Snow boarding as a way of life

Suzie Harrison

Combining inverted flips and twists with 540- and 360-degree

rotations with plenty of aptitude brought the 13-year-old snowboarder

a third place in the half pipe at the National Championships. His

10-year-old sister also received a third place in the half pipe and

slope style combined.

Together these two kids from Laguna Beach made quite an impression

at the United States of America Snowboard Assn. National

Championships in Sunday River Maine in April.

Keegan Valaika and his sister Bryn love snowboarding and have

quite a lot of experience considering their age.

“I’ve been snowboarding for five years kinda because of my

brother,” Bryn said. “My dad got him started so I thought it’d be

fun.”

Keegan and Bryn compete in the San Gabriel and Southern California

conferences. With points in half pipe, slope style, boarder cross,

slalom and giant slalom earned over the year at the regional

conferences, they qualified for the National Championships.

“It felt really good, I was stoked,” Keegan said. “The pipe isn’t

my specialty, I’m more adept at slope style -- there are no pipes in

Southern California.”

Asked how he does inverted flips and twists, Keegan said he just

does it, he just throws it.

“I’ve been snowboarding since I was 7, so it’s been 6 years,”

Keegan said.

Bryn said that they have been boarding every weekend for two

years.

“We have a coach, he has us try new tricks and teaches us better

techniques,” Bryn said. “In slope style, you do jumps and rails and I

did the half pipe -- it felt cool, it was fun.”

The judges look for difficult tricks with spins, grabs and

amplitude (air) in the half pipe and slope style they look for riding

switch (reverse stance) over jumps and doing difficult maneuvers over

the rails.

“In the future, hopefully I’ll be going to the Olympics, be on the

USA team and compete in the X-Games,” Keegan said.