Derin skied hard today. After three complete runs down the Grande Motte I managed to trick her into stopping for a hot chocolate – by pretending it was just a toilet stop at the bottom. The reason for this is that with skiing much harder now she needs to make sure not to get low on energy or dehydrated. I dimply told her I was buying a chocolate for her and she agreed.
Here are photos of Derin drinking chocolate today, Age 7 and also at age 4. Her technique has definitely improved.
Derin didn’t want to go up the Lanches chair because it worried her going so high up the mountain. However she agreed and felt that she wanted to try the slope now. This came entirely from her – not my suggestion. However her basic body mechanics are so efficient that she was able to ski the entire Grande Motte from the Panoramics at 3000m altitude without stopping several times. I didn’t want to stop this to work on technique so just worked on giving her a good line to control her speed and shape her turns appropriately – trying all the time to show good mechanics of movement myself to set her an example to copy.
The video was the only time Derin did some actual exercises – starting out the video skating into her turns and then after a few turns changing to pivoting with the skis close together. She coped with new terrain – leading the way – with not problems and good awareness of speed and control. All afternoon she skied behind me at a good speed and had no incidents. By the way – she can jump now! I keep on meaning to video that because she is so pleased that she can do it.
