Derin The Leader

Today Derin had the opportunity to ski with her sister Beren and a slightly larger Derin. For filming I decided it was best to let Derin set her own pace rather than risk having the others try it and perhaps go too fast or choose an inappropriate line. I already have great confidence in Derin’s speed management. She’s a natural little leader and amazingly competent. It’s not so obvious in the video but there are quite large bumps which is why I’m struggling with the camera at the back!

We had another session of video with Bruno (perhaps I’ll try to get a copy to edit some for here) and most of the time Derin’s instruction when skiing behind me was to focus on pivoting. I use the bumps to get the ski tips in the air and then call behind for her to do the same and pull both ski tips with her into the new turn. She doesn’t know how to create angulation (upper/lower body separation) or use dynamics at the end of a turn (two different options for turn transitions) – so she sometimes uses a wider stance. That’s a good natural solution at this stage and gets her legs working independently. For now on she will have to start to learn more sophisticated coordination.

Later in the afternoon we sideslipped down some steep ice and she managed extremely well. Considering just over a week ago she couldn’t sideslip at all this is an enormous step forwards. Many people would be scared to death when confronted with steep ice like that but Derin stayed in control and came down the slope competently.

Derin the  mountaineer…