J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by Jan I Stenmark

Hi Juliet,

My 16 yr old son started working as a ski instructor this year in Austria. He took a 10 day course with the Austrian Ski School training body which included a practical skiing assessment, teaching demonstration, written theory paper as well as basic first aid and an awareness of mountain safety. The course cost EUR 500 and has given him the chance to work on snow with beginners. That was in Mid December.

It is worth noting that on the course he took about 40% of the trainees were dropped due to lack of basic ski ability – without a refund!

I should point out that we live in Austria (Niederau) and he has been skiing since he was about 4.

He has now been working in the local ski school since 18th Dec. As you would expect (hope) he has had to spend significant time shadowing experienced instructors as well as attending weekly instructor training sessions. As is right and proper he has only been allowed to work in the “Kinder” area with tots aged 4-5 yrs (actually, this week he even got to put his skis on!). This despite being able to ski the hind leg off 99.9% of other instructors here! Is this the life you partner aspires to?

If your other half is actually serious about becoming a ski instructor why not go to your local ski slope in the UK and find out about it there. Most slopes are only too keen to increase instructor numbers.

Just as a point of interest, being a ski instructor is at best maybe 10% about being able to ski and demo perfectly (which is an absolute necessity regardless of the ability being taught) the rest is about class management, customer satisfaction skills, patience, observational ability, language skills not to mention being a natural entertainer whilst conveying an experienced based understanding of the sport.

I have to say that if your partner has a lifetime experience of 6 days skiing, I don’t mind how natural he is he will be wasting his time trying to be a ski instructor in the next year or two. I’d recommend you both have a fabulous time skiing and enjoying the sport. Get some miles under your boots, read everything you can about the sport and have a review in a few years.

I hope you will forgive me if my rather blunt reply conflicts with your partners aspirations but I just thought you (he) might like to have the opportunity of a reality check …

Jan

ellistine,

Can you please confirm what size batteries are required for the Gluhwien Warmer on your hydration system? Can they be recharged by a wind turbine that is driven by your forward motion or is there a solar panel built-in?

I suspect that any light headedness comes from the Gluhwien being too cold 8)

Happy slurping

Jan

It was late February 2007 and I was flying BA from Munich to London Heathrow after a couple of weeks in Sankt Christoph Am Arlberg.

We arrived at check-in and were informed that whilst we had been away BA had changed its baggage policy and now no single bag was to exceed 23kg. As all four of us (Wife, 2 children and me) take our own ski boots in a single bag, along with wax iron, box of tools etc, etc you can guess that this bag was over weight. (Interestingly our total baggage allowance was not exceeded).

The officious lady who was “here to help” refused to let us check-in. I offered to buy another bag and redistribute the weight but this wouldn’t do because there was a total bag limit!

So there, in front of hundreds of bemused fellow travellers we unpacked our boots and we all put them on. Now the bag weighed less than 23kg and all was well.

As a family we walked around Munich airport in our ski boots, through passport control AND security without them making any comment. We boarded the plane and again no one said anything!

Now my boots have the type of clips that end in a “T” are made of Titanium, Plutonium, Uraninium or some such fancy metal and could easily be used as a fairly handy weapon. Not to mention the fact that just by wearing the boots I could have probably kicked my way through the cabin door to hijack the plane.

You will be glad to hear that I didn’t do any of these things but I did discuss the issue with the Chief Steward and he was totally amazed at what he heard. All of which leaves me wondering about the real point of airline security …

Here is a pic of us AIRSIDE at the airport … (note the ubiquitous B 08 sign in the background!)



Happy flying,

Jan

Hi hopscotch,

I think there are two separate issues here.

1. Your natural, neutral posture
2. Your dynamic skiing position

As a quick test you can check point 1 by standing in your ski boots in front of a mirror placed against a wall at floor level (like the ones you get in shoe shops). Standing with feet hip width apart and with the soles of the boots flat on the floor your shins should be parallel. This test is easier if the floor is hard like laminate flooring rather than on carpet which allows your boot to seem like it is flat on the floor but is actually not.

As I said this is a very quick and easy test but it is no substitute for having your boot fit checked by a qualified professional who will have all the toys to ensure your boots fit you perfectly!

As for point 2 it sounds like some 1-2-1 instruction from a good instructor would probably be a worthwhile investment.

As an aside, if the instructor was constantly finding fault with your performance but wasn’t offering a range of ways to address this fault then I guess you might want to consider how able he was to help you anyway.

Remember - It’s never the pupils fault always a failure of the instructor to find the right way to help you progress.

Jan

Fantastic 8)

Now go and enjoy!

Jan

Hi John,

Firstly, welcome to the world of skiing, it’s a great pastime and is absolutely achievable.

Possibly more importantly, well done for asking for help rather than giving up! Many people would just quit.

Thinking about the difficulties you describe I am tempted to say that an hour or two with a qualified instructor would probably solve all your issues however perhaps that’s not possible without causing tension between you and your girlfriend …

From your description of the difficulties you are having, it sounds as if you are experiencing one of the most common challenges faced by beginners – A lifetime of living with gravity. That’s not to say that skiers don’t live with gravity but let’s just say that we have learned to interact with it differently.

