Marni, Stephan

Most people would be happy to ski like Marni and Stephan were skiing before we changed anything and an untrained eye would be unable to detect that there were fundamental issues lurking underneath. It’s easy to suggest that the feelings of lack of control they experienced were just symptomatic of corrections and improvements being needed – but I knew for certain that major changes were required. Again, to the untrained eye , those changes would not be obvious – but to the skiers the feelings are dramatic!

We began with Dynamics and this took a while to assimilate – longer than expected. I was a little worried at this point that we might run into difficulties but it was just a slow start. We went through Dynamics with the “Magic Wall” and managed to get the basic principle across.

• Dynamics (Into the turn – standard exercises – see the “Dynamics”  tab at the top of the page)
• Dynamics (completing the turn building up pressure instead of giving in to it – controlling speed with “line” instead of braking)
• Feet (on the front of the heel – shin/anterior tibialis – bending at the knee and hip and not the ankle)
• Feet (subtaler joint – rocking the foot onto the inside edge)
• Feet (both feet being kept on inside edges – no rolling onto the little toe!!!)
• Feet (adductor muscles held tight)
• Dynamics (Completion of turn coming over the downhill ski)
• Timing (inverted pendulum – down into the turn and back up out of it)
• Your job is to fall over – ski’s job is to bring you back up – dynamics range – out of balance – feedback driven disequilibrium system
• Timing – from skating (exercise – skating straight downhill and then introducing dynamics to transition into skiing)
• Wide Track Parallel – very wide stance – uphill leg bent and used to extend and push the Centre of Mass downhill – independent leg action
• Pivot (pulling in – never pushing out – see the “Pivot” tab at the top of the page)
• Boot Alignment (Stephan’s boots were significantly under edged – and despite finding a hexagonal key it was not possible to fully correct)

On our final run down the mountain at the end Marni’s focus on her movements was being intermittently overpowered by her apprehension. I suspect just another period of working on easy terrain and consolidating the fundamentals would be enough to strengthen confidence beyond those current issues. Confidence simply comes from competence!