Messages posted by : Innsbrucker
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People here write a lot about carving. Maybe too much. The reality is that a lot of us ski on crowded slopes with children and poorly controlled fellow-skiers, and really going for it like a racer (even if one could) with high speed and committed to large radius turns is irresponsible, even if you have the fitness and skill to do that. Therefore building a really secure, skilled and elegant style for crowded slopes would be a good basis, although it is not talked about much. This takes more than a few days for most of us. When you get it, normal skiing is comfortable, safe, fun, and efficient (skiing well takes way less strength and energy than skiing badly at the same speed).
Probably after that foundation of good basic parallel turns in all situations is really solid and correct (including the old-fashioned way of wedeln, or really tight pivoted turns, which is handy in mogul fields and narrow paths), the carving for your high speed open runs, or turning in deep powder for your off-piste fun, are easier to add as the icing on the cake (only to become the norm if you in the minority who are less into regular busy-piste skiing, and more a wannabe racer, or a serious off-piste skier / full-blown tourer). |
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Advice for lack of confidence: some teachers have a knack of helping with this, from my experience of dealing with a nervousness in inline skating. Take it easy. Don't aim to do too much in a day. You can always try classic style cross country skiing. Spend time on nursery slope. There was a school promoting the teaching style recommended in Inner Game of Skiing a few years back and the reviews in the newspapers were good (journalists like a free holiday). Maybe they are still around. Being phyically well prepared will help. As for reds, blacks, etc. it is pretty much nonsense IMO, some blues are hard. Just go where you are comfortable and have a nice time.
Forget about blades. BTW you can have a nice time going up on touring skis and taking the lift down. Touring skis do cost a bit more to rent. This is not a joke. There are people who will regard this idiotic, only because they have never tried climbing the piste on touring skis. It is great. |
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Seefeld's public baths spa has an outside pool on the roof (just above the skating rink) where you can bask in warm water surrounded by snow, and watch the moon. With a sauna next to it. Magic. It is around Euro25 for 4 hours. As I am in Innsbruck until Sunday I hope to visit Seefeld this Saturday for the first time this season :-)
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Great video. Some of those guys are excellent skaters and doubtless excellent skiiers. I am going to repost it on http://skateinstructor.com (a London-based inline skating instructor whose website I maintain). It is tough skating in Alpine areas because it is really an activity for flat areas: the skating on hills in that video is only possible for fairly advanced skaters. And yet skating is popular in summer in Innsbruck, maybe because many of the serious skiers here know how good it is for their skiing. But I never skated with poles. You do see that more skating with poles in the Alps than in London.
Inline skating is the best for fitness, strength and balance relevant to skiing or cross-country skiing. I have been learning skating this year and hope it will improve things when I get on the slopes (maybe in a couple of days). It is not easier than skiing, and in some ways harder to get away with bad habits, partly because if you ski badly but point downhill you will go fast. If you skate badly on the flat (or uphill, as in parts of the video), without getting the knack of keeping your weight in the right place and transferring it between feet, you will struggle to get any speed up. Use of muscles is also very similar. |
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I guess flexible knees help?
Moguls are nice for sharpening up one's general skiing I think. |
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Seefeld is lovely, you cannot beat the scenery. There are two ski areas, Roshuette is the main one with nice south-facing pistes and a few good huts. More family oriented, less suited to young people who want apres-ski to be hard-core clubbing late into the night. Good mix of locals and foreigners, you see some good skiers there and not too many dangerous ones. Lots of kids. There are some fairly easy runs, and some moderately difficult parts marked 'black' which are not massively difficult but enough to be sure you will not run out of challenges for your first few years going there. But it is fairly low, so the lower slopes get mushy late in the season.
Also easy to get to (one of the closest resorts to the Innsbruck airport). There are hotels with nice spas, and the spa in the public baths is pretty smart. Also it is a cross-country ski centre, and has an ice rink. I love it. And as a bonus (not for your first year) there is pretty woodland around the pistes on both Roshuette and the other ski area where you can go up on touring skis, and have some fun coming down dodging between the trees when there is fresh powder. |
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burning thighs after about 30 to 40 mins of skiing
Started by Bignick in Ski Fitness, 133 Replies, discussing Niederau and St. Anton am Arlb... |
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I ski with someone who is less fit and less strong than me, but who never gets tired legs and never appears to need much effort, from moderately slow to moderately quick, on piste, in powder, in the woods. This proves to me that my ski technique is pretty crap, even if people say nice things about it, and even if I can get down difficult slopes fairly safely. My theory is that if your legs are tired from normal skiing, you are skiing wrong. So am I, but I have not worked out how to fix it. The above post by Pavel may help. |
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I thought everybody fell in powder... |
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