 Poster: A snowHead
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Red Leon,
I have seen folks do the same in skiing - take many lessons, and courses.... swear they practice all the time... and not really improve...
I think part of it comes back to veeeights original list... in some folks the desire to learn is buried under the desire to do something else (look good??) .... I had to place myself in the hands of my instructors and trust they knew BETTER than I did what was wrong... and what I needed to learn... and how to do the practice to improve...
I have seen folks come join my lesson and SWEAR black and blue they are following in the instructors tracks as instructed but as I am following behind I can tell you they never got any closer than making the turn about 1-2 feet OFF the track set - they CROSS the line he skis somewhere during the transition area... but short cut the turn badly then skid the bottom... I can never believe they THINK they are doing what is asked... how hard is it to see your skis are NOT following a track?? Ditto I shared a group lesson with a guy who was a good athlete in another sport... but his insistence he knew better than the instructor was holding him hostage at the level he reached on his own... he simply KNEW he did not crash in the moguls for the reason the instructor gave - the instructor just looked at him at the wrong time!  Ok he was an extreme example but that is the sort of stuff that happens...
Few folks wish to spend the time actually practising... they want to ski the steep stuff... this is where you take your skiing AFTER the practice has built the skills, not where you get the skills...
As an example my family are all tennis players...some are coaches... if you want to practice tennis you spend hours hitting ball at wall... and throwing old tennis rackets around (serving training) etc... not playing on a court... this is simply less fun and not so cool looking is it? but it sure build basic skill sets
If the instructor is a good one (selecting such also takes more work than many folks wish to do) then you should place yourself into their hands... for off season, for practice exercises and terrain for same, etc You have to squish that part of you that wants to say "i'm doing that" and change to "Am I not doing that?" be ready for the change...
Fear of change is LARGE in many folks... the familiar is much more comfy
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| It also means I have to take a lot of work with me, and if there's a tight deadline I have to sit in front of my laptop regardless of whether there is a metre of fresh snow and blue skies outside. |
You've just described my life  What do you do?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Almost anyone under 30 should be able to ski to an above-average level with enough practise.
Different people have different learning curves. Some are hares. Others are tortoises.
Some will peak in just 5 - 10 weeks. Others may take 100 weeks.
It just takes a bit of effort.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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So..... veering dangerously close to a point Snowy raised earlier on, and given that in the majority of cases (as LT highligted above) - people don't for one reason or another listen or believe their instructor......
I'd like to hear, from the other side of the fence - who, why, how, what, when their instructor has been instrumental in either helping you achieve your goals, or putting you off skiing for life?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Whitegold wrote: |
| Almost anyone under 30 should be able to ski to an above-average level with enough practise. |
Not if everyone else puts in the same amount of practice. Then it would be 50% of people (depending on which type of 'average' is being referred to).
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veeeight, no one's put me off skiing for life yet. 
I like being taken out of my comfort zone - but not by too much.
I dislike being told exactly the same thing repeatedly when I'm trying my best.
The lessons I've enjoyed have vastly out-numbered those I haven't.
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Whitegold, I stand corrected.
Paul Scholes is above average height for a footballer.
The average was fixed in 1910.
He plays for Manchester United.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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veeeight,
I'll use my main instructor back home as an example... he contacted Challenge Aspen when we first skied together... then came back and told me that they had decided I would probably find it much harder to learn than normal... but given that I had intact motor control pathways and functioned pretty well in everyday life, I would almost certainly be capable of skiing like everyone else if he and I could manage to work out how I would need to learn...
He told me straight out he was not accepting ANYTHING less from me ... that he believed I was capable of this and was determined I would do it... He also told me they expected me to top out somewhere due to lack of normal feedback, but that he would NOT accept my limits until we had proved conclusively I had hit end of road....
Next year I skied with another instructor at my other home resort... he had pretty much the same attitude - right lets get on with teaching you to do this as well as you possibly can... then we will worry about the limits crap!
These 2 instructors turned my atttitude to my skiing around... they insisted I not place false limits on myself... but aim for as high as i could get...
My canadian instructor joined them about 1 years later (IIRC)... again he was determined I'd do it like anyone else ...
