separate phenomena from us; we are part of nature. Ants build cities and so do humans. In a sense, we are just another species; the effect of our existence and behavior impacts our environment and other organisms.

These writings are aimed at sharing the beauty and wonder of our surroundings and for cultivating an awareness and commitment for managing how we affect our surroundings.

• Beware: Many benefits are reported below and there are many excellent resources on the internet for more information – however, especially if you are working with certain conditions like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, etc. you need to be wise, careful, and seek expert advise for physical fitness with those conditions. Even the most physically fit people need to approach physical training with care, patience, and accurate information.
• Cardiovascular or aerobic fitness: in simple terms this is usually thought of as taking care of heart, lungs, and circulatory system. However, cardio fitness has numerous health benefits for stress management, effects on appetite for weight control, blood pressure, cholesterol, preventing osteoporosis, increased vascularization (more capillaries and blood vessels) thus improving circulation, managing diabetes, and more.
  http://www.livestrong.com/article/522212-a-list-of-the-benefits-of-cardiovascular-endurance/
• Strength Training: Strength training can range from the simplest routine of a few pushups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and yoga postures that take 10 to 20 minutes a few times a week to highly elaborate and sophisticated training programs that require several hours or more per week, the latter being for performance athletes and body builders. Basic strength building exercise is essential for preventing osteoporosis, improving posture and balance which helps prevent injuries especially during recreation, aids weight control, etc. Again, care and patience are necessary.
• Flexibility: Attention to developing and maintaining flexibility is essential for well-being and is critically important to counter the muscle and joint tightening effects sometimes encountered with aerobic and strength training.
  - Bob Anderson’s book Stretching, is widely known as one of the best, yet simple, guides for flexibility.
  - Yoga is an outstanding path to increasing flexibility and takes many, many forms, some oriented mainly to increasing flexibility, strength, and peace of mind, others integrating various aspects of spirituality.
• Nutrition:
• Stress Management: This one overlaps with several other domains of well-being; primarily emotional, psychological, and interpersonal (relationships tend to take a hit when we don’t manage our stress effectively). However, it is often overlooked that stress that is strong and/or chronic has profound and dangerous health effects. It has been clearly shown that chronic stress can contribute to heart disease, cancer, ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, asthma, depression, anxiety, need I say more? Many people tend to dismiss their stress and do not take it seriously as something they can work on. This is serious, do something about it.

Two large divisions of plants are angiosperms and gymnosperms

• Angiosperms (from Greek “angeion” = vessel) are the flowering plants who’s seeds are contained within an ovary prior to fertilization and are usually surrounded by a developing fruit.
• Gymnosperms (naked seeds) are the conifers.

Conifers produce two types of cones.

• Seed cones are the large cones we usually think of as “pine cones” and are typically produced in the upper reaches of the tree.
• Pollen cones might easily be mistaken for baby seed cones but diminutive and produce only pollen.

Although not always true, pollen cones are often found in the lower portion of the tree and seed cones are found higher in the tree. This segregation of pollen cones from the seed cones diminishes the likelihood of self-pollination since the pollen is generally wind borne laterally to other trees.

Conifer genera and species are identified by features of their:

• Leaves (form, length, arrangement)
• Cones (size, prickles)
• Bark (form and thickness, usually described for mature trees, can differ for young trees)
• Overall shape or stature (somewhat variable but generally characteristic of a species).

Conifers in the Sierra Nevada:

The Sierra Nevada is home for about two dozen species of conifers with six of those species attaining world record size. (Of course, there is ongoing debate about splitting out hybrids and subspecies but we will focus on the commonly recognized species)

Two families of conifers are found in the Sierra Nevada:

• The Pine Family (Pinaceae)
• The Cypress Family (Cupressaceae).
• [The Giant Redwood, Sequoiadendron, was previously listed under a separate family, Taxodiaceae]

• Trees in the Pine family have slender, needle-like leaves.
• Trees in the Cypress Family have scale-like leaves.

Only four genera of the Cypress family are found in the Sierra Nevada, the Junipers (Juniperus), the Incense-Cedars (Calocedros), the Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron), and Cypress (Cupressus). [Baker Cypress (Cupresses. bakeri) occurs below 6,000 ft., aka Modoc Cypress, Siskiyou Cypress]

The small branches of Calocedros are flattened, almost feather-like splays of scale-covered branchlets.
Junipers have rather course and haphazard terminal branches.

