Derin was showing much improved control yesterday afternoon by the end of the session – so today we started going onto more challenging runs and using the terrain more – and it proved to be a good choice. Most of our time was spent skiing and very little time was used on exercises. In reality she was being trained by just succeeding to stay accurately in my line behind me. On steep terrain I’d turn quickly and tightly so she wouldn’t pick up speed. She saw it as a fun game and was often giggling in the background. This is how things should progress – no pressure! In fact I’m having to hold her back a little to make sure she knows the boundaries of safety. We were off piste much of the time – to avoid people (there are many fast – out of control skiers – on the pistes!) She is developing far greater confidence – which was my main goal for her this year. However – technically she is also improving very quickly now. She must think about things after she hears about them and she seems to process the information in her own time and suddenly she can do what she appeared to not understand. A few days ago she was stuck in a wide snowplough and was leaning way back in her ski boots – now with only a short time working on exercises look at today’s video…
In the video Derin was actually trying to “pivot” and I’d been assisting her through the pivots one by one until now. Today I only had to say “pull both your skis into the new turn” – and she was pivoting! Using the steep sided gully for skiing for fun helped her to feel this and lots of short steep sections of sideslipping have also helped. Her skating and jumping (which she can do well now) have both helped her to get off the backs of the ski boots .
Derin was rewarded with a short period of play time in the snow. She did the the very first year I taught her and it’s great to see she hasn’t changed at all!
