J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

AJ wrote:Yes i meant instruction technique and the application
of it ise. :lol:
I suppose the only way to keep up with changing technique is to keep having refresher lessons
and by god do i need one.Too many bad habits have crept in over the years. :lol:
I still find pole planting difficult at speed as it tends to upset my flow, dont know if you understand the jist of what i`m trying to say.
I suppose we will always be striving for the ultimate,illusive,In perfection.Thanks for the feedback. :wink:

AJ Adele

There's no one way of using the poles, I mentioned the 4 ways (above) that BASI think about it in the central theme and that varies as you move down the hill.

I just skied from the top of the mountain on a black piste, steep and wide open on the top, and carving down there at speed I'm using a light touch on the pole and just railing on the edges, towards the bottom it gets much steeper and the snow's problematic so I'm fairly aggressively pole planting doing all of the things I mentioned above, i.e. supporting my balance as I turn with an aggressive edge check, helping me rotate rapidly without having to lean all over the hill and getting the torque to turn rapidly, it's a tighter line and I've got to navigate around the safety nets as well so the turn radius is way smaller. If I'd pole planted like that at the top when I was just railing carved turns down then it would have seriously upset my flow as well. A good run as well, somewhere under 6 minutes from top to bottom :D

crashandburn wrote:Try OFFPISTEMADNESS.COM (or CO.UK) they are based in Morzine,

Thanks for that, that's going to keep me smiling all day, a company called "OffPisteMadness" in Morzine, that's priceless :D I may start a company here called "a couple of hundred km of indifferent motorway skiing" (dot com of course) :D

I'm sure they're just super but the name doesn't quite fit somehow :D

gilly914 wrote:I wanna plan a snowboarding trip to Grindelwald, and i found a great deal that only includes the flight and the hotel for a week...

I wanted to know (at least roughly) how much a 6 day ski-pass and snowboard rental should cost????



...and another thing - I'm a beginner. Is grindelwald a good place for beginners too??

why not look on their website for the price? :D

AJ wrote:Reading this thread really makes my head hurt, So many comments and views on what seems to be such a complex subject.
Maybe ise can explain.

Everywhere i have skied resort or country,i have not been taught to ski the same, Yes the basic fundamentals are the same but the technique has been different.Does this not answer the question as to why there is so much difference of opinion.

QUESTION= is there not one universal method of teaching people to ski, Or will they always be variations.
Comments greatly appreciated

AJ Adele

It's funny but I can't quite understand your question :-) The language we use is so confusing sometimes.

You say technique is different, do you mean the actual ski technique or the instruction technique? I'm guessing the second one. All instructors in every country I can think of take certification which leads to ISTD level, that's an ISIA (google if you're interested) standard and it's there to make sure everything is broadly similar. At the extreme that means you're not going to book an instructor who tells you to keep your skis together on the piste or to lean back in powder. Beyond that each system has similar themes, BASI has something called the "Central Theme" which is a fairly basic set of techniques which should take the skier to advanced intermediate level, PSIA has something similar, the Swiss have an award system that does more or less the same.

How an individual instructor works varies hugely, someone doing beginner group lessons each week is going to follow a lesson plan that's probably 95% based on the what that ski school finds works. Smaller groups and the instructor will start using different exercises that reflect what's worked for them in the past and where the student is struggling. There's also going to be the odd one, like me, who just can't remember all those exercises and can only recall a handful :D Luckily I'm not currently working as a ski instructor though :D

I've a slight problem with a lot of these drills though, somehow the drill becomes more important than the application and you get some people who get really good at the drill and are totally incapable of applying it or can't even understand where they're supposed to apply it. A variation of this is the ability to adopt a series of good postures and stances but not be able to move between them, that's actually pretty funny to watch though :D

What I'm saying is that even if the drills are different the goals should be pretty much the same, if you've got an instructor who's not able to explain the purpose of the drill then you've no context and it's confusing, obviously you need another instructor :D Seriously though, if you have an instructor that isn't explaining it then push him/her to, if they won't then complain.

bandit wrote:[
Hmmm, I'd like to think that you don't know me that well, but you are spot on with this observation :D
Which is a little worrying, can I be read that easily? :shock:

not that much of an insight, I have skied with you :D I'd also think anyone that skis more than a couple of times a year, reads a ski forum matches that profile.

