Tuesday, April 9, 2019

Jules, Amelia, Ellie, Mia, Matilda, Jemima

Magic Wall

Today everyone skied in a disciplined manner down to the slalom area. The aim today was to remain in this area for a while to begin more serious work on ski technique – sorry, wrong terminology there – …work on magic!

How do you explain to a child that when you are standing upright you are really an “open, dissipative, feedback driven disequilibrium system” – and NOT in balance? Well I demonstrated that quickly with my two ski poles – but better ask them what they saw because I either write a book on it or we just agree to call it magic for the moment.

The “Magic Wall” was taught quite simply – the full breakdown of the procedure is found at this link “Dynamics” (Also tab at the top of the blog for the fixed “Dynamics” page) The goal was to get the children to move the centre of mass much more into each turn and use to slalom to encourage that. The invisible “Magic Wall” is what they trust and lean/push hard against – it NEVER lets them down – as long as they believe in it.

Magic Foot

The Magic Foot is the one that holds you against the Magic Wall. This means standing on the front of the heel beneath the ankle joint, then rocking the foot onto its inside edge (using the subtaler joint – between the ankle and heel).

Both the Magic Wall and Foot brought visible changes in everyone.



Great photo of Jules with the Magic Wall and Magic Foot



The Great Escape of Jules

Towards the end of the day Jules made his solo escape – straight down the main slope towards the bottom of the mountain – bypassing the slalom area lift system and heading straight into town. He almost got away with it but as I plunged down an off piste wall to go after him he somersaulted and his great escape was over – all that remained now was to walk all the way back up the hill because we could not continue down without the others.

Now Jules the escapee took full blame for this misadventure – but is that really what happened? No – not really. He had inside help!!!  …Instead of following my instructions to stop and wait with me until Jules was beside us – Matilda and Mia headed off on their own towards the button lift. They didn’t respond to my calls so I set off after them to stop them. When I caught them I turned around to find Jules – and there he was on his break for freedom! Now I had to think quickly and abandon everyone up the hill and get Jules to return him to the fold. The real masterminds were in fact Matilda and Mia.

Firmer rules and security are going to be implemented from here on in. 

Perhaps Jules was more suspected because he had almost fallen off the roof of the grotto already today.

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