After the Bristol Super G, I was back down to Hunter for an Advanced Movement Analysis course on Wednesday and Thursday. This is part of the PSIA-E Master Teacher Accreditation and specifically part of the race series. This was not only my first trip to a big mountain since I hurt my knee but it was also back to the place where I got hurt. This was also the first event where I would be skiing pretty hard. By hard I mean steeps and bumps. This course adds situation (tactics) to technique to help instructors understand and identify appropriate movement patterns in and for different situations. Things like speed, radius, pitch and snow condition change tactical approach (movements) in skiing. Ski instructors are always taking ski lessons. There is always a training program if you are employed as a ski instructor. When you ask a ski instructor what they are working on they almost always answer with a body part; "I am working on my ankles", "I am working on my hands", "I am working on my hips" and so forth. When you ask a client what they are working on they often want situational improvement like; "I want to ski black diamond runs", "I want to ski in the bumps", "I want to improve my NASTAR handicap." Hence, the reason for this event, to help instructors understand how tactics work with technique so we can better help our customers improve their skiing.
It turned out my group contained some skiers that were not too advanced in tactics and/or technique. Interestingly, none came with a process to do basic movement analysis. We spent all Wednesday working on getting a consistent approach to quickly understand the movements we see when watching someone ski. I presented 3 different approaches as suggestions for process to look at skiing. The PSIA uses a skills based approach for describing the movements in skiing as the core of the American Teaching System (ATS); balance movements, rotary movements, edging movements and pressure management movements. All movements in skiing can be described in terms of these skills. It made sense to start with a skills based approach to watching skiing.
Many newer ski instructors use the skills approach to teaching. They teach edging for instance. What they miss is that the ATS skiing model uses skills to describe skiing movements so that there is common language to describe skiing. We need to teach skiing...as in ski turns and how we move to allow the ski to turn. Using skills with this group did not go so well. People kept talking about body parts instead of balance movements, rotary movements, edging movements and pressure management movements and how these were effecting the performance of the skis. So, I moved on to the approach I basically use. I look at general balance, turn entry (how the edges used are changed like step, jump, push or move to a the new set of edges to go the other way) and turn shape (the result after the turn entry). The group started getting the idea. For each skiing activity, I would use the process to describe the movements of the others in the group for all to hear. I then moved on to let them do the describing. At this point, there was no prescription just describing what we were seeing.
The third process I presented was shown to me by my friend Becky. What she does is look at gross movements to get a general idea of how the skier is moving. Then she looks at the ski in the snow and how it goes around the corner, when the spray comes off the ski and from what part of the ski (under foot or off the tail for example) and then she moves up the body to better understand how the skier is moving from turn to turn (like hips and ankles). The group had an easy time seeing gross movements and snow spray but a little more difficulty seeing ski performance and movement of mass to the new turn. By the end of the day, it did seem like most of the group were sort of using Becky's approach. I say sort of because no one was getting past the ski spray in the process.
Wednesday dinner was at Last Chance Cheese in Tannersville with my friends Mermer and Art. All we all have in common is skiing so how skis go left and right took up most of the conversation. Mermer is a writer and gardener so, for me, it was great to talk about some summer things too. I had quiche for dinner in celebration of being in a cheese restaurant but the menu had lots of good things to eat and is a favorite of many people that ski at Hunter.
Thursday I added the situation part to the on hill program. We skied short radius on steeps, medium radius on blue, and some bumps. In these situations, we explored different tactics to accomplish some reasonably effective skiing. In the bumps, I wound up teaching a lesson to the group because there was very little tactical understanding of bump skiing. It was really fun, the sun was out, it was warm and the bumps were really good. The group had a great time.
Also on Thursday, there were some college athletes training for some sectional races. After a quick conversations with a couple of the coaches, the group went down the race trail to watch some training. I spend some time explaining slalom tactics and having the group practice by describing what they were seeing. We added line (turning tactics for the gates), pole usage and shoulders (level at the fall line and parallel to the hill from fall line to transition) to what we were looking at. Later in the day, the course was reset to giant slalom (GS) so we came back and did the same thing looking at GS. I can watch race training for hours but we only spent 15 minutes on each look so we could keep skiing.
All in all, it was a really good trip for me. I skied hard and my knee did well. I never went down the back of the mountain due to the skiing skills of some of the group. This was a bit disappointing but I came home a happy camper. I did find out after the event that I had a small fracture due to the hypertension fall I took earlier in the season. It was only visible on the MRI (not the x-ray) and it is deemed healed at this point.
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