J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by ise

Ian Wickham wrote:
I've read it three times I don't understand a word 8)

exactly :-) it quickly turns to something unintelligible if not outright nonsense. Some limited sort of jargon is required when you're doing instructor training so we can explore the concepts or use a shorthand but there's no place for it in general use at all. It's pretty clear when you read a couple of other forums how this works, this sort of language is used to establish the posters expertise and exclude other people while often giving out the most awful advice at the same time and then it becomes some sort of arms race as to who can talk the most nonsense.

Admin wrote:

ise wrote:The Panasonic Lumix range look great but no optical viewfinders.

Yes. Got one of these earlier this year; it takes great snaps on auto (straight out of the pocket), and copes very well with tricky lighting conditions... but it's a right pain to use the LCD in bright light so I probably will swap it for something with a viewfinder for next season.

That's getting pretty rare now, it's very frustrating really. The Ricoh Gx200 with the optional viewfinder looks very interesting though.

AllyG wrote:Ise,
As I've said before, I pretty much never understand what ski instructors say anyway, unless it's something like lean further foreward, or stand up straighter, and I find it helps if I have some idea of what I'm supposed to be doing, and know some of their terms, before I begin the lesson.

One of my last teachers, for example, was on about avalement going over moguls, and I only knew what she meant because I'd been studying the book beforehand.

Ally

you've got poles... just poke them in the eye until they start talking English :lol:

AllyG wrote:Hi Ise,
Thanks, is the foragonal movement the one you do when you're pole planting, or do you do it some other time?

Ally

Don't get trapped into talking about skiing in these terms, it's complete and utter nonsense and you'll only confuse yourself. Instructors should be able to talk about skiing without resorting to such utter silliness and we should ridicule those who use this sort of nonsense speak in an attempt to sound knowledgeable.

foragonal - forward, diagonal movement. Just of piece of nonsense speak beloved of nonsense speakers in the ski world :roll: whatever it's supposed to describe, the effect is to exclude people who don't know the jargon. The internet's full of similar nonsense.

amanda n wrote:my god, bandit have you skied that?

I have, several times. It's a straight forward enough route albeit in the high alpine environment. I've skied (and boarded) some more serious lines from there as well. The start is just a classic, standard traverse of an alpine ridge, pretty much bread and butter stuff for this sort of skiing or climbing but a bit spacey if you've not done it before.

rossyhead wrote:
Snowpack-the first aid course is a whole weekend and about £100, !

The first aid requirement is widely misunderstood, any HSE approved first aid course is enough. I don't even think the information on the BASI site is correct, they say 12 hours which is an HSE re'qual which is what I do. A new qual' is supposed to be 24 hours according to HSE. Anyway, your local Red Cross or St Johns or college will almost certainly run a course. Or your employer can send you on a work one, some people don't want to be the official work first aider though of course.

If you want to do a focussed one then I'd do the REC, Rescue and Emergency Care version, I do that and FFH stuff as well.

daved wrote:I use an Casio Exilim Pro EX-P700 I bought a couple of years ago ....i get excellent results but would have liked something a mite more pocketable but cant find a camera with a viewfinder ....why have they stopped making them!!

yes, this annoys me a lot as well, optical viewfinders are better in high light.

What's really happening is related to DSLR's, they're so cheap now that they've killed part of the market for compacts more orientated at enthusiast users. You just have to browse through flickr and see how desperately poor the performance of a lot of camera's is.

There's some digital rangefinder type cameras out there but they hit a price that's not unreasonable as such but is probably at a level where I want to have in my pocket on the hill. And then a lot of them don't take AA's. It actually looks like there isn't a camera suitable for me with both AA batteries and an optical viewfinder with the right quality. The Panasonic Lumix range look great but no optical viewfinders.

The Casio Exilim Pro EX-P700 is good example, it takes about 10 seconds looking at flickr to see good results.