Conifers in the Donner Summit area:

There are several local genera in the Pine Family (Pinaceae)

• Pinus, the Pine trees
• Tsuga, Hemlock trees
• Pseudotsuga, Douglas Fir
• Abies, the Firs

The needles of Tsuga, Pseudotsuga, and Abies are always single and attach directly to the branch.
Pinus has a fine, papery wrapping at the base of needles and, depending on the species, usually bunched in groups of 2, 3, or 5. One species, the Pinyon Pine (P. monophyllum), has a single needle per bunch.

The Pine trees (Pinus):

• Lodgepole Pine (P. contorta)
• Jeffrey Pine (P. jeffreyi)
• Western White Pine (P. monticola)
• Ponderosa Pine (P. ponderosa)
• Sugar Pine (P. lambertiana)

Pine species are identified by features of the needles (number in each bundle and length), cones (size, prickle on end of bracts), bark, and overall stature or form.

Lodgepole Pine (P. contorta)  -  short needles, small cones, 2 needle pine

• Leaves: 2 needles per bundle, ± 3-8 cm
• Cones: small, ± 4-5 cm
• Bark: thin, flaky, like course corn-flakes
• Stature/form: Trunks often straight, small trees make good tipi poles. The Washoe valued small straight trees because they were light-weight and long and therefore useful for knocking down Piñon pine cones (Pinus monophyllum), a highly valued food source found abundantly in the eastern Sierra. When Lodgepole pines grow in locations exposed to strong wind or heavy snow loads they become very twisted and contorted.

Jeffrey Pine (P. jeffreyi)  -  long needles, robust cones, 3 needle bundles

• Leaves: 3 per bundle, ± 12-22 cm
• Cones: 13–25 cm, prickles curve inward (Jeffreys are gentle, Pondos are prickly)
• Bark: deeply furrowed, very thick, puzzle-pieces
• Stature/form: very tall, spreading crown

Ponderosa Pine very similar to Jeffrey Pine, lower elevations, smaller cones, prickles turned outward.

Western White Pine (P. monticola)  -  short needles, longish slender cones, cones usually open,

• Leaves: 5 per bundle, 3 – 10 cm, very thin, more delicate than contorta
• Cones: distinctive, 9-25 cm, slender, thin bracts, yellowish, often white sap deposits.
• Bark: in mature trees, deeply furrowed, distinctly chunky, rectangular, like alligator skin
• Stature/form:

Sugar Pine (P. lambetiana)  -  HUGE cones, short needles, distinctive sprawling branches, flattened top

• Leaves: 5 per bundle, 5 – 11 cm
• Cones: huge, 15 to 60+ cm
• Bark: in mature trees, deeply furrowed,
• Stature/form: distinctive profile, the largest in pinus (ponderosa is tallest), unique spreading branches, downward drooping at branch tips, mature crown flattened.

Hemlock (Tsuga):

There are two species of Hemlock trees in California, only one is found in the Sierra Nevada. Hemlocks are conical in overall form and the treetops have a unique nodding or “coach whip” posture.

Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga):

There are two species of Douglas-Fir in California, only one is found in the Sierra Nevada. Cones with distinctive 3 lobed bracts on cone scales, the “mice hiding” under the cone scales.

Douglas Fir (P. menziesii)

• Leaves: 2 to 4 cm long
• Cones: seed cone 5 to 9 cm long, deciduous, 3 lobed bracts (“mice rump and tail”), hanging at ends of branches
• Bark: younger bark smooth, grayish, with resin blisters; mature bark thick, dark, deeply furrowed
• Stature/form: mature crown rounded

• White Fir (A. concolor)
• Red Fir (A. magnifica)

At first glance, White fir and Red fir look very similar. However, with large trees, break off a flake of bark and a distinctive brick-red color is found on the Red fir.

White Fir (A. concolor)

• Leaves: 2 to 9 cm long, attached in rows along branch.
• Cones: seed cone 7 to 13 cm long, erect on top of branches, disintegrates before falling.
• Bark: younger bark smooth, grayish, with resin blisters; mature bark thick, deeply furrowed
• Stature/form: conical, classic Christmas tree, branches whorled, 60+ meters tall, up to 3 meters diameter

Red Fir (A. magnifica)

• Leaves: 1.5 to 3.5 cm long, dense
• Cones: seed cone 12 to 23 cm long, erect on top of branches, disintegrates before falling.
• Bark: younger bark smooth, grayish, with resin blisters; mature bark thick, dark, deeply furrowed, dark red underneath.
• Stature/form: mature crown rounded, up to 60 meters tall, 2.5 meters wide.

There are two genera in the Cypress Family found in the Donner Summit area.

