Yesterday, Leo and I attended the Polish on-snow clinic. It was a massive turn out with 30 attendees and our awesome clinicians Piotr and Jay Jay.
The goal was to identify and create extremes in our snowboarding and how this can help our students learning. We did some fun tasks like loosening the bindings right off to explore using our ankles and keeping our centre of mass on top of our board. We rode as straight legged as possible and then as low as possible with identifying the most comfortable position is somewhere in the middle. We used bubble wrap to put inside our goggles and then snowboarded completely blind to enhance utilising our other senses to compensate not seeing but still being able to snowboard.
Leo getting amongst the bubble wrap action
The Polish use extreme contrasts in improving snowboarding not only for beginner lessons but also in advanced lessons. As the students explore the different body movements and the effect it has on the board they can come up with their conclusion that somewhere in the middle of these is the ideal.
We finished with having fun in small groups coming up with our extreme opposites and exploring these.
Having fun putting it into action.
Leo trying to ride as low as he can. ‘Get lower Leo!’
What fun tasks do you do when exploring extreme opposites when teaching your students? Does it result in improved snowboarding?
– By Claire Dooney