This is Alp’s 2nd ski holiday – last year being the first time. Learning without a snowplough last year, at a very young age, means that a full year later we have to feed the body with the correct information again just to get going safely. However – this is a rapid process and leads to safe parallel skiing again in one or two hours.
People who learn in the snowplough never forget it because it’s so uncomfortable, unnatural and defensive – so unlike for Alp they can of course just resume automatically when they come back after a long break. The downside is that they will probably forever be confused and defensive skiers.
We began with three descents where Alp held onto my ski pole for support and I talked him through what we were doing to make the turns happen. Then we stopped to do the exercises that were filmed and from then on Alp was on his own, working through the basic exercises into full parallel (dynamic) skiing.
With Alp’s skating turns the focus was in pushing off with the outside leg in the turn – using this to move his body into the turn. The stepping (diverging inside ski) is reduced until the push becomes parallel skiing. There was an emphasis on moving forward to initiate the new turn so that the push was against the front of the ski. This ensured that Alp managed tighter turns on the steeper sections and stopped his tendency to spin around backwards.
We did a little straight running in off piste soft snow to get a feel for it – and when Alp fell over in it a few times he was slightly upset. That’s 100% normal the first time because it’s a surprise and cold. However it’s soft and harmless (at the moment) and this is soon learned.
