Unfortunately I have no photos or video today due to the storm being particularly bad early in the day.
Despite an enthusiastic start at la Plagne Centre today things were soon to become slightly complicated. First of all the nice and gentle beginner’s “button lift” had been removed from this sector and replaced by a “too steep” beginner’s “magic carpet” area. Secondly we were hit by a bad storm where everything was closed down except the lifts providing access between the main La Plagne sectors.
Braking (modified) Snowplough
This plough had to be introduced to assure everyone in the group could achieve some measure of autonomy on the pistes as soon as possible. Little Eddie struggled with the coordination (he much preferring the skating, diverging skis the day before) and also struggled with the cold wind and snow. Meanwhile as I was taking care of Eddie the rest of the group was suffering casualties with problems keeping the snowplough under control. Eddie was not enjoying life so the best solution was to get him out of the storm. It’s a pretty alien universe at 2000m altitude in a storm when you are aged 5 and didn’t grow up there!
Everyone else eventually mastered the plough even on this “too steep” slope – realising that the control comes from widening the plough from the hips and not by trying to grip with the knees and ski edges. Mave overcame her anxiety and managed to control her descents. Bethany applied dynamics to the plough and was turning nicely – all without being instructed to do so.
Turning
A ski has two ways of entering into a turn…
1 – Placing it on its inside edge while sliding forward (Accelerator)
2 – Placing it on its outside edge while side slipping (Brake)
Classic snowplough uses method 1 which acts like an accelerator. This is done by pressuring the uphill ski when on its inside edge and pointing downhill. This causes all sorts of problems for most people.
The “braking” snowplough (method 2) simply moves the centre of mass downhill (and forward) slightly so that the weight goes on the downhill ski – forcing it to pivot by side slipping the front of the ski into a turn while simultaneously acting as a brake.
In simple terms the turn is made by just moving the centre of mass in the direction you want to turn and not worrying about where the weight goes.
To go faster just narrow the plough and start to move the centre of mass a bit more – replacing the plough (hence braking) for speed control with actual turns controlling the speed.
Jamie, Katy and Johnathan were well on the way to controlling speed by turning and hence skiing parallel. That normally takes several years to achieve – so hopefully realising this helps put things into perspective.
Jamie and Katy even started to get involved in the next level of function where the extension of the outside leg to push the Centre of Mass downhill becomes a solid support as this uphill ski takes over (as was felt when pushing against my shoulder) and generates pressure as it pushes you around in the turn.
Courage
Mave was tremendously brave at working through her anxieties and she only lost confidence when she was focused on trying to keep up with the others and had a hard fall. Don’t give up! Mave was in fact doing fine. Had the beginner’s slope not been so steep and if we had more time to get results then there would have been no issues.
Bethany made a full descent to the bottom of the chairlift and both Bethany and Katy fell backward when getting off the chairlift. That’s completely normal the first time – even when warned about the acceleration as you slide down the little ramp to take you clear from the chairlift. Don’t be discouraged by that!
