Phillip – family – 1

This lesson was mainly oriented to helping to convert Rocco from snowboarder to skier. The approach was double pronged – starting with skating and dynamics (disequilibrium) mainly for coordination and orientation purposes then integrating that with a modified “braking” snowplough based on “pivoting”.

I could write a book on this alone so it’s best that the buttons are used at the top of the blog page to go through “Beginners”, “Dynamics” and “Pivot” and to relate that to today’s experience.

Meanwhile Rocco showed rapid adaptation and development of coordination. Just remember to use side slipping or side stepping when encountering a pitch that is just simply too steep for the time being. Try to avoid leaning back on the ski boots and skis – always work to lean forward – from the soles of the feet. Work to drive the centre of mass into the new turn and keep it there. Avoid “twisting” the body during a turn. Push the body over into the new turn from the uphill leg and commit to standing on that leg for the whole turn (this is psychologically hard to do – needs practice!).

Tiggy needs to use more dynamics and more pressure on the ski fronts – just keep on working on it!

Phillip mainly needs to avoid pushing the tails of the skis outward and rather focus on pulling the fronts inward during the turn. We worked a bit on the pivot turn and also on “early pressure” – extending the uphill leg while the uphill ski is still on the uphill edge – so it can’t be pushed outward.

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