Somewhere along the way I got banned from using the C word "I can't" got removed from my language it had to be replaced with "I have not yet learned to".... I also got hammered about practising standing on my skis properly... no longer was it acceptable to slouch in lift lines or when waiting... to train to be a skier I had to at least teach my body to stand like one... and so it continued...
I'll also give the ski school directors wife a huge plug - she spent the time trying to find me instructors with a GOOD match for my needs and personality... and listened when this did not work ... refined the criteria and got me another... allowed me to try group lessons...
Fastman I met on another internet site a few years back... he listened to the gumby student, answered her questions, wrote me exercises to try... all in all encouraged me to continue my quest..
In recent times I'll give a big thumbs up to Christiano, and Lorenzo Galli in Livigno, our own Easiski, and Fred Brenon in L2A, and some poor instructor at the Canyons... all of whom had to deal with my nerves re changes in environment and skis...
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veeeight, For some reason I seem more prepared to do something I wouldn't usually have done when I've got an instructor with me than without - for example, go to the top of the slope for the first time, ski down doing an exercise with my poles rather than using them rather more conventionally, look up (possibly because he reminds me too). It seems to give more confidence to have the instructor with me, though I'm not really sure why - he couldn't really stop me from falling or stop me plummeting down the fall line after all. If anyone else feels more confident with an instructor, or if you're an instructor that has been told about this psychology and can tell me why it gives me more confidence I'd be interested.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Megamum, for me, I trust the instructor's judgement of my abilities more than my own - I don't yet feel I have the experience to judge reliably. Therefore if the instructor tells me I can do something, it's because I can. Very very occasionally my gut will override that, but I'm usually game (with a bit of trepidation the first time)
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Megamum, I certainly feel more confident with an instructor, in terrain which is near or beyond the boundary of my comfort zone - which usually means in moderately tricky off-piste these days. I think it's due to faith that they know better than you do what you're capable of dealing with (at least, without coming to much harm).
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Megamum,
I've actually seen Easiski stop someone plummeting down the fall line... and my instructors have stopped me from falling (ok private lesson there but...) It can be done!
It is a whole lot easier for me even now to follow a good skier like Fastman than to ski with most others... why? because I can trust his choice of line implicitly and leave myself free to concentrate on technical skills and the "traffic"... It is not that I cannot chose a line myself... btu more that I can focus on other stuff better when I'm not thinking of that... and in a race course his skiing sets me an example of how it could be skied... something to aim for...
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You know it makes sense.
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| veeeight wrote: |
So..... veering dangerously close to a point Snowy raised earlier on, and given that in the majority of cases (as LT highligted above) - people don't for one reason or another listen or believe their instructor......
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That wasn't quite the point when I said "So veeeight, you're saying lack of learning is nothing to do with the style of instruction?". I'll try and explain what I meant.
My example: this year on holiday in Whistler I took 2 Dave Murray camps (3 day camps with race coaches).
Week 1 with coach A was spent with a group of girls who come skiing every weekend, one of whom was a CSIA level 4 instructor, to give an example of what good skiers they all were. One girl went down the moguls so much better than the coach. Anyway, coach A explained things in such a way that I didn't feel I was getting any better. He made me feel over-coached.
Week 2 with coach B was spent with a group of skiers who weren't so good, although that didn't really matter. This coach concentrated on a single element of my skiing. He was telling me to ski "more upright" whilst in most previous lessons I was told to "get lower". He explained I needed to move 'laterally' in order to get lower. Suddenly I felt like I was effortlessly sailing through the snow/slush at twice the speed I'm used to skiing at (I don't like going fast normally).
Coach A and coach B had very different approaches to teaching.
My point is that coach B said the 'magic words' whilst coach A didn't. It wasn't that my inability to improve in my first week was that I wasn't listening to coach A, but just that his words didn't 'connect'.
Do you see what I'm trying to say now? 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Snowy,
I think the words not connecting is a coaching failure... I often have a disconnect... but a GOOD coach will find another way... a work around... I have managed to get a staatliche who was also Oz full cert and a trainer and race coach to say "i've just tried everything I know to get you to do this and you did every one of them giving the opposite result!" when I asked if he found this frustrating he came back with a HUGE grin and "No it's a challenge"
Sometimes there are personality clashes and others personalities just click... but the word disconnect can be overcome... Part of the responsibility does rest with student though... when you THINK you are doing what you were asked and you are told not.. then ASKING for help is useful... when you just have NO idea what they said then ASKING is good... even rephrasing in your own words back to instructor can be handy... it allows them to see where the disconnect is...
