Skiing Zero to Hero!

We met Salmon, a 15 year old beginner from Spain on the slopes of Big White, British Columbia, Canada.

He was lost and carrying his skis awkwardly, we stopped to check he was ok. His boots were undone and he struggled to put his skis on. I asked him what his goal was and he replied, to get down safely.

I helped him do up his boots and put in his skis, then Katya asked if he would like us to ski down with him, he replied very politely yes please.

So we started to ski down with him in a snowplough (pizza) on a slope that was fairly steep that would be a challenge for an accomplished skier to get down in a snow plough position.

I asked if he would like me to help him ski down which again he very politely replied yes please.

It was apparent to me that for him to get down comfortably and safely on this slope it would be a huge benefit to learn to ski parallel. So I showed him how to slide down the slope and the asked him to pay attention to the percentage of weight he had on hues uphill and downhill ski and which percentage gave him the most control. He started to say what percentage he thought would be best, so I suggested that he experimented to find out.

It took him one or two side slips to excitedly tell me 80 - 20. I showed him a parallel turn and asked him to notice when he had a go, where in the turn did he feel the transition from his downhill ski to his new downhill ski. He quickly replied with what he thought it should be, I suggested that he noticed when the transition took place by observing, after two turns he excitedly said ¾ of the way round, I suggested that he could continue to pay attention to when the transition took place without trying to make the transition just notice when. Within about 300 metres he went from only being able to turn using a snowplough to smooth parallel linked turns.

Salomon and I then met Katya on her next run. I said show my wife how well you can ski now. My biggest mistake, this made him try too hard and think too much, reducing his performance, which I can only put down the interference.

The improvement he made was remarkable, with the only information I gave him was that when he unweighted his new uphill ski it could be helpful to unweight the back of the ski and suggested that he could experiment with what felt best, after me showing what it looked like.

He excitedly said that lifting the back made it much easier, he was off skiing looking like he had transformed.

We met him a couple of days later on the mountain and he again excitedly said let me show you how good I am, he skied off and fell on his third turn. I asked were you trying to hard to show us how good you are or thinking too much, he replied BOTH.

I asked what helped you improve so much, he replied “watching what other skiers were doing and what I had done.” I asked him to take a picture of my business card and keep in touch.

We parted, both happy and with the knowledge we had learned.