Let me explain. From the moment we learn to walk we instinctively understand that in order to remain standing upright and still we must make sure that our centre of mass is positioned vertically above the area between our feet. Naturally no one tells us this. I haven’t tried to explain the concept of the centre of mass to a 1yr old but I suspect it would prove quite tiresome to all involved :shock: So through trial and error we discover the truth about our CoM, gravity and our feet. Just to really labour the point, let’s analyse in some detail what happens if you are standing upright and still and then want to take a step forward. Many people, when asked, will say that they put one foot forward and then stand on it, repeating the process with the other foot. Have you ever tried this? If you have a moment, try it. Well? What happened? If you are really good at understanding body management you will discover that actually it’s quite a complex process started by you intentionally trying to fall over. The foot is then brought forward to prevent the fall but the CoM is kept ahead of the feet which leads to the fall continuing but in a managed way.

Ok, I know, brevity is the king of instruction but, I suspect from you post that you are quite likely to learn well through understanding, as opposed to feeling, seeing or just doing.

So what has the physics lesson to do with your skiing? Well, I think you mentioned that you are nearing 50 which means that you’ve spent a fair amount of time getting used to gravity. Now you have to unlearn some of that for a while.

In skiing you need to win a battle against your instinct to stand perpendicular to the effect of gravity. Imagine you are standing on a steep hill in normal shoes. Viewed from the side you would be standing upright i.e. with you CoM above your feet. The angle your body made to the hill behind you would be much smaller that the angle your body made to the hill in front. Now if you were skiing (successfully) down the same hill and had your photo taken from the side you would discover that your body was perpendicular to your skis and therefore perpendicular to the contours of the hill. Now the angle in front and behind would be the same. This is totally at odds with your life experience because in every instance before you started to ski, if you stood in that position and kept both feet still you would very quickly find yourself falling down the hill!

Translating all this good physiology into learning to ski, gives the classic beginner’s posture known around the world as “leaning back”. In fact it is not an active choice to lean back, but rather the body’s attempt to maintain what it has spent so long learning to do i.e. not fall over. Sadly, the terrible truth is that the body is wrong and has to be gently reassured that all is OK. Cue Ski Instructor!

In case it’s all too easy, the problem is compounded for beginners because (quite correctly) beginners learn to ski on slopes that are not too steep which means that the difference in position between the “standing on the hill in shoes” position and the “standing on skis” position is not very great. This lack of difference means that often the “helpful friend” or even dare I say, some Ski Instructors will fail to correct this apparently minor flaw. What happens next is that when the pitch of the slope increases the difference between the requirements of the two postures increases and suddenly the confident beginner is scared witless by a sudden loss of control. Next they very likely actively lean back in an attempt to “get away” from the nasty hill that is scaring them. The result is an even more out of control skier and possibly a “Discouraged beginner seeks advice” post follows shortly :D

Reading your description of the problems you are having it sounds very much like this body position issue is at the root of your troubles. When the CoM is acting behind the foot (you would be described as “leaning back”) it is very much harder to control the ski. The ski works best when the CoM is acting in front of the foot. You will find that the ski edges more accurately and your direction and speed can be controlled with confidence.

So to put this into some form of practical exercise, find a flat piece of ground, stand on your skis in your boots as if you were about to go skiing and try gently leaning forward. Most people, when asked to do this, will keep their bodies straight and will bend only their ankles, which ends up looking a lot like an impression of Eddie the Eagle! By all means try this and notice that (if your bindings don’t release) you don’t fall over. Now to take up a more correct skiing position keep your ankles flexed but allow your knees to close a little and your hips to close a little until you are again upright but sort of hunkered down (technical term!). Notice that you are not leaning forward. The trick is to try and maintain this relationship with your skis when the ground is not level.

Unless you go to extremes you are unlikely to adopt a position that is too far forward so next time you are out on the slopes just do a quick check to see if your body is in open revolt and is trying to take up its normal “in shoes” position. If it is, try thinking about flexing your ankles forward until you regain that position you had on level ground. Once you have felt the big increase in security that comes with an improved position you will be much more able to reassure your body that you can be trusted not to put it in peril and that actually standing up to gravity is just going to make for a lousy time for everyone.

Now as for turning well …

Hmmm maybe not today eh?

Happy standing,

Jan

Ah, that's better 8) Finally made it out of the oxygen tent and back from the madness that is being without J2Ski :D

Congrats to you Dave and team and thanks to Pav for mobilising forces to save me from Nick Teen (although his mate Al K. Hall is still staying with us!) Hmmm maybe showing my age there rather :oops:

As for the blog I hope to get it updated later today!

Cheers all

Jan

Hi SkiGirl,

Don't know if you'll get this before you leave on Sat but just a quick note to reassure you that all is great out here in Niederau.

We had a long spell of cold dry weather for what seemed like most of December. This didn't affect the skiing or the pistes which held us well (as pointed out by Dave Mac - the slopes are North facing so hold the snow fine) but then had a fairly big dump (30 - 40 cms) just after Christmas which has freshened everything up nicely.

Don’t tell anyone but I found a great website for weather forecasts which seem to be very accurate (compared with other forecast sites!) you can find it if you follow this link http://www.j2ski.com/snow_forecast/Austria/Niederau_snow.html Looking at this site it would seem that we are in for a rather mixed bag next week.

Looking out the window we have a clear start to the day with some high stratus cloud and some lower cloud visible on the horizon. My remote weather station wireless sender unit (Thanks again Santa!) tells me that the temperature is -1.8 and the relative humidity is at 24%.

All the pistes are in use and I can’t see any brown or green, so I think you are in for a top holiday, enjoy!

Jan