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Poster: A snowHead
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Snowy, so you're saying that different things (styles/words/methods/attitudes/...) work for different people (and possibly if you went back to coach A, they might say something else that clicks with you), and that the secret of good instruction is for good communication (in all its forms) between the coach and student. And I think that works in both directions as well - it's one thing having a coach who can communicate to the student, but the student needs to be able to communicate to the coach as well.
If there is a breakdown in communication - e.g. the coach says one thing, the student hears another, or the coach does one thing, but says another, etc, then the coaching will be less effective.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| little tiger wrote: |
Megamum,
I've actually seen Easiski stop someone plummeting down the fall line... and my instructors have stopped me from falling (ok private lesson there but...) It can be done!
It is a whole lot easier for me even now to follow a good skier like Fastman than to ski with most others... why? because I can trust his choice of line implicitly and leave myself free to concentrate on technical skills and the "traffic"... It is not that I cannot chose a line myself... btu more that I can focus on other stuff better when I'm not thinking of that... and in a race course his skiing sets me an example of how it could be skied... something to aim for... |
Surely learning and choosing the best (most appropriate) line is one of the most important skills to acquire on the mountain.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Frosty the Snowman wrote: |
| little tiger wrote: |
Megamum,
I've actually seen Easiski stop someone plummeting down the fall line... and my instructors have stopped me from falling (ok private lesson there but...) It can be done!
It is a whole lot easier for me even now to follow a good skier like Fastman than to ski with most others... why? because I can trust his choice of line implicitly and leave myself free to concentrate on technical skills and the "traffic"... It is not that I cannot chose a line myself... btu more that I can focus on other stuff better when I'm not thinking of that... and in a race course his skiing sets me an example of how it could be skied... something to aim for... |
Surely learning and choosing the best (most appropriate) line is one of the most important skills to acquire on the mountain. |
No need. GO STRAIGHT. 
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Frosty the Snowman,
No wrong lines... just different choices for different outcomes...
I'd say that was one of the better lessons I finally learnt at home a few years back... that I could pick my own line to achieve my desired downhill and cross-snow speed... I still get "brownie points" from my instructors if I make good tactical choices that allow me the slower speed I want when I get scared rather than hitting the anchors in the ski travel area...
In fact I would say Fastman's ability to train this area is one of the things I got the most from in my recent visit... Especially as it pertained to the race course and my decisions as to what I wanted to achieve...
However if I want to work on something else in my skiing than line, then following a line he sets that he considers suitable for the exercise at hand is a HUGE advantage...
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Ooops
there is wrong lines - the ones that leave you damaged at the other end!!!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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little tiger, I didn't say anything about wrong lines.
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crossed lines here? 
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veeeight, skiing 8s?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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billy no m8s
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powder 8s
(out of interest are V8s what beginners do in wedges?)
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Beginner Powder eighters?
Or well endowed lady beginners that fall to the side whilst in a wedge? V8
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Frosty the Snowman, the best implies a better or worse scenario... just DIFFERENT is how I am taught it... no good or bad... just you have to accept the necessary limits of your tactical choices... now if you do not yet have the TECHNICAL skill to ski the line you chose then it may be a poor tactic... but the LINE is not bad nor is the alternative BETTER... just achieve different things...
Kramers "Go straight" achieves a certain objective - maximum downhill speed... whether it is suitable objective may depend on many things... including what you want to do and how well you can do it...
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veeeight, see, you're an instructor who has used words to create a mental image for me. (as we were talking about earlier before the interruption)
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You know it makes sense.
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I agree with RedLion. With so many different things that are fun to do, why should a peep struggle to learn to ski (or ski better for those who already ENJOY skiing badly)?
I perfectly understand why my Mom never ever wishes to ski. She has great enjoyment playing bridge! Why waste one's limited time (or I should say "life") struggling on something when one can "naturally" pick up something else and be good at it? How many of you want to spend your vacation learning to play chess (or knitting) badly?
Granted, this has nothing to do with the original question. People who REALLY want to learn, probably can, to some degree. Ski instructors are not school consulors. They have no obligatino to tell the peep he/she might have better enjoyment learning square dancing!
