Pete

Watching all four skiers carefully at the start of our session it was very clear that there was no active use of Dynamics – across the board! All four were unstable and each skier was in a personal battle against themselves just trying to ski down our green training slope. From that moment it was obvious that we would have to begin with working on Dynamics. The afternoon was divided into two main sections – Dynamics and Pivoting.

There was really no time for detailed personal feedback – this was going to be a genuine crash course in the fundamentals of skiing. At the top of this page there is are tabs with all the details for Dynamics and Pivot – with demonstrations of the pivoting and explanations of dynamics – including the exercises and progressions we used. However I will give a basic list of the subjects we touched upon.

• Dynamics – Centre of Mass into the turn
• Dynamics – building pressure during the turn (Something Hayley struggled with a little)
• Dynamics – coming up out of the turn
• Dynamics – Down/Up timing
• Dynamics – no poles used
• Feet – standing on the front of the heel below the ankle joint
• Feet – flexing – hip and knee when on the heel – anterior tibialis (shin) contracting to secure the ankle and prevent ankle and foot collapse
• Feet – rocking the foot from the subtaler joint – between the heel and ankle. Rocking onto the inside of the foot – not the outside.
• Feet – activating the adductors – pulling the knee inwards laterally – but securely and to a limited degree
• Feet – pulling inwards with the leg against my ski pole to ensure the correct sensation (had a big effect for Zoe to stop her pushing outwards)
• Feet  – Foot/Adductors/Centre of Mass – all pulling inwards (string pulling ball inwards away from a straight line)
• Skating – Down/ Up timing
• Skating – transition to skiing by adding dynamics
• Skating – propulsion on flats by “falling forward” and using gravity
• Skating – both feet rocked onto their inside edges – both sets of adductor leg muscles employed
• Side Slipping – sideways, pressure on the top edge of the uphill ski – but lower edge of the uphill foot
• Pivot – from uphill ski moving sideways , uphill edge of uphill ski, lower (inside) edge of foot – with pole support to dose the dynamics appropriately
• Pivot – from lower ski – uphill edge of ski, uphill (inside) edge of foot (Only Zoe managed this – impressively!)

We covered a great deal of material in a very short time – but with impressive results and finishing with a non-stop descent from the summit of the Bellevarde down the OK and then down the (Black) race piste into La Daille.