Luke and Leonie day 5

Today involved an off piste tour (Col Pers), working on developing technique for steeps and another black bumps descent.

Col Pers had a fairly rough traverse into it due to hardened melted snow, which can be found difficult. Access into the other side of the col was steep – as usual and this exposed certain difficulties and lack of technique for dealing with the steeps. Other steep sections deep snow also posed problems. The final descent into the Gorge de Malpaset was fine but with windpacked snow – which presented an interesting challenge. Leonie did well there – managing to work on combining angulation with pressure on the ski fronts to get them to work in the tricky snow.

Short Swings

Although we worked on new technique today it was constrained to only one subject – “steeps” and involved mainly short swings.

1. Jumping – using the legs – (Leonie started out by bowing and yanking her torso upwards instead of squatting)
2. Extending the legs in mid air and landing on straight legs then bending to absorb
3. Using the pole and moving the body over the lower ski into the perpendicular prior to jumping (not a vertical jump)
4. Pivot point under the tibia – not the front or back of the ski
5. Maintain angulation, pull back outside hip and tilt the pelvis up
6. Complete 180 turns with no speed collected
7. Partial jumps to get the turn started
8. Jump mainly from the downhill ski (instead of lifting it out of the way!!!)
9. Jump as an extension of end of turn dynamics – or rebound – also at speed
10. Windscreen wiper pivots – inside leg advance to have feet at same height on the mountain – helps prevent rotation on steeps – not appropriate in bumps – legs rotating independently in their hip sockets
11. Pushing the advanced ski ahead to enter the next turn