It's nine am this morning. Just just woke up. She got out of bed, didn't fall asleep until one last night. I was just watching some TV. So yeah, I was gonna sleep in a little bit longer, but my dog's decided it was otherwise needed to be let out and fed. And my plans for today I had to go out on the whaler. On my whaler, my boat. She's go have some fun friends, cruise around, maybe fish a little bit. And yeah, that's the plan for you today.
This is finally a shroud about a fifteen year old water ski instructor.
Someday she'll be a professional snowboarder if things.
Go for a day.
Okay, so we're walking down to the dock, get on our skis, you know, just get ready to get in the water. My name is kar Stolman and I am fifteen. So I'm from Lake Arrowhead. Beautiful place I've born and raised here. It's just very small mountain. You know, everyone up here, everyone knows you. Great place to go hikes. You know, my backyard. I can just ride my dirt bike out of my garage, you know, into the onto the trail.
So that's pretty cool.
All right. So yesterday we got off the rig yesterday, right, we were on We're on double handles, all right, So we're gonna start off on double handles this time, all right, And then.
Yeah, we'll start off on doubles this time.
We have seasons, so we have summer and winter obviously my favorite ones because summer it's hot you get to go water skiing and make money, and winter you just go have fun and snowboard. And I started working at sea School when I was about I think like nine. I came there, I was really good friends with the owner's son. Well, I didn't want to I didn't want to ski at all in the beginning.
It was scary.
And then my brother convinced me to go out, and then that was I started skiing.
More and more, and then that just came on that I wanted to do.
Why was my brother's practice lesson? I was before you become an instructor. I was just like first like lesson and he did good.
But I didn't.
I was. I was not a good skier in the beginning because I did not listen because I think it was cuzier with my brother.
I did not listen to him.
So I'm putting all my skis and then I'm gonna hop in the water and get ready to go skiing. The most important part about like learning how water ski is to listen, Like you just have to You have to listen. It's the main, the main part, because you're in the water. It's really it's very easy as long as you're listening to your instructor and you're you keep your arms straight and you stay in your cannonball position, which is knees to your chest and tight ball just
like you're jumping in a pool. And then you just let the boat do all the work and you just have fun and listen. We have instructor, boat driver, dock doork, and box bitch. I first started at ski school, like
as a dock door. Is that unpaid internship where you just help out around at the dock and you catch boats, you wrap up ropes, and you help people inside their skis and show them on the dock construction, which is where you just pretty much show them how to ski, but like on the dock just like a little preview of what's going to happen out on the water. And all the instructors would tip you out so you made if you made if the instructors made money from the groups, then they would they'd give you a.
Little bit of what they made, and then you would go home with some of that money.
So I'm just waiting with my curs to tell me the idle and I'll get the boat going straight. And then as soon as she tells me to hit it, when her client the cut is all ready to go, probably wait for a few of these weeks to go by, then we'll hit it and we'll start the lesson. Yeah, I'm Holly Frank. My mother in law, Pam McKenzie. Her parents started Mackenzie Water Ski School in nineteen forty six,
so we're third generation, family owned and operated. My husband has the real job that pays the bills, and I've been running the ski school for thirteen years. So Keris has now been an instructor for two years. But she started out like all the other little ones on the dock, doing as we say, figuratively and literally.
Doing the ropes.
So she's turned into an amazing instructor. So now usually back in the rack here, she'll just shake her handles a little bit and we'll slow the boat down so we can practice working on starts. Unless it gets a little too choppy.
We'll keep going.
In the beginning always like I always wanted to be there, and like work the Box with Holly when I was younger. Work in the box is you set up the schedule in the book that has everyone's reservations. You take care of the money, You take care, yeah, take care of the scheduling and time cards, and just make sure the doc's running smoothly.
Pretty much.
When you're in the box, people can be mean. They can They'll just yell at you for no reason. You tell them that they can't schedule this time because someone else has it, someone else's scheme during this time, and they'll just lose their minds.
You know.
It's not not very fun being around people every single day, you know.
It really builds, it.
Builds your social skills, especially starting at such a young age as a doctor.
You start at such a young age.
And like you're scared to talk to people at first, and then you start talking to them and talking to them and trying to get them to tip you, you know, and you just keep working and working and working at it, and then your social skills just become like talking to strangers just like talking to your family. You know.
That's how my dad is too. My dad can talk to a brick wall.