Trencher wrote:
I apologise, no insult was intended.

I was just suggesting that sometimes instruction methods have a momentum of their own and often are slow to change or recognise new techniques. Witness how long it has taken for most ski instructors to be able to carve a clean arc, many still cannot.

Maybe they can't in Minnesota but I can assure they can in Europe and I know that no one will pass a PSIA certification without being able to carve a turn. All you've done is just repeat the same misconception and latch onto one single point that's been made about timing, even in this you've simply not understood what's being said.

I can see it's articulated badly but it's not so very difficult. When you hear timing you seem to have an idea of rhythm, like counting 1-2-3-4 and pole planting on every other beat alternating left/right, that's not what we mean at all. This is timing just like walking, when I place my front foot on the ground and start to lift my back foot that's timing, a series of movements that happen in a sequence with one leading another.

Trencher wrote:What the article fails to convey is the actual mechanics of how this is supposed to work. Is there a real physical connection between the pole and the snow that helps the skier recenter or is it the momentum of swinging the pole forward that pulls the skiers mass forward. If the later, then the same movement without the pole would accomplish the recentering.

The point I have been trying to make is that so often it is not the pole plant that accomplishes whatever is intended, but the movement to make the pole plant.

I made three other point about pole plants which you don't seem to have understood, these were :

2. balance support, in turns with high edge set or pronounced check it's an aid to balance at the point of maximum deceleration

3. aid to leg rotation, a momentary anchor to aid leg rotation into the new direction without disrupting balance or posture.

4. momentary torque in initiating quick, tight turns.

None of these are possible without actually having a pole, it's not just the movement to make the plant but the actual plant itself.

I know Greg Gurshman is a highly regarded coach and trainer but I'd ignore that article, it's rambling and badly written and it's hard to determine what point he's really trying to make.

Trencher wrote:
When something is accepted as the norm for decades, it often it becomes so entrenched that no one even quieries it.

Your analogy is just plain wrong, we adapted technique and teaching a lot to deal with advances in kit. For BASI the "Central Theme" reflects what carving skis are and what they do and it's no different for CSIA or PSIA and at the ISTD levels.

I think the suggestion that people who've taken training and passed exams as ski instructors lack insight into what they're learning and teaching is actually pretty insulting actually.

bandit wrote:

ise wrote:

And I should clarify I'm talking about what we learn when we're training to be ski instructors )

Unless you're on the flattest of slopes you need poles for all the reasons I've given, no one manages without and those that try are simply unable to handle even moderately difficult slopes at any speed.

So, way back in the mists of time, when I was being taught by BASI teachers, we had our poles taken off us for several days at a time. We were skiing French red grade runs (Les Arcs) carving all sized radius turns at speed.
That does'nt happen these days then?

It does, all ski instructors do it but I think they're (nearly) all doing it wrong, it's clear that some (too many) students are coming away with an impression that poles are optional in some way. If that's happening then the instructor isn't communicating the purpose of the exercise and that's not going to work for a lot of students, people like you (I'm think I'm right) like to know the how and why of an exercise, some people don't of course but instructors ought to be explaining that. In part the purpose of that exercise is to learn and emphasise the PET principle (Pressure, Edge, Turn in various orders). On a uniform slope the ski will turn, or carve, wth a simple Pressure, giving Edge then a Turn.

Carve turns are fun, railing at high speed even more so, but it's only one turn we use to get all over the mountain. It's around this point people get confused, get some carving skis and discard their poles. You even see it around here, I saw some people the other week doing it, peak holiday time, they probably see lessons doing it, or misunderstand their own lessons, and reckon a carving ski doesn't need a pole.