The full story of the principles we were working on is found at this link: Beginners
We started from scratch today and it was a good decision. All the way from putting one ski on and moving around to get used to it then changing foot – to skating – and learning how to skate properly using gravity for propulsion forward and all the sort of basic movement that beginners should learn. Skiing is really a form of skating!
We went indoors and removed the ski boots so that that everyone could be seen using their feet correctly – something that can’t be identified easily once they are locked away in ski boots. The key is to pronate the subtalar joints on both feet when skating or skiing parallel but to know to supinate them when in a snowplough…
The actual skating was to teach the most important secret of skiing – to use a push from each leg and ski to directly move the centre of mass. Skiing is all about moving the centre of mass and making it fall over – and the ski itself is all about lifting you back up again.
We were able to finish by turning through applying dynamics (moving the centre of mass) in the snowplough mode and then gradually adding some pronation of the active/pushing foot while doing so.
Everyone did really well and seemed confident and very happy – so we can expect some good progress ahead.