So it's amazing the difference between having the instructor ski right next to you. There's only a couple of things that you need to do, keep your knees bent and your arms straight. But when the instructor's right next to you, they're there to help you. So they're like psychiatrists and athletes and comedians and encouragers. I say psychiatrists because that's
really important because a lot of it's mental. So once they make their start with the instructor, then we kind of like loosen off all the little training wheels that we have so they can begin to do more and more on their own. Obviously, seventy nine summers, we have little tricks that makes everybody get up back.
Oh and she's down, flag up.
And that's what skiing's all about.
The rig is this little nugget.
It's it's a metal piece that connects to a ring that's connected to a rope that connects to the boat. And what does the connects to that is a pole line that connects to our life jackets. And when you pull that, it disconnects this rope that goes to your skis.
Like that connects to your skis.
And your handles, So when they fall, you pull this rope so the like, if they keep pulling onto their handles, they don't get dragged with the boat. Also it helps them get up out of the water as well, it pulls their skis with them.
Yeah, this is a super easy day. There's nobody else out on the lake. But you're watching forward, watching backwards, you know, making sure the clients have fun, making sure that Karens is communicating with me what she needs. Looking back all the time. I'm always looking forward to see if there's other boats coming, making sure there's any other skiers in the water, making sure that she's you know, letting me know that I can see her, that she's safe, that I've got her. So it's a lot of back
and forth. But she's an amazing instructor, smart, kind, hard working, So those hand signals are really really important, and that I'm paying attention right on.
Yep, us outside the way.
I don't know, I'm the first girl instructor. I think. I don't know, I just maybe no one wanted to do it.
Caros started with us six years ago as a little we call him doc engineers, but it's really a doc doork position. And that's where I say, you literally and figuratively learn the road of the business. So that what way, when you get out there and you're instructing, you're completely confident.
And that's what she is.
Confident, funny, encouraging, strong, And.
I'm gonna cry because she's just a great, great young girl and I'm excited to have seen her grow and turn into such a great young woman, and it'll be exciting to see all the things that she does in her future.
I started getting a paycheck, I believe a couple summers ago.
Feels really great. It's awesome.
It's really cool being the only girl, especially like even now I am like.
The only girl instructor at the dock. Like it just kind of shows who I am as a person. And obviously is hard.
I don't have as much energy as the boys do or strength, and it's obvious, like guys do have more advantages of girls and a lot of things, and it's not said enough sometimes, but yeah, it's hard.
It's hard work. Definitely with one hand.
It hurts after skiing for a while, and you know, skiing four hours in the morning and three or four hours.
In the afternoon.
It's a lot of work, and most guys can just push through it, but being as a girl as it's pretty tough. I grew up snowboarding with my dad and my brother. That was our main thing we did, and that just was the dream.
It still is.
That's all I do pretty much. I ride for Dinosaurs will Die in thirty two. Snowboarding is very expensive, but that was one thing that my dad did to support it all he was He would always he bought all of our season passes. He bought all of our snowboards, our bindings, our boots, our gear, and then most recently I just I just started getting free clothes and free boots and free boards, free bindings, So now all.
I have to do is buy a pass, which is great. Yeah.
I just broke my collarbone last winter during this like core snowboarding event I went. I was falling on my I caught my toes on a rail and I was going to fall on my hands, but I put my arms in because I didn't want to break my wrists, and my shoulder hit and my entire body weight just snapped my collarbone in half.
So about a week later, I got surgery on it, and then a week out. I was supposed to wait for three weeks, but a week got for that, I was back on my snowboard.
I broke my collarbhone on Friday, had my surgery on Friday, snowboarding on Friday. I've always gotten told that I've always gotten special advantages for my snowboarding because I'm a girl. And it's true, true, I've always had a little bit of an advantage. I mean, obviously not have an advantage physical wise, but an advantage like people are like, oh, my gosh, she's a fifteen year old little girl, you know, like she's sick, she's super cool, so that's an advantage.
And people have always been like, yeah, you know, you're only I've had a few someone tell me before like oh, yeah, you're only sponsored by these people.
Blah blah blah because you're a girl.
And it's like, yeah, it's true, because I'm a girl that snowboards, you know that's better than you.
But yeah, all right, So now that's the signal for me to stop the boat and then I'll bump it in reverse here real quick so that they don't lose their lines. Flag up very good, good job growth.
You know.
Now what are you doing taking a little breather.
Yeah, usually beginning of like before winter really hits, before any of the resorts open and ski school ends, there's not really much to do. It's kind of just hang out around the house, hang out with friends until school starts. Then just focus on school and then snowboarding will start and then that's when I focus. You know, it's snowboarding time, and snowboard all the way you could snowboard. Tell July, Like last year, I was in Mammoth on July fourteenth.
