Luke Slalom day 2

Today we had a guest skier – young Ben. Ben is already a competent skier at age 11 even though most of his skiing experience is on plastic. My comments regarding skiing in the ruts is that he did a good job of keeping his legs independent and supple. He needs to avoid losing angulation in ruts as this leads to rotation and problems at higher speeds. I’d advise however reading the fixed page (accessed in the menu at the top of the page) on “Dynamics” – with a view to increasing dynamic range.

Luke came out strongest by the end of the day when the ruts became bigger – because despite being still partially stuck on the back of the boots he successfully managed to use leg retraction to get across his skis. This is on top of working on his right hip and trying to angulate so as to be secure on the fronts of the skis (only in combination with appropriate dynamics).

Leonie had one of the best runs of the day – smooth and efficient – when moving from coming up over her downhill leg to using leg retraction when the bumps became bigger. She was also working on several other issues and managing to organize and coordinate it all.

Ella was working hard on several technical points – but performed best when asked to forget them all and just go back to throwing herself into each turn – a natural movement for her. The thing is that some to the technical work sticks even when you stop thinking specifically about it. With Ella it’s a case of working with her natural aptitudes and letting technical issues feed into this appropriately – not as directly as other people might require. She has a natural feel for things so it has to be exploited constructively.

Jacob understood how he had to resist the forces at the end of the turn and immediately skied far better. It’s very early days for Jacob’s technical skiing but he is doing well. The ruts at the end of the session were just a bit too much to allow him to relax enough to cope at this stage.

This blue run is a black ski run in the winter

Val d’Isere Glacier