Monoski - Can someone help?

Hello all,

I am looking for a bit of help, I have a below knee amputation on one leg and I currently ski with a ski prosthetic. In good snow I can get down nice(not slushy or moguls) blacks but as soon as it starts to get slushy it's starts to get difficult as my prosthetic leg has a little too much movement.

I am currently trying out the 3 tracks with the outriggers but I skied for many years with two legs and just feel more comfortable with both underneath me!

So I am thinking of trying out a standing monoski, I think this would help with the control issues and give me two feet underneath.

I currently live in Scotland and am looking for advice on where I can hire a monoski or buy a cheap one, if possible, but also where I can get some advice on sizes and what type of ski I should look at and how do you ride it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

G

I read your post on another forum, where someone suggested a skwal. I was going to suggest a skwal or alpine snowboarding. I've given a lot of thought to a somewhat similar situation. As an adaptive instructor, I work with a young student who suffered a stroke at birth. One side of his body is very much weaker. He does very well on skis, but as he progresses, the asymmetry becomes more apparent. In his case as a young teenager, the effort to be symmetrical when skiing is beneficial to his physical development. At the same time I want to introduce him to snowboarding, because left/right symmetry is not an issue on a snowboard.

It would be desirable to have symmetry in movements on a monoski, but that would mean limiting your movements left and right, to the restrictions imposed by your prosthetic. Unlike my student, I would suggest that there may be little benefit in your struggling to monoski symmetrically. The skwal or alpine snowboarding may let you enjoy alpine sport as pretty much an equal to those on similar equipment. Alpine snowboarding has a forwardish stance, and uses hard boots (more like ski boots) and plate bindings. Riding a skwal is very much like water skiing, with a very forward stance. Some people use poles with skwals. There tends to be more rotary movement of the rear legs in both these sports, so a prosthetic forward set up may work best.

Unfortunately, as you have no doubt discovered, the term monoski has been co-opted by the adaptive ski community to replace the term sitski. This was to differentiate a sitski with one ski, from a sitski with two skis... a bi-ski. The term used now for what was a monoski is monoboard.

As was also mentioned on that other forum, monoboards haven't gone the way of the dinosaurs just yet. There are several new small manufacturers making monoskis with the same new technology that is seen in modern skis. If you go that route, it would be very worthwhile finding a modern monoboard. Just as you wouldn't want learn to ski on 1990s skis.

Good luck with the endeavor anyway.

BTW Someone needs to design a prosthetic with spring loaded rotation at the ankle, maybe even inversion/eversion. Aside from ankle rotation being useful in the moguls, it is impossible to angulate at the knee without some rotation at the ankle.