Hennie Kashiwa
Hennie Kashiwa is one of those young men that people like immediately. He is multi-talented in skiing, film production and academics. He spent four years at LWS as a Day student and says he enjoyed every single one of them. You can count on Hennie to smile, on any day, during any weather, doing anything.
Recently in 2002, Hennie won the Ski Meister Award, which is the best combined Nordic and Downhill skier awarded by High School Ski Association.
Hennie was an alpine skier for most of his young life. But in 2001, he added Nordic Special Cross Country. Hennie’s dad, Hank, a long-time successful Alpine ski racer thinks it’s great Hennie has taken up the sport and even ordered himself a new pair of Fischer boots and skis so he can get out there on the straight and narrow with his son. “Back in the day, my Dad was a Nordic skier.” Luckily, Hennie follows his Dad’s examples in many things, most importantly; he has learned to greet hard work with a handshake.
“The switch to Nordic skiing took a lot of initial effort to get a base line technique,” he says. “It takes enormous stamina and I had a summer’s worth of hard training to get through. I was kind of worried when I first went out on roller skis and realized I didn’t have any brakes.”
I like the competitions a lot more in Nordic, they take less time. I don’t have to get up as early, they usually start later and there’s only one run. There’s no waiting for your race and I never get cold cause I’m always working.”
The special skiing program is gaining momentum. For now, there are only nine people on Hennie’s team. “But the Little Vikings Program which has 50 kids enrolled in it will really help fuel the desire to be a Nordic skier. I think it would help a lot of if skiing got good exposure during the Olympics.” In the mean time, Hennie will do his best to help.