Big day for Alp today – lift pass and off to Val d’Isère. I’m not sure which of us ended up working the hardest! Alp looked pretty worn out by the end but there was no complaining. Tomorrow we’ll have an easier day and work on more exercises. Today was all about mileage and experience. Alp was very responsive to instructions while we were moving in challenging terrain.
There’s no skiing video today because most of the time Alp was being assisted – either sideslipping steep sections or learning how to “pivot”. Those are skills that take time to master so it was great to be able to use the terrain to begin working on them properly. What might appear to be wobbly and difficult today will emerge as powerful skills in a short period of time. Alp’s positive attitude will help this process enormously. Each time we could allow the skis to run we either worked on getting used to speed in a straight line or using dynamics for turning. “Dynamics” and “pivot” are the two different ways that skis function and Alp is already working on both. Tomorrow we will have the skiing filmed again.