• Juniperus, the Junipers
• Calocedros, Incense-Cedar

Your mind is not always helpful. Some of you might be lucky enough to have a mind that is cooperative and only offers helpful and valid thoughts. However, many of you might have experienced thoughts that are unhelpful.

If you are considering getting out of bed for a training session or as you push yourself to do another interval (or for that matter, to do any intervals), your mind might interfere. For example, maybe you are lying in a comfortable, warm bed and you consider getting up for an early run or roller ski. It is quite logical for your mind to conclude that this is a bad idea and offer some objections: “Oh, I’m so tired, just stay here a bit longer, just a few minutes more, maybe you need a rest day, yeah, just a few minutes more, oh gosh, now it’s too late to work out, just stay here a bit longer and then have some coffee, you can train tomorrow…”

If you are skiing at race pace or in the midst of the pain of a hard uphill interval, it is quite logical for your mind to suggest that you slow down or stop, or perhaps give up cross country skiing altogether and take up chess or do more yoga. Although many thoughts have a degree of logic, that does not mean that they are helpful or valid. (OK, yoga or chess might actually be much smarter than Nordic ski racing, but we’ll ignore that for now.)

Three Things That Help Your Mind Be Unhelpful

Your Mind is Not Your Friend. I don’t mean that your mind is your enemy; bless its heart, your mind does not mean to be a problem. It just does what minds do, it thinks — and thinks and thinks and thinks. Like fish swim and butterflies flutter, minds think — it is just what they do. One problem with this is that there is no quality control, no guarantee that the thinking is helpful or valid. Another problem with minds is that what they come up with can be remarkably persuasive. Be mindful of these three qualities of human minds: 1) minds are prolific thinkers; 2) the thinking might be flawed, and 3) the thinking can be extremely persuasive. Keeping these facts “in mind” can be useful for learning to avoid the pratfalls of your cognitive follies.

Minds Are Productive

Minds tend to be active, almost constantly producing a stream of thinking: monologues, dialogues, problem solving, fretting, fantasizing, imagining creative designs, and on and on. Minds respond to events or conditions we encounter — a song, sight, or smell can trigger remembering of long past experiences or conjecture about the present or future. Minds also produce random thinking, tangential topics. I’ll leave that for another article. Most of what minds do is automatic, essentially working like a reflex.  For example, say the word, “lemon”, yes, take a moment, pay attention, and say it.

“Lemon.” . . .

What comes to mind?

Many people report having an image of a yellow fruit. Sometimes they mention an old car. My point is, for most people* something happens immediately in response to saying “lemon.” For most people, the mind does not just sit idle.

Minds are Persuasive

This property of cognition, that minds are persuasive, is most developed in humans.

Try this example: Imagine a wedge of lemon, fresh and juicy. Then imagine biting into a wedge of lemon.

What do you notice? . . . .

Do you feel sensations in your mouth? – Most people notice lemonness, they experience lemon in some way.

For humans, much more than any other species, as far as we can tell; experiencing and languaging* become glued together, fused, so to speak.

(*Instead of seeing cognition as things and referring to it with nouns, I see it as behaving and therefore prefer to use verbs. Thus, when we are thinking, instead of “having thoughts” [things], I see it as behaving, i.e., a verb, “thinking” or “languaging.” Sorry for the tedious semantics but I believe it makes an important difference. )

If you think about something, it triggers experiencing the thing thought of (the lemonness shows up). For example, about a kilometer into a 15 km race, you might start having thoughts about how slow you are going, how awful you feel, how this is pointless, and you should just stop. It feels very true, valid, convincing, persuasive. It is easy to let this thinking affect your behavior and you might begin to slow down, as though that is a reasonable idea. (And then again, we have the very real possibility that chess or yoga might be a smarter idea than ski racing.)

Thought Suppression Makes Sense — And it Causes Problems

If you have thoughts that are unpleasant or unhelpful, the logical strategy is to make those thoughts stop. In fact, there are many books and therapies that endorse and instruct “Thought Stopping” techniques. However, research has found that these thought suppression strategies, over the long run, tend to make the unwanted thoughts more persistent, stronger, and more frequent. To get rid of unwanted thoughts, we first put it on a mental list of thoughts to not think.

Nice work, now you have the thoughts on a list to watch out for and suppress. Furthermore, the strategy of getting rid of the thought implies that the thought is too awful to be with and you must get rid of it. This stance is like putting the unwanted thought on steroids; now you have made it a demon, too unpleasant to deal with, and the only solution is to get rid of it. Moreover, since your mind is so productive and automatic, at least until you get dementia or a head injury, the thought is bound to come to mind again.

