Mar 9 (2011)
Finland ended up presenting two ski clinics, with Gav going to one on motivation and Scotty attending this one about emotion. Here’s his write-up…
Clinic title: Emotion; (1) emphasis on experimenting and emotion, (2) showcasing how to train ski instructors into this concept.
Clinic synopsis: Toni our clinic leader worked through the Finish progression from a good dynamic parallel turn, backwards down to a wedge turn. The reason for this, was to show how the equipment (skis) are used at a high level and how it can filter down to the lower levels.
Our summary: Toni started with an explanation of the stance that they are promoting. Standing ‘cuff-neutral’ with the balance point on the balls of your feet (toes). We then went skiing with the idea of not using any excess movement vertically. This was to give you muscles an easier time so skiing becomes less effort.
Next we covered direction change. This is done by applying pressure to the ski that is on the outside of the turn and because of the stance the front of the ski will bend to give you a direction change. This movement pattern is used from first timers to experts so that the students wont have to learn any new information; they just need to work with speed to get a different outcome. They didn’t address guiding the skis in a turn shape because they believe that students don’t want to work that hard due to there physical shape/make-up.
Toni presented a solid clinic with full belief of the information delivered. Finland appears to be not very steep and have wide groomed slopes so this would work well in this situation. We skied at a fast speed in the clinic. We didn’t address skiing in the off-piste or the steeps. I questioned Toni about timid students due to the speed that we were skiing and he replied that timid students just take longer to pick up the speed. I enjoyed the clinic however I didn’t feel that we addressed how to train instructors into this concept; more that we were just introduced onto the concept.
