Derin experienced a few “firsts” today! Her first lesson on a Bumps run and her first Black Run. On both occasions she managed extremely well. Today’s video begins with her expertly cleaning her boots and clipping into her bindings. Immediately following that there is a very short clip of her executing a pivoted turn on a bump – with the skis tips in mid air and leading with the lower ski into the turn! Phenomenally good for a first attempt! Next on the video – with the red safety netting to the side – is Derin on her first ever black run. It’s impossible to see the steepness from the video. She is carefully controlling her speed until the last few turns when I shout to her to go faster and and so let the skis become more parallel. We did all this first thing in the session while her energy levels were high and she was fresh. During our skiing we worked a lot on bringing the legs closer together during steep Traversing and Step Turns to work on the also leading into the turn with the lower ski while carrying higher speeds (lifting the lower ski at the start of the turn and swinging the tip into the new turn).
Two Stars
On returning home Derin was presented with her “Two Stars” Ski School badge – She’s probably a bit better than this is several ways but for the third star she needs to be able to keep her feet a bit closer together more of the time – and avoid stemming out the uphill ski. Most of the time she does move her body instead of her ski – but she discovered for herself that she can move the ski – so we need to work a little more directly on getting her to move the body into the turn instead of the ski out to the side. However we are on quite steep hills sometimes, on ice, in bumps and off-piste – where she has very little experience – so her performance overall is excellent. Her coordination for some things at this early stage is actually remarkable. 
