Freestyle All Skills Team (Devo)
What is Freestyle ALL SKILLS?
Freestyle All Skills is a developmental program which teaches the fundamentals for all PCSS Freestyle (Aerials and Moguls), Freeski (Park and Pipe) and Freeride (Big Mountain) programs. Athletes in the Freestyle All Skills program will develop a wide variety of freestyle skills to become better overall skiers, including box/rail sliding, halfpipe riding, skiing moguls, jumping and landing. Athletes will learn how to apply these fundamentals to the terrain park, halfpipe, mogul courses, aerials, and big mountain.
Though this program does not teach fundamental skiing skills from scratch (i.e. ski school), we will continue to refine these skills throughout the season as applicable.
Participants will develop skills from all disciplines in a fun, safe and inclusive atmosphere at the Utah Olympic Park (UOP), Park City Mountain, and Woodward Park City (All Skills Comp Team only). Athletes are encouraged to participate in optional fun-focused events at the UOP designed to introduce them to competition.
Our Purpose
Our goal is to enable young athletes to have fun skiing and kindle a lifelong passion for the sport. We strive to help them develop friendships and positive relationships with teammates and coaches. We will develop core freestyle skiing skills, and enable athletes to find their passion by exposing them early to a variety of disciplines, including moguls, aerials, big mountain, slopestyle and halfpipe.
Freestyle ALL SKILLS Programs
freestyle ALL SKILLS Coaching Staff
James Saarela
Freestyle/Freeski Development Head Coach
jsaarela@parkcityss.orgI've lived and skied in Park City my whole life. My competitive career started in Moguls before shifting more toward Freeski disciplines. I trained with (what's now known as) PCSS, competing at national-level events in Halfpipe and Slopestyle. I retired from competition and went to the University of Utah, graduating in 2016. I started coaching at the UOP that summer, and have been working with PCSS (or its component pre-merger teams) ever since. I became Head Coach of Freestyle All Skills in 2021 and completed my USSS Freeski/Freestyle Level 300 certification in 2023.
I coach because I want athletes to find the same fulfillment in sport that I’ve found, such that they will partake in it throughout their lives to help maintain physical and mental well-being. I strive to create a supportive and adaptive learning environment that accounts for various learning styles. I want to encourage athletes to become more self-reliant through developing decision-making skills, observing and evaluating their own effort and improvement, recognizing when to obey fear vs. when to push through it, and by ultimately nurturing their intrinsic drive to learn and improve. I want to run a program that athletes enjoy and want to come back to day after day throughout the season.