Jordan Sien's Blog

Skipper (Gillian’s dad) here posting these comments.  Now that Gillian is back North we all know that wakeboarding on the Rideau River is back, not many parents can say that they know exactly where their kids are going to be, in this case 80 feet behind the boat. Friends and wakeboarders are starting to become common features around the home.  Many thanks go out to Dave and his family for taking care of Gillian these last few winters.  All that he has learned he has used when teaching his fearless Canadian students, who else would ride in water cold enough to turn your skin blue.

Gilligan here: Its been about 7 weeks since I hurt my knee in Florida on Lake Roy just a week before Wake Games and life is now finally back to normal, I have taken two wakeboard rides, been on the boat teaching and at the gym working my leg to the fullest potential.  Its seems that my tibia, ACL and LCL are finally healed, which is great news not just for me but for all my family and friends that I wakeboard with. If none of you know, Dave is a Fly High rep and is able to sell you any Fly High product, for me this has been great because I purchased 6 fat sacks and a pump from him and let me tell you every cent was worth it because my Malibu VLX wake is off the hook.  I hope things continue to go well, so make sure to stay up to date with the blog.

Its been a couple weeks since ive been home, the long 24 hour drive was boring with little excitement. It is and was good to be home, see all the friends, get ready for the summer and most of all absorb the cooler than Florida weather, haha. Ive been pretty busy since ive been home, although my injury and the lack of wakeboarding. Ive been training at the gym and doing my rehab, and have been spending lots of time organize my schedule for the summer and in preparation to start my wakeboard school. On mothers day I picked up my 210 which include 4 hrs of driving each way, today I picked up my VLX which was 3 and half each way. The weather has been getting warmer and my knee has been healing well, I hope to have some great stuff to post about when my season starts and summer really gets going. so stay tuned….

So tonight is my last night in Florida after getting news from the Doctor that my fall and knee injury resulted in a fractured Tibia and strained ligements. As a result I am out for 4-6 weeks.  So because of no wakeboarding I will be going home to start rehab.  My dad, girlfriend, and two buddies that came to visit me and watch me ride in the Wake Games competition and I will be driving home at 3 A.M tomorrow morning, it will be a 24 hour drive and we will attempt to go straight through with no stops. Fear not though I will continue my blog with experiences from my summer back home in Ottawa Canada and will also be taking lots of pictures on the way home with a post about the drive in a few days. I’d like to thank all the people here that made my trip great and memorable, here’s to you, Dave, Andy, Frank, Betty, Geanie, Glen, James, John, Rodney, Mike, Chad, and Belouche.  So make sure to keep up to date on my blog and my summer back home, I have a feeling its going to be a good one.

It’s been a while since my last blog and a while since I last had a wakeboard set but no need to worry life has been alright. I hurt my knee working on my competition run and have been out for a little over a week with an ACL and LCL strain and severe bruising on my Tibia. So unfortunately this week end was the Wake Games competition and the the start on the King of Wake series so I couldn’t ride but was still there to support my roomate and great friend Andy. These past two months of training with Dave have been full of pain, stress, and happiness all for wakeboarding. For myself and Andy these past couple weeks have been extra stressful because we have been worried about how our riding is compared to and how we would do in the Pro Junior Men category against others. Watching the Pro Junior Men today ride was a reasuring feeling for Andy and I, noticing that our tricks and passes can compete and hold up against most of the other riders. All of our training has paid off, seeing that we have the ability to ride with the up-coming pros in the business. It was also a good to be there all day to see how living life going through the Pro Tour really is, sitting around all day in the sun watching all the riding and than finally your category coming up for your time to ride. Giving props to the pros in the bizz who do this month after month week after week and still go out and ride their A game after a day of sitting and waiting around. So for all those who comment on your wakeboard lifestyle as something nice that sounds fun, you can now explain how being a pro really is hard work because all the hard work in the months of training can easily be lost in less than 30 seconds of a competition run. 2 falls and your whole day and week end gone.

This should have been one of the first blogs but I just want to give a big shout out to all the people who have helped and supported me along my wakeboard journey and to all the new people that will be helping me as well. Here’s to you guys thanks a lot, I wouldn’t be here without your help!

Parents Steve and Helen Sien

Jeff Heer and all the Liquid Force crew

Ralph Geronomo at Lost Enterprises

Ian Nickson and Daryl Trinidad at Spy Optics

And to the people here making all the difference in my wakeboarding: Dave Briscoe and Andy Milovanovic

To all my wakeboard crew back home and the Shoreline Family, Johney B, Justin B, Kelsey C, Chris G

Thanks for all the support guys!