I was in Mammoth on July fourteenth. Like it really depends like how much snow will get yearly or whatever. But like this year, my season ended already like a month ago. So I've been just working and just hanging out with my friends and just playing guitar. I really like to play guitar actually, or go fishing.
I like to fly fish a lot.
Uh. Summer is a very different vibe, Like you're just hanging out on the lake all day. You're not white like a vampire, you don't look like a ghost, and yeah, you're just having fun on the lake with your friends.
Especially because I have seasonal work.
I don't work in the winter at all, and like snowboarding, it's completely different vibes, Like it's obviously like all your friends are still involved, still hang out with your friends, but summer's more of like flowers and go fishing, and winters just snowboard hang out in your room.
There's not much to do up here. I mean there's, yeah, I work, go water skiing. Sometimes I'll go. I'll go water.
Skiing, like with some of my friends on their family's boats or whatever, but mainly that or go on my whaler, the Boston Wheeler that I own. But other than that, it's pretty boring up here.
Okay.
I bought my first boat when I was fourteen with money that I earned from ski school, and so I drive that thing around.
But it's probably like ten feet long and only like four feet wide.
Yeah, you have to be sixteen to drive the big boats.
Nothing like that feeling.
And back in successful roof.
Right on, I'm not sure really what I see past sports like water skiing and like skating, riding my dirt bike or snowboarding.
Really just kind of want to be as active for as long as I can, and.
I'm planning on staying at ski school at least until I turn eighteen, because I want to travel when I graduate high school. I want to travel and go places, and especially it always depends with snowboarding. I could be anywhere in three years, so that usually it really depends.
But definitely planning on stain. I am not going to.
Go to college, so yeah, at school is not my favorite thing. I'm actually on online school, like like not for snowboarding, but I go. I'm online school so I can snowboard, so I can snowboard every single day without having to worry about missing school in person, and I can just go home and do it on my computer and it's very, very a lot more easier than in
person school. It was second semester of eighth grade and they were telling like one of my friends did it, and I was like, that's what I wanted to do. First my mom said no, she said you're not doing it. And then I convinced her and it was perfect. My mom has been like through like fourteen years of school, like as long as I can remember. My mom's been in school for She's a nurse practitioner at La Melinda.
I started trying to convince her by just telling her that, you know, the little ways, like I can snowboard more.
You know, I can do this, I'll get better grades.
And then I think, finally one day she just gave in, and then my dad just followed her behind her and they let me do it. So I passed all my classes. I passed, Yeah, every single class. Now we're in summer, so that's nice. Snow more school for a few months at least.
Good.
Yeah.
I'm Becky Dolman. I'mkarasulman's mom's. We've always said she was destined to do great things or for good or evil, and we were always hoping that it would be for good. She has been a strong, willed, independent child since she was born, and she's always done great things. She's done good, you know, always done good whatever she tries. She's an amazing snowboarder and it shows because she loves it. And it's not even that she's competitive. She's very humble and
she just loves doing it. I always get to your eye when I talk about how like proud I am of my kids.
Uh, there's definitely a lot of support from my parents always and forever, especially my mom. My mom works every single day she's working six days a week now to just support me and my family, which is great. And my dad, my dad owns his own construction business up here in Lake Carrolhead, Uh, just pretty cool.
He built some pretty cool houses.
And he's worked pretty hard as well to support us, which is really cool. The way my mom has inspired me is she's just worked so hard to become where she is today. She's, like I said, as long as I can remember, she's been in school, just working for more and more and more and wanting more and more, and just she earned every single bit of it. And that really, like I feel like, inspired me to I can do like she has done so many years of school and I've only I was probably the longest like time.
Remember I'm like I've been in like nine years of school. It's like not that big of a deal. So it just really pushes me to just be the best as in school and be who I am, you know, show me that any thing is really.
Possible, because that's hard work. It's very very hard work.
I would I would tell someone that who wants to be like something that is hard that only like they say, only a man can do, but women could clearly do it.
It's just hard. You just have to work hard at it, and you just have to believe in yourself and just not give up.
So when she taps her head like that, that means home and she's ready to go home.
It's one am.
I'm about to go to sleep, and yeah, my night was just watching TV. Watched I watched a scary movie with one of my friends. Couldn't sleep very well so last night as well. And obviously it's one in the morning now, so you can see I can't sleep sleep very well any any night, you know. But yeah, that that's that's what I did tonight. I just watched the TV and relaxed and now I'm going to bed.