Derin, Defne - Day 1

Derin - Morning

Derin looked happy to be back on skis again. I asked her what aspect of skiing she found to be the most difficult and she replied "skating". That surprised me because she picked up a natural skating rhythm very easily some time ago - but it was very interesting to think about what this might mean.

Part of Derin's trouble with skating was linked to her being caught constantly in the back of her ski boots - so everything we did this morning was aimed at correcting this.


Skating with Gravity

First of all I had to explain to Derin what "gravity" is. It's what makes something fall to the ground. That trick doesn't happen without having a cause. All of the human race's greatest thinkers got "gravity" completely wrong until Galileo and Newton. Newton was born in 1642 - the same year that Galileo died. I wanted Derin to skate forwards by using gravity instead of the muscles in her legs. That is done by diverging the skis, lifting one foot and falling forwards - and dropping the lifted foot back down below you. There is no need to push - the falling forwards with gravity does the job. Not only would this be a much more efficient way for Derin to move, but it would get her off the back of the ski boots where her muscle power was rendered ineffective - inhibiting her skating.

Sideslipping

Derin's first attempt at sideslipping showed that she was struggling and couldn't control it well enough to come straight downhill. The main reason for this was being stuck on the back of the boots again. The pressure on the back of the boots makes it hard to control the ski's edges. Very soon Derin was able to sideslip straight downhill and control both "forward diagonal" and "backward diagonal" sideslips - by pointing the skis in the appropriate direction. We did the "falling leaf" exercise linking all the sideslips back and forth across the hill like a leaf falling out of a tree. This exercise helps to encourage a better stance and will eventually be essential for developing the pivot.

Skiing backwards

From the "backwards diagonal sideslip" we progressed on to simply skiing backwards. True to form this got Derin well in the front of the boots.  

Focus

I explained to Derin that to keep this feeling of touching the front of the boot with the shin when skiing normally she would have to focus on it. Focusing is how we keep our attention on the issue and I wanted her to manage to do this all the way through the turns - from start to finish of each turn. If you become distracted and lose focus that's normal and you have to re-focus. Re-focusing is an exercise for the mind and strengthens concentration over time. It also helps you to relax because it settles the mind. Derin did manage to focus on the feeling and the result was that her legs stopped feeling sore. Prior to this the back of her legs had been sore from using the muscles to hold herself up against the back of the ski boots. Now that she was standing up properly she could ski complete runs without leg tiredness.

Defne - Afternoon

Defne is a stronger skier than Derin but she has much less belief in her own capacity. We skied for a while to warm up and so I could observe. When asking Defne about what thing she found most difficult in skiing she replied that she couldn't control herself properly in bumps. This matched my observation. The answer to this problem is to be able to develop direct fall-line skiing (pivoting) properly - but we would have to work up to this. I'd already tried working directly on that with Defne before but it hadn't gone in deep enough - so the direct approach is clearly not right here. We worked on sideslipping as had Derin in the morning - but when Defne struggled she tried to blame the snow. I pointed out that the snow wasn't stopping me from doing it easily. Defne applied herself and rapidly improved her sideslip control. When this gets stronger we will take in into a pivot and not before.

Back of Boots

Defne also has a tendency to get caught on the back of her ski boots - so we repeated Derin's exercise of skiing backwards. At first Defne declared categorically "I can't" ski backwards - so I suggested that it's for all the things that she "can't" do that I'm here. I wouldn't ask her to be doing things that she can do because that would be pointless as there is nothing there for her to learn or for me to teach. She then skied fine backwards and moved forwards in the ski boots. She then had a brief explanation of "focus" and how to feel the touch of the shin on the front of the boot. This did appear to make her stance stronger and she said that she was managing to focus on this while skiing.

Hip Rotation

When Defne skis she has a hip rotation so I decided to take things further with her straight away. I explained that each foot has 26 bones, 33 joints and over 100 muscles. She immediately understood that her idea of using the foot inside the ski boot was not very sophisticated in the light of this information. We then discussed walking and when she walked she advanced the foot and hip (which leads to hip rotation in skiing) so I explained the alternative to her. For skiing I had her pull back the hip on her support leg - but not the shoulder - so that the spine was twisted slightly in the direction of the turn. She could feel this indoors and stationary on skis but I couldn't see it happening when she actually skied - there was still a hip rotation. The snow was tricky though so at that point it was best to call it a day and start fresh again tomorrow.