This week my mom Helen, sister Sophia and two of her friends, Rachel and Emilie flew in to town for a quick visit and stay for easter weekend. After picking them up and seeing the resort they were staying in, Andy and I decided that we wanted in we partyed it up a few nights in Orlando. Activities such as extreme rock jumping, portable drink making and late night hot tub sessions were all apart of the weekend leaving us with little sleep and soar boddies. We did however manage to stay productive by making trips back to Winter Haven where we train with Dave. During the trip back home we were able to session an up down rail with our buddies from Michigan, Glen and James. That same day our coach Dave had an end of the season party for his son Chad’s hockey team. The hockey team had an outstanding season winning several tournaments, winning state and going to Alabama for regionals. The party was fun and consited of a few key things, BBQing, tubing, wakesurfing and a double demo show for the crowd. Andy and I went out for a little show, I did a railey over him and he threw a couple of mobes. Sunday was a great day. We did easter dinner at Dave’s parent’s house, I drove a motorcycle for the first time and we saw a brutal movie Duplicity which was horrible and a complete waste of time and could no way ever match up to present movies and upcoming movies like The Fast and the Furious, Public Enemies or Observe and Report.

Its been a long few days since my last blog but dont worry everybody, these past few days have been jam packed with crazyness. This week was good riding wise and we were also blessed with the company of a newly turnded 17 year old Cody from Pennsylvania for the week. Cody’s personality is one that we will never encounter ever again, not to mention his vocabulary that contained 3 words which Andy and I heard none stop, yeeeeee and what’s good were the words we heard all week. A perfect example of this was a morning that we tried to wake Cody up. Andy yelled Cody you up after no answer he said it again, I guess the second time woke Cody up, he instantly replied with What’s Good. During the week Andy, Cody and I went to go see the new Fast and the Furious movie. For all of you that have seen the first two the 3rd is a must see, although the ending leaves you hanging and wanting more it was a great movie.

Coming to Florida as a Canadian means a few things, escaping the cold brutal winters of Canada in exchange for the warm weather of Florida and being able to get a head start on the wakeboard season. This week has been bad, with a cold front hitting the whole east coast sending snow to the home town of Andy and I and sending cold air and strong winds to the inhabitants of Florida. Winds strong enough to create white caps that en-golf our whole lake and air cold enough to make me want a dry suit is what we have dealt with since Sunday and should expect to deal with until thursday. Despite the 55 degree weather and the 27 mile and hour wind Andy, Cody a new student of Daves set to do 4 miserable sets a day and I shredded our faces off today proving that wakeboarding can truly be done all around the world and temperature scale.

On a second note for me personally being into hockey since a young boy Florifa also means a change in hockey atmosphere going from the outstanding performance of the Ottawa Sens to stunning playing of the Tampa Bay Lightning…ha  Since I’ve been here Andy and I have seen several Tampa Bay Lightning games including games in which both of our home teams have played in and the game Ovechkin scored his 50th goal. I have been becoming more and more of a Lightning fan and at the same time have been more and more disapointed by lose after lose. Well anyways, tables turned tonight after Tampa showed extreme heart after starting the 3rd period 4-0, when coming back from a 4 goal deficit to make it 4-3 in only the thirday period. They were so close about to make it 4-4 but the Pens scored a rather bullshit goal after one of their players missed a break away but certainly didnt miss the goalie, he hit the goalie, through him off and than a trailing player put the puck in the net making it 5-3. That didn’t fase the Bolts, they scored with 40 seconds left and was so close to scoring again to tie it up. Unfortunatly the Pens ended up getting an empty netter. I feel that the Bolts were robbed and that Sidney and the Pens should feel very luck of the win they just acquired. Tonight was the first night we left the rink feeling emotions other than anger towards the Bolts and the first time we were proud to be Bolt fans. Go Tampa Go

This week end turned out to be uneventfull for the most part with unfortunately no trips to Clermont. Friday and Saturday were spent sleeping and relaxing after a hard and long week of training. Although Sunday was not much different Andy, Dave and I did manage to get out of the house and do something interesting. We ended up attending the Tampa Bay Lightning game in which they played my home and favourite team the Ottawa Sens. Although the night started off a bit shaky by arriving late and Dave getting hustled by the scalper when he thought he was buying tickets for box with free food and drink, but really he just got standard tickets 4 rows up the second level. We did however manage to save the night with the jokes and hockey that we were surrounded by.  I enjoyed the game more than Dave who is a lightning fan because my Sens although they are undergoing a rough season ended up wining 3-0. After the game we came home and chilled out waiting to get tired so we could get to bed and resume our training for this week.

Whats going on everybody. This week was a great one in terms of riding. I landed a few new tricks and was working on tricks for the future. Some of tricks Dave put on my radar are heel mobe, tootsie roll, and a hoochie glide. Hopefully the new tricks go well with a lack of hard falls. This weekend Andy and I might go up to Clermont to visit a friend from back home, we will tell you all about our trip when we get home in a few days.