Jackrabbit program teaches skiing in a fun way

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/01/2002 (8771 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

IT’S an unfortunate January tradition as predictable as hefty credit card bills.

Parents buy their children cross-country ski equipment, thinking the sport offers an inexpensive and healthy way to enjoy winter. They take the kids out to a park to shuffle and stumble along, only to find that if you don’t know what you’re doing cross-country skiing is just a lot of shuffling and stumbling in the cold.

“People go out and try skiing and don’t take a lesson and they find it’s hard, it produces sweat and it’s not fun,” says Herb Katz, who with his wife Debbie is leading Jackrabbit ski lessons for children at the Wildewood Club this winter.

The Katzes have joined the ranks of the city’s Jackrabbit teachers because they want to show how much fun it can be to glide over the snow.

The Jackrabbit program was started in Winnipeg in the late 1970s by Gord Konantz and Jack Sasseville, as a way of getting more young people into the sport and creating a feeder system for racing. The program — named after the legendary Jackrabbit Johanssen, a lifelong skier who lived to be 112 years old — is designed to be a fun way of learning the skills of skiing.

“They were looking to get the sport going in Canada and they realized there was no feeder system,” says Ken Goodridge, who leads Jackrabbit lessons at the Windsor Park Nordic Centre through the Red River Nordic Ski Club. “There was nothing like minor hockey or Little League baseball.”

In Jackrabbit classes, kids learn the balance and weight shift required in cross-country skiing through a variety of games. They play tag and a skiing variation of British bulldog, slide with one ski on and one ski off, and join up in pairs to have three-legged races. When they move on to actual skiing they earn badges for reaching various skill levels and for speed and distance skied.

“We try to teach as much as we can through games and relays,” says Goodridge. “The last thing you want is kids standing in the cold while you explain to them how something is done.”

Goodridge’s group begins dryland training in the fall to work on balance and strength. Although preseason training is strongly encouraged, the group accepts members who begin in the winter without it.

Goodridge, who began skiing as an adult when his wife Laureen suggested it would make a good family activity, emphasizes the sport as a healthy, lifelong activity, rather than focusing on competition. Some Jackrabbit kids go on to racing for provincial or national teams, but for many others the benefit of learning to ski is that it’s a low-impact, aerobic activity that they will be able to enjoy for the rest of their lives.

In addition to offering Jackrabbit classes for kids, Goodridge is now providing instruction through the Red River Nordic Ski Club for Jackrabbit parents who want to be able to keep up with their kids.

The Katzes, who recently moved to Winnipeg from Edmonton, say they were surprised upon moving here to see that cross-country skiing seems to be going through a dip in popularity. In Edmonton there are enough skiers to make the annual Birkebeiner race a major highlight of the winter — more than 2,000 people gather in the rolling hills east of the city for the annual 55-kilometre race.

In addition to participating in the Birkebeiner, Katz used to teach a course for skiers wanting to take part in recreational ski races known as loppets.

“My wife and I have been cross-country skiers for a long time and we decided we wanted to give something back to cross-country skiing,” Katz says. “If it’s going to grow it has to start with the kids.”

The Manitoba Naturalists’ Society also runs a Jackrabbit group, which meets at the Windsor Park Nordic Centre, and another Jackrabbit group is based in St. James. For information on Jackrabbit lessons in Winnipeg, call the Cross Country Ski Association of Manitoba at 925-5639.