Young Person Carving - Feedback Pls

I have attached a video of my lad carving a few weeks back in Les 2 Alpes. Feedback would be great on what he could think about for next year. This is is his 2nd week skiing and is really keen to improve.

Tidy !!
How old is he??

My best advice is never to let him loose on decent skis as you won't keep up !!

:mrgreen:

Bloody hell!
Took me two years and hes still better than me...

Exceptionally good for someone who has skied for only 2 weeks (don't you just hate how quickly young ones pick it up??), I would suggest a few hours of one on one lessons next, instructor would probably look to work on eliminating his slight A frame by pushing uphill knee further into slope and rotating bottom foot more to bring knees and lower legs parallel, this will also be helped by decreasing upper body rotation, try getting him to keep his shoulders always pointing down hill I was taught to visualise headlights on my shoulders and to keep them pointed down the hill.

If it were me I would simply be focussing on enjoyment and not trying to specifically push technique at all.

Kids tend to learn by following and mimicking rather than being told to "plant ze poles" etc.

If he wants/asks for lessons organise them but otherwise just let him enjoy doing what he wants to do and if that is by "doing it right" fine and if that is flying around the mountain and jumping over things fine.

The only advice I can give is choose a better song for your video

Nice tidy skiing. Outstanding for 2 weeks on planks

OldAndy wrote:If it were me I would simply be focussing on enjoyment and not trying to specifically push technique at all.

Kids tend to learn by following and mimicking rather than being told to "plant ze poles" etc.

If he wants/asks for lessons organise them but otherwise just let him enjoy doing what he wants to do and if that is by "doing it right" fine and if that is flying around the mountain and jumping over things fine.

Andy whilst I am in full agreement that skiing is firstly and foremost about enjoyment and this must be a priority especially with younger skiers, it should also be recognised that skiing is a technical sport/pastime and is very much a counter intuative, it is far easier to learn correct technique in the early years than it is to put right bad habits later which it may never be possible to eradicate once ingrained. Lessons especially for younger skiers have changed massively since the 70s, and 80s when it was normal for an instructor to stand at the bottom of a nursery slope screaming instructions at a group of beginners along the lines of 'Plant zi poles!' with the employment of fun games and activities that in effect 'sneak in' good technique without it being an apparent lesson, in fact I would go as far to say any instructor in this day and age that resorts to the old teaching techniques of repetitive drilling should not be teaching youngsters, generally drilling techniques are now only used as a last resort when the afore mentioned bad technique needs to be hammered out. A few good lessons now could save many many hours of tedious lessons in the future and make skiing more fun for years to come.

Tonyo - I think you and I are generally in agreement with just some nuanced differences perhaps.

Totally agree with you on changes in the expertise of instructors WRT teaching children and how children learn.

All I would say is that formal instruction should be driven by the desire of the youngster and not the desires of the parent. Pushing kids into ski school and banging on about technique can be counter productive.