Avoidance of unwanted thoughts and feelings is the most common mechanism that exacerbates emotional difficulties and is the driving force leading to severe emotional problems such as agoraphobia and suicide, both of which can severely interfere with training and racing (and many other aspects of life).

Don’t Believe Everything You Think

If thoughts can be unhelpful and interfere with effective behavior, and if thought suppression leads to problems, what are you to do?

It boils down to learning to make peace with your mind, learning to observe thoughts and feelings (blocking avoidance) and make decisions about what you take as valid. This practice, usually called Mindfulness, is much more challenging than it might first appear. The bottom line? It takes practice.

Reigning in The Mind

In my clinical work, one of my greatest challenges is to get people to take Mindfulness seriously and to consistently practice it. Mindfulness practice has been shown to be astonishingly helpful with stress management, emotional difficulties, and many medical problems such as high blood pressure, psoriasis, and migraines. The relevance for this article is that mindfulness practice can help you be less hindered by thoughts that are distracting, discouraging, or outright unhelpful. It also can apply to other areas of your life.

Mindfulness, in essence, is paying attention in a particular way. In a sense, it is paying attention to paying attention. John Kabat-Zinn uses the verb awarenessing. A basic tool for practicing mindfulness is attending to your breathing. Exercises for developing mindfulness direct you to steer your complete attention to your breathing. When you notice distraction, gently turn the attention back toward the breath. I sometimes think of the attention like a wandering horse, rather than cursing and insisting he stop wandering, I gently and kindly steer him back to the path.

While racing, steer your attention to the task at hand. This is complicated. It entails both the current moment, such as getting up a particular steep climb, and it includes pacing the whole race, monitoring technique, and dealing with other racers. Be willing to have it show up and don’t waste energy fighting or even disliking it. As your mind starts complaining about your fatigue as you head up the first climb in a race, you can notice the thinking and steer your attention toward efficient skiing, efficient relaxed breathing, the fact that your fatigue will dissipate and you will recover. Focus your attention on skiing wisely and pay attention to your breathing. Useful books on these topics are Wherever You Go, There You Are by John Kabat-Zinn, Get Out of Your Mind, and Into Your Life by Steven Hayes, and Mindfulness by Ellen Langer.

Check out this link to a presentation about Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn on YouTube.

Russell Kennedy shows off a dynamic skate turn into the downhill at the CNISSF Truckee High Sprints.

Navigating turns is an important skill for staying right-sideup on your skis, and it can be one of the most fun parts of skiing—especially when you are going fast. Turns can be a crucial part of skiing faster while racing, and efficient turns maintain speed and avoid time-devouring crashes. Learning to effectively analyze and execute a turn not only maintains speed, it can have advantages for endurance and power.

For simplicity of discussion, turning can be divided into two categories — stepping turns and carving turns. This article will focus on the former and leave the latter for another article. Skier stance is critical for all skiing, and many skiers are more prone to letting the hips or hands dropback, which invites your center
of gravity to head out the back door, resulting in the well-known Sitzmark. Even very subtle shifts in stance can cross the threshold from skiing to crashing.

Top Master Racers Rick Reynolds and Tav Streit are two of the best skate technicians in the country.

Stepping Turns –The Basics

The most basic method of turning is the step-turn—that is, simply picking up a ski and changing direction. When teaching beginners I have them standing still on the skis, lift a tip and rotate or pivot the tip out to the side, keeping the tail in the same spot as a pivot point. Then the other ski is brought parallel. If this done repeatedly, they turn around in a circle and their tracks make a large star. (It is surprising how many beginners initiate a left turn by first moving the right ski and then are surprised when the skis become crossed.) After some practice in both directions, they can then try this while sliding. For an experienced skier, this becomes second nature and seems quite obvious. Novice beginners can be challenged by maneuvering the long planks attached to their feet and indeed, some skiers are befuddled by this at first. Patience.

A Step-Turn Evolves Into a Skating Step-turn

In skating and striding, a passive step-turn evolves into a skating step-turn. This is accomplished by adding power to stepping off of the outside ski and pushing (i.e., skating) into the turn. The skate turn becomes dynamic and exciting as speed increases.

Two factors increase the demands of navigating a turn: radius (sharper turns are more challenging) and speed. Using V1 or V2 technique (see sidebar) through turns is pretty straightforward, other than which side to pole on in V1. Getting through a turn at speed, especially a sharp turn, is a different story. As stated above, the most basic step turn is simply a passive step in the direction of the turn and the remaining ski is brought to parallel the stepped ski. As the step-turn becomesmore advanced, the step becomes more aggressive and power is added to the step-off. As more power is added to the step-off, the step turn evolves into a skating step turn. In other words, instead of passively changing direction of the ski, the powerful step becomes a push that maintains or accelerates your speed. So far, these are the basics.

