It wasn’t till the Start of November when I officially started the job and met Brad the team in the city of Jinan, the capital city of the Shandong province. We were there for two weeks for a trampoline & gym camp from the Provincial Sport University.

If I could sum up these first two weeks properly, I’d say it reminded so much of being back in High School. Going from the lack of schedule I previous have had to a very set one, in a school environment, and eating at a cafeteria two of the three meals. One of my favorite days there, me and the foreign staff consisting of two weight coaches Kenny & Chas, and Brad the head coach. Took a trip to a lake at the center of the city called Daming Lake. For a couple hours we walked around the entire lake, taking photos, and waited for night time. Almost at 6:30 on the dot, the entire park came alive. 

Finishing up our two weeks in Jinan it was time to head to our winter home, Genting Secret Garden. Nestled up in the mountains of the Chongli District, The Secret Garden will be one of the Olympic Venues for the 2022 games.

With the exception of a quick trip I made back to the States for my visa, this is the location I’ve spent the majority of my time at. While the majority of the time has been heavily focused on training, we thankfully had a World Cup here in December with plenty of familiar faces around. 

With the new year beginning, it was a very strange time to not be around family or loved ones during the holidays. Missed everyone like crazy, but thankful for the opportunity to grow. I have to say though out of all the places I’ve traveled for skiing, I don’t think I was more consistently cold then I was this year. While in the mountains near Chongli there isn’t much snow. While the lack of changing weather at least made for effective training, damn it was cold. This winter it seemed like the average temperature was right around -25 Celcius (-13 Fahrenheit), with the occasional crazy cold day around -45 Celcius (-49 Fahrenheit)…Yes you read that correctly. 

Thankfully we made it out while keeping all fingers and toes attached before making our way over Park City for World Championship & Calgary World Cup right afterwards. Being back in the US really was an amazing time, getting to enjoy breakfast is something I will always cherish about America. While the weather wasn’t the best we had a couple of our kids really crush it, with two girls making finals.

Following Park City, we took a flight up north to Calgary and immediately felt like we never left the freezing temperatures of China. The cold weather hit us hard, and it didn’t help that Delta airlines lost all our luggage on our non-stop flight from Salt Lake. Thankfully Brad and I rallied in the morning to grab everyone’s luggage before our practice started. The contest went great for most of the kids and our two girls finished in 3rd & 5th place for the contest. 

The day after this contest we were on a plane back to China for the last Chinese National Competitions of the spring. When we got back we had a surprise stretch of warm weather that was simply, awesome. Only thing that sucked is that I had to wait to enjoy the spring slush. Air China lost my luggage this time🙈. During this time I was moved down to the B Team, and started up training some of the kiddos with the last few weeks of on snow training we would have for the rest of spring. 

Before our winter finished up in Secret Garden we had one last Chinese Nationals contest, with guest judge Steele Spence coming to hang out.

With that contest finished up it was about time for the off-season training to get started. Before that though I made a trip home for my first break of the season.

-Noah

Part 3 coming soon...