Everyone had skied once before – but probably 3 years ago – so we were definitely in for a wobbly start.
Skating
Given the situation we went straight into skating on the flat. Coordination was the main objective along with familiarity of the equipment – skis, edges, boots, poles and sliding. Skating is the basis of skiing so anything that involves skating is useful. Both skiing and skating are all about efficient and effective use of gravity.
Snowplough
Snowplough was next on the list so we could all go downhill and then use the moving carpet to get back up again. In skating the skis diverge and with snowplough they converge – all adding to experience and coordination. The main idea here was to be able to come to a stop on the steepest part of the slope by pushing the skis out wide at the tails. Everyone managed this fine.
Turning
Turning with the snowplough is normally attempted by transferring weight to the “outside” ski – but that’s really not how things work. All the children were told to do to get the skis to turn them was – to turn left, simply move the belly button slightly to the left – to turn right, move the belly button slightly to the right. (This is the opposite of standard ski instruction) You can see in the video they all manage to turn with ease and looking very relaxed. There is also the optical illusion that they ARE transferring their weight to the outside ski – they are not! Soon this will result in them effortlessly turning parallel.
Straight Running
Gradually the children were growing in confidence and they all really enjoyed straight running down the steeper pitch in the nursery area. It took 5 attempts to have everybody standing from start to finish. Straight running is important because it trains people to adjust the body and stance to the perpendicular to the slope – instead of standing vertical. Nearly all children automatically stand vertical and hard against the backs of the ski boots (in this case making Jack very wobbly) – and it’s simply because they never get enough time just straight running downhill.
If we had started from the very beginning – as complete beginners – there would have been many more exercises to do. It’s worth reading up on some of this to understand what we are ultimately aiming for… http://madeinmountains.com/beginners/