As the speed and power of a skating step-turn increase, more care and assertiveness needs to be applied to edge control. Snow characteristics, trail conditions (i.e., speed of skis on snow, firmness and predictability of the trail surface), and skier skill and strength will dictate whether a few large aggressive steps will be most effective or whether it is smarter to use a greater number of quick small steps. When learning to skate through turns, I recommend small steps. Although taking small steps is a good rule-of-thumb, as the speed and demands of a turn increase, it can be more effective to take large aggressive steps. This will come with experience. In optimum conditions at high speeds, I will be skating off each ski, springing off each step, and edging strongly against the forces of the turn. This degree of turn requires a determined and aggressive approach. If you come into a turn fast enough, it demands aggressive and dynamic skating; the alternatives are crashing or slowing down.

The author shows how a Skating Step-Turn can lead to racing success at Tahoe Donner Cross Country

Drills

I use two similar drills for training this kind of turn: skating circles and figure eights. These drills train agility, power, and ski handling. Find a spacious flat area and begin skating in a circle 30 to 40 feet in diameter. To make the drill more advanced, increase your speed and/or decrease the radius of the turn. A slightly more challenging version is to skate in a figure 8, which allows you to practice turns in both directions. One element I focus is when I retrieve the outside ski back toward the other ski, I aim to tuck the tip of the outer ski slightly under the other ski, nesting one ski tip under the other. Aim to develop a dynamic drive, even a springing off the skate. I have found that successfully making a high speed turn depends as much on determination as it does skill. Practice, Practice, Practice.

The Hand Drive

When skating fast through a turn, it is helpful, even essential, to drive the outside hand ahead and toward the inside of the turn, driving the hand assertively in the direction of the turn. This hand drive does two things: it helps counter the inertia pulling you out of the turn; it also sets up a position to help retrieve the outside leg when it is fully extended. The timing of the outside hand driving to the inside of the turn corresponds with the skate of the outside leg. The momentum of the skating leg adds to the force pulling you out of the turn; the outside hand driving into the turn counters this force and prevents you from being spit out of the turn. Many years ago one of my first skating mentors had taken me out to show me how to ski a fast turn. He gleefully watched me repeatedly get spit out of the turn before showing me the hand drive. The hand completes its drive as the leg is fully extended. A snappy retrieval of the hand creates a counter force to the centripetal force pulling you out of the turn and aids in quickly retrieving the leg in preparation for the next stride.

Top Far West Nordic Junior Annika Taylor skate turns into the downhill at the Truckee High Sprints.

Marathon Skate Turn

It seems that many skate skiers neglect becoming proficient with the Marathon Skate and indeed, it has limited application for going faster. I can think of three situations that call for the Marathon Skate and turning is one of them. For this application of the MS, you need to be very comfortable with the technique and this is done without using the striding track. As speed increases, the V1 is replaced by a turning Marathon Skate. Find some open flats or an easy turn to begin practicing this. The inside ski simply runs flat and is step turned in the direction of the turn. Double poling is synchronized with the skate of the outside ski as in a Marathon Skate. Here is the key to creating speed with this move: retrieving the hands to the ready position for the next poling stroke can become very dynamic and integrated with a hop off of the skating ski, setting up for a very powerful double pole and subsequent skate. As the hands launch back up to set the poles, the energy can drive you into a hop that sets you up for a very powerful skate off the outside ski. I find it very fun and exciting to be coming clear of the snow, changing the direction of the inside ski while in the air, and landing with a powerful double pole and simultaneously skating off the outside ski. You could call it a Flying Marathon Skate. Careful you don’t plant a pole on or inside a ski or the speed will be transformed into a spectacular crash.

Controlling Speed by Skating Through Turns

If you are comfortable with carving through turns, there is an additional subtlety you can apply at high speeds. Skis run faster when pointed in the direction of travel, obvious when you compare straight ahead schussing with snow plowing. Skating through turns is faster than carving or skidding. For more speed, I try to avoid carving but too much speed in a turn can be a problem (need I explain?). I have found that I can integrate carving with skating. When skating off of the outside ski, I can integrate a brief carve to govern my speed. Sometimes it is very slight, other times it turns into a pure carving turn. Developing a feel for long, stable glides on a single ski will help develop this. I have become convinced that balance drills and core strength are key components of carrying speed through turns. Sometimes when I am teaching I mention the importance of P and P: “Practice and Patience.” Keep practicing and give your skills time to develop.