Young Person Carving - Feedback Pls

He wants to go to summer race camp in tignes so already getting expensive :) no snow dome in jersey so v hard to get him time on skis. He is already complaining about not going back. No pushing needed on the lessons he wants them and wants to perfect technique. Absolutely over the moon with his progress and he is now pushing for tramp lessons so he can learn tricks before he goes next time. Thanks for all the comments he is stoked oh and me of course :)

Stoked?????

Well looks like he is doing great. Next stage would be to make more aggressive turns whilst keeping fall line speed i.e. really put skis on their edges.

My suggestion would be keep up lessons. Very difficult to eradicate technique problems once embedded.

Thanks for all the comments. Really great.

As others noted "background" information would help.
I presume he is in the 10-12 year old range.

First just have fun. Keep technical information to minimum.
As noted allow boy to follow a better skier who can vary turns from 12 meters to 30 meters.

Some small "picky" items which can work on in the coming years;

Hands closer in .
Notice the skis that "wander' during turn. This is more due to young muscular level. As adolescences sets in the leg and core muscles will be stronger. Thus carve will be more "dynamique" .
If you look carefully some turns are flat turns,,that is outside edge of ski is not angled a great deal, thus you do not see that one thin carving line.
-How to get this ? Ask sone to lift inside boot on turn. It will force him to put all weigth on outside ski .

If you can next time focus camera on ski boots and tips for several turns.

Have your son watch this video http://vimeo.com/6494951

Well on his way to great skiing!

I hope this helps.

Pav

Thanks Pav

I will get him working on this when we go next. He is very keen to learn and pretty good at taking advice.

Cheers

Tim

Congrats to your lad! This is impressive for 2 weeks of skiing in a youngster, as they tend to not grasp the concept of carving at this age. As an instructor I look at this and see immediately how to improve his technique. But from experience with youngsters, it is difficult for them to grasp the next stage. They find it very difficult to hold the correct body position, this is critical in carving as the position needs to exaggerated. Its difficult with words but I'll try to explain to you what needs to be done in order for him to progress.

Firstly this exercise does not require poles. He needs to ski a run where that in EVERY turn he puts BOTH hands on the outside of the downhill ski boot. This will over exaggerate the technique but hopefully he gets an understanding of how much pressure he should apply to the downhill ski, and the correct body position should come naturally (of course not without a few reminders along the way!)

At his age it is all about having fun with it, and they learn better from following someone. If you have anyone who can carve well, then let your lad follow them for a few runs per day, they automatically mimic the leaders style and technique.

But if it doesn't work for a while, that's also normal, as they are still developing muscles, and adapting to the demand of skiing. This doesn't happen over a 2 week period unfortunately.

I hope this helps!