Yesterday
We started off a bit chaotic with lots of struggles but we managed to go from the short “first turns’ slope and a slippery rope tow to taking the Transarc up to 2600m altitude and descending an easy blue run into Les Arcs 2000.
We started off with skating exercises because skiing is really skating. The aim was to see everyone using the skis and legs to directly move their centre of mass (belly button in kid’s language). This is the basis of real skiing – called “dynamics” in physics and “the invisible magic wall” for the children. There is a full explanation linked here: Dynamics The skating explanation is found in the “Beginners” link.
Basically – the children were shown that there are two ways to put pressure on a ski – the “ski school” way “transferring weight away from the turn centre to the uphill/outside ski” or the “correct way” – pushing the belly button into the centre of the turn with the same uphill leg, foot and ski and maintaining that push inward for the whole turn. The job of the skier is to fall over – to one side of the ski or the other as it moves forward. The job of the ski is to lift the skier back up. Pretty much the way a bicycle works too. Maya was the first to get it and so she would explain in Hebrew to the others. They all immediately felt that it made their turns easier.
Today
Today we started with the same blue run and everyone was more confident. Then we went a few times down a nice long green and I asked everyone to lift up and down the inside ski during the turn. Evidently Gili picked up on this because she is doing it in the video and skiing parallel. This was in addition to the dynamics.
Eventually we got onto a blue run with a steep section – which was used to teach side slipping and they all did very well for first attempt. We were using the belly (Centre of mass) as a joystick control to slide and stop – then slide and stop. Skis both slide sideways and also turn from this lateral movement but it is never taught correctly.
Directly from this exercise I explained that the uphill ski can enter the turn much more easily from being on its uphill edge in a side slip than being on its inside edge in a snowplough. Maya was the first to catch on but this is a slightly more complicated skill so even just one of the group getting it was a big result. The following video clip shows the most extreme version of the “pivot” – which we will work on a bit more tomorrow.
The main thing today is that the children kept skiing and learning together so they found it easier as the day progressed and judging by the excited noise being generated behind me they were definitely enjoying the process.
