Coaches Retreat!
In Attendance:
Greg Butauski
Aaron Costic
Jeff Petercsak
Doug Ganhs
Jeffrey Baine
Jeff Wolf
Brian Beland
Greg Beachey
Bob Schultz
Ken Berkhemper
Kristian Smith
Richard Alford
The National Ice Carving Association organized a coaches retreat that was hosted at the shop of Icesculptingtools.com a division of Elegant Ice Creations in Cleveland. A special thank you goes out to Aaron Costic who also donated the ice for this NICA event.
Originally the thought was that we would get as many college coaches together from the collegiate nationals to help them better prepare their students and share as much information as possible. Everyone in attendance learned a great deal from this experience.
As it turned out this was a gathering of ice educators and not just coaches. A few of the guys are high school vocational teachers. The focus then shifted to the Certification of Ice Carving Educators (NICA’s new program) and the discussion of setting standards for the industry that deal with accrediting ice carving schools. As it turned out NICA learned that we need to help provide information to the educators and keep them up to date on the latest trends. In order for NICA to focus on the youth of our industry, we now understand that we need to do this through the teachers.
We first started out the two day event with Jeff Petercsak demonstrating how to modify and sharpen your chain for ice carving. He also demonstrated how to modify your torch to use a small canister of propane. You too can look up these techniques on this very web site.
Jeffrey Baine and Kristian Smith work with Aaron Costic on a fusion and textures seminar!
The coaches were shown how to make a perfect sphere using a chainsaw, layout jig, carpenters square, hand scratchy, Sphere shaper and sand paper! To learn the process go to our precision cutting section on this website.
Next Greg Butauski presented NICA’s 10 Steps to 3D sculpting. The point of this seminar was not to show the teachers how to carve, but to encourage them to present a similar systematic approach to ice sculpting. Everyone was very receptive to the idea.
After the 10 steps Aaron Costic and Greg Butauski split the group in two. Half the group worked on Fusion techniques and built an odd shaped sculpture with Aaron. After the fusion was completed Aaron went back to the sculpture to demonstrate different techniques for texturing an ice sculpture. That was a lot of fun!
The other half went with Greg to see how to make a perfect sphere. Each coach was required to complete a sphere and to their surprise each one did so to perfection!
Some basic carving tools for making basic shapes. They are the Layout Jig, Sphere Shaper and the Hand Scratchy. Learn more about what these tools can do for you in our tool section of this web site!
Later Greg and Aaron flip flopped groups so everyone had a chance to play with the ice. Aaron then proceeded to do a seminar on carving faces. We had a lot of ice education packed into one day!
NICA has a couple of questions for you (the reader). Is there anyone out there interested in having a carvers workshop? Getting together to work out some carving techniques with other professional carvers?
You do not have to be a coach for NICA to work with you. Let us know how we can help you (our members) and we will put together some programs to reach out and educate carvers such as yourselves. All you have to do is make a phone call!
By getting involved with NICA, we promise to return the favor and get involved with you. Give us a call and maybe we can work together!
Pebbling texture! Creating textures allows the carver to make a focal point for his sculptures.
NICA Executive Director Jeff Peterscak hands out Gift bags and checks in Bob Schultz and Jeff Wolf.
Coaches and instructors watch as Greg Butauski presents NICA’s 10 Steps to 3D Sculpting! As if they never seen an ice carving before.
Our focus was not to teach the 10 steps, but to show them a systematic approach to ice carving and how that will help students break down the carving process.
As for the volley ball game, it was a best of five played to fifteen each game. The teams were Greg Buauski, Bob Schultz, Brian Beland vs. Doug Ganhs, Jeff Wolf, and Greg Beachy. It was a close match but in the end Greg, Bob and the youth of Brian Beland pulled through.
The full contact shuffle board was a team event as well. It was late at night and there may have been a few cocktails involved, so the only the I remember is that we were pretty much too drunk to play that sport. If any of the coaches out there remember who won, please email me so I can post it.
