 Poster: A snowHead
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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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| SteveKirby wrote: |
Been skiing a few years now and seem to have reached the dreaded intermediate plateau. I did 2 weeks of lessons at the start and non-since  This year we thought that we might forego our traditional early December lads trip, and dedicate a few days to some intensive tuition.
So what would you recommend, in Europe, for a middle-aged intermediate, reasonably fit and not nervous? Warren Smith maybe? or something else....
Thanks in advance
Steve |
Time is the key.
The longer the better.
Practice makes perfect.
Weeklong ski vacations are worthless for over-30s.
You will need atleast 2 weeks of continuous skiing to get off the plateau.
Even better, do a month or a season.
Good luck.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Whitegold, as usual you've made some comments which are dubious at best, in my opinion, and backed them up with zero information. You remind me of someone else who used to post on here and come out with this sort of utter tosh.
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Time is the key. |
The key to what? Unless it's a time-locked safe.
| Whitegold wrote: |
| The longer the better. |
Is that what your mistress tells you? Again, the longer the better what?
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Practice makes perfect. |
Practice reinforces. It doesn't necessarily make better. (It is possible to be perfectly wrong)
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Weeklong ski vacations are worthless for over-30s. |
Not everyone has the luxury to take longer, so do you suggest that anyone over 30 who does not take a minimum of 8 days continuous holiday should really stop skiing, because it is worthless?
| Whitegold wrote: |
| You will need atleast 2 weeks of continuous skiing to get off the plateau. |
Must be a pretty big plateau, or maybe very standardised students and instruction. How quickly someone gets off the plateau depends on many factors. Stating a specific timeframe for it would only be correct if every student were identical, and every instructor equally capable or otherwise.
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Even better, do a month or a season. |
True. Is that what you do?
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Good luck. |
True.
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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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Does anyone want to hazard a guess at the difference between the "Fall Line" and the "Flow Line"?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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veeeight, Fall Line is a magazine and Flow Line is a supplier of beer?
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Oops. Wrong thread. Ignore that, I'll ask again in the right thread!
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Thanks for more optimistic view Wear The Fox Hat, I was about to give up 
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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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| Wear The Fox Hat wrote: |
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Practice makes perfect. |
Practice reinforces. It doesn't necessarily make better. (It is possible to be perfectly wrong). |
Second WTFH. I've also heard a different version of the above. "Practice doesn't make perfect, it only makes it permanent". So if you've gotten into some bad habits, more pratice simply make it more ingrain and rather impossible to correct!
Thus the danger of NOT taking lessons for too long of a period. You risk "making permenent" of whatever bad techniques you developed.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And another variation on the theme: "if you practice your faults long enough you'll perfect them"
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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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Wear The Fox Hat,
I fully agree with Whitegold (about 1 point!) - do 2 week ski holidays. I don't understand your point about time for over 30's I think this is balls. If you want it nearly everyone can have 2 week holiday breaks (even the prime minister gets a good holiday).
I guess ti is a question of how much you want it! I have been skiing since 8 and every year I have made partial progress on 1 week holidays, and it is only the last 2 years where I have either went for 2 week blast or went for a week adn then within a couple of weeks went again that I have made substantial progress.
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plectrum, It is true that you get more benefit from a 2 week holiday rather than a 1 week holiday. When I was small many people had their whole 2 weeks for the year at one time. Nowadays there seems to be a trend to take more 1 week holidays and spread the holiday cheer throughout the year. I suspect this is because of cheaper travel. 
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You know it makes sense.
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plectrum, yes, in general it is better to do longer rather than shorter trips, but I'd certainly not say that doing 1 week was "worthless". If you can afford it, and family/work/health commitments permit, then doing 2 weeks can be a better idea.
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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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I personally think two 1 week trips are more beneficial than one 2 week trip. I tried a 2 weeker quite a few years ago and by day 9 or 10 was shattered. I was still fairly young then and as fit as I'd ever been but the accumulative affect of fatigue starts to set in on week 2 if you try to ski all day everyday.
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Poster: A snowHead
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As an intermediate I feel that if you do one week a year you return to the slopes the next year at the stage you were at halfway through your previous years week. However if you do two or more weeks you stil loose half a week but retain the one and a half weeks of improvements. No definite proof of that, just personal experience from the time before I started doing longer stints skiing.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Back to thread title?
TAXI.
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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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Yes, repetition of bad habits embeds them into muscle memory. But such engrained inefficient movement patterns CAN be overcome if one wants to do so, and is willing to do the work necessary. Flipping the bird to those able and willing to help is not the attitude that will make it happen though. The theme of this thread is transcending the intermediate plateau I believe. Perhaps it's not the best reading material for those who revel on remaining there. Smiles emerge from many sources.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| FastMan wrote: |
| Flipping the bird to those able and willing to help is not the attitude that will make it happen though. |
Very true.
But flipping the bird at someone who tells you to give up because it is worthless is acceptable in my book, cause they certainly aren't being helpful.
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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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Lessons for only the first 2 weeks! Well sorry to be blunt but to take only 2 weeks and then no more lessons means you're either a complete natural or you're like some of my mates - shocking.
I remember a few years ago going on holiday with a bunch of mates who said they were "advanced", all had between 6 and 8 weeks skiing. The problem being that most had only done 1 or 2 weeks worth of lessons. If we wanted to do anything more than a red then it took time, a long time, I had to become an informal instructor (and in no way am I qualified to do that) and there was the odd bit of carnage. Even after day 1 when it was suggested to the group that we should all think about signing up for lessons - they all said either (a) they didn't think they needed it or (b) that they preferred to ski with their mates and not get split up - frustrating! All in all a frustrating week's skiing for me - well I haven't gone with them since.
IMVHO you need at least 6 weeks instruction before you get anywhere near the intermediate plateau and then you come up against a problem - there aren't any other people who want to do lessons at your level (very annoying!). So then you either do as Easiski suggests - one on ones (best way forward if you've the cash) or sign up to a specialised academy/clinic such as Warren Smith. At the end of the day if the Austrian Ski team has coaches I think we could all use a bit of instruction from time to time.
Re the 2 week/1 week debate. I agree with Whitegold/Plectrum/Dypcdiver my best improvement has been on 2 week holidays.
Tin hat on...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Quote: |
Very true.
But flipping the bird at someone who tells you to give up because it is worthless is acceptable in my book, cause they certainly aren't being helpful. |
Fox, I'm not sure who/what you're referