Interski Levi

[LiquidFeet]

terrain & typical snow surfaces vary from region to region & resort to resort.

terrain dictates/encourages one pathway versus another.

what approach works best for each of his/her individual students.

Here's another factor that influences what teaching path to take. One very very cold day I was working with a day one beginner adult group, all on rental skis. The wax was seriously mis-matched to the conditions du jour and their skis consistently refused to glide.

Our beginner terrain was complicated. The pitch varied. Each part lent itself to learning different skills. The route started out rather steep for them (side-stepping down). This was followed by a gentle and flat pitch (link turns), a chairlift ride (exit the chair safely), then a complicated trail back to the beginning area that alternated from uphill (herringbone to skate,) to super flat (vary turn shape, skate downhill), to a somewhat scary steep (for them) slope where they put it all together.

That day they had to learn to skate. There was no other way to ski downhill given the wax and the snow. By the end of the 2 hour lesson they were all skiing parallel, skating their turns downhill even on the scary pitch, skiing outside foot to outside foot, gliding with each skate. Rudimentary carving was going on. They were laughing.

A full day lesson with first-day beginners that day would have been a hoot, all because of the wax slowing them down.

 

[dj61]

a

Yes, not the same, which is why snowplow hasn’t been taught in a few decades.

???? Because edging and pressure are redundant?

 

[Chris V.]

From the 1941 US Army training film.

That was fun. Why the extreme back-seated stance? Because the boots were soft? Because the skis wouldn't bend? Because they had no edges?

 

[Chris V.]

My understanding is snowplow is more edge and pressure dominate and wedge is rotary dominate. E.G. not the same thing.

Well...love the wedge or hate it, it has a few advantages. If the body mechanics are done correctly, it results in a pre-edged outside ski. That's generally plenty of edging for beginner terrain. It results in a pre-formed steering angle, so that the student can experience a brushing ski. It makes it easy for the student to get centered fore-aft and apply forward pressure, without having a feeling of the skis running away.

If the student is achieving a straight run in a wedge, in a good stance, I usually find it's sufficient to instruct the student simply to relax one leg a bit to start a turn in that direction. Most of the time explicit instruction on making active rotational movements isn't needed. The difficulty is that once the skis start rotation, some students fight it. They won't let it happen. They need to get comfortable with it and accept it, that's all. Let the skis do what they want to do, and balance against the outside ski.

 

[James]

That was fun. Why the extreme back-seated stance? Because the boots were soft? Because the skis wouldn't bend? Because they had no edges?

The skis had edges-

But look at the boots. Not much forward support.
Plus the terrain even looks steep on film, for a beginner.

Also the bindings have some upward movement at the heel.

To skin with a free heel, they undo the cable routing underneath that middle plate.

 

[DavidSkis]

So, it isn’t that a gliding wedge is superior to a snowplow—terrain dictates/encourages one pathway versus another.

I can't think of many situations where a beginner is better off locked on their edges in a big plow, versus a smaller gliding wedge. even when it comes to stopping, getting the beginner turning to stop is a more useful long term mechanic. It seems to me that particularly on a steeper hill a beginner needs to be able to make use of steering, rather than being locked on edges.

 

[Mike King]

 

[markojp]

Quite aside from wedge vs. snowplow, there's a load of interesting new video from Interski thats been posted the past few weeks. Might be nice to delve into it vs. beating dead horses...