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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abc,
that is it... the question was not DO THEY WANT TO? but are they INCAPABLE... for the majority of the population that is a resounding NO!!!
BTW...I can "naturally" do physical chemistry... like standing on my ear, it is so easy for me.... the benefit of the working on skiing and surfing is the CHALLENGE... you learn much about yourself when you push yourself to expand yourself... and a lot less when you tootle along..
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Poster: A snowHead
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| little tiger wrote: |
| BTW...I can "naturally" do physical chemistry... like standing on my ear, it is so easy for me.... |
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| you learn much about yourself when you push yourself to expand yourself... and a lot less when you tootle along.. |
I guess the former would be an adiabatic expansion, and the latter an isothermal expansion.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| little tiger wrote: |
that is it... the question was not DO THEY WANT TO? but are they INCAPABLE... for the majority of the population that is a resounding NO!!!
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Utter TWADDLE.
If a person wants to learn, and is going to good instructors, but is not improving, is it possibly because they have reached the limits of their ability?
In other words, they are incapable of going further.
If not, everyone on here would be Olympic gold medalist (or at least ex-world cup instructors) 
Even if you go to the very top of the game - above Fastman and the rest, onto the actual current world cup circuit - why is it that some skiers on that circuit are normally in the top 10, while others struggle to get into the top 30 - is it because they don't want to? No! It's because at the time, they are not capable of it. They WANT TO win, but they are INCAPABLE of winning.
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Wear The Fox Hat,
I am sure little tiger, can speak fo r herself but it looked to me as if she was talking about competence not winning worl cup races. Of course this brings us back to the old canard of 'Whats competence?'
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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T Bar, we all have levels of competence. I used the WC example because it is a clear and easy one to see. I could have chosen the EoSB race - why did one person win it, and others not - did they not want to win?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Wear The Fox Hat,
No, but that does not mean that all non winners were incompetent.
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T Bar, not in a derogatory way, unless that is how they see it!
But they are certainly showing less ability than the winners.
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Wear The Fox Hat,
Everyone cannot be a winner, indeed depending on definition over half the people cannot be above average. But in the same way that you can make the majority of people competent readers with reasonable tuition I suspect you can with skiers, providing competence is not defined ridiculously highly.
Most people I ski with could probably be better skiers with decent tuition, the majority don't want this but prefer to enjoy their holiday at the level they are at without seeking extra tuition. Nothing wrong with that at all indeed it is pretty much where I am at, doesn't mean that they cannot improve though.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| little tiger wrote: |
abc,
that is it... the question was not DO THEY WANT TO? but are they INCAPABLE... for the majority of the population that is a resounding NO!!!
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When one can pick up hobby A in a matter of days yet struggle to get through the beginer stage of hobby B for years, it begs the question of "who (or why) would WANT TO".
It's not so much the "incapability" but rather the degree of difficulty. Try hard enough for long enough, I'm sure everyone improves, in however small steps. And that collection of small steps might actually get to a level of "barely competent". It's more like, is the peep spending his/her leasure time constructively?
If one's wish is to spend one's free time getting challenged, I do understand. But that's not, in my experience, the majority of the population. (though that maybe true of the snowheads ) For my Mom (and to a lesser degree for me), at the age of nearly 70 and having successfully overcome significant amount of real challenge of life, she simply doesn't feel she has anything to prove any more by engaging in another "challenge" just for the sake of it.
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| Wear The Fox Hat wrote: |
| ... the EoSB race - why did one person win it, and others not - did they not want to win? |
I think because he'd skied a lot during his life, probably more than most of the people who did the race. I suspect that he was also naturally good at sport, which may not be the case for all of us (it certainly isn't for me).
How you define competence in the original question is very important. I've seen a lot of people learning to ski over the years, and there have been just one or two who I thought were unlikely to reach the stage where they could get around the mountain on easy blues which I would describe as the minimum level to enjoy yourself without getting too frustrated. Under that definition I'd say that there are very few to no people who can't be competent, especially if they are prepared to find a good instructor. On the other hand, if you define competence as able to handle all on-piste conditions and most off-piste conditions save for extreme terrain then I'd say there were a large number of people who would not reach that level of competence no matter how much/how good the instruction they had.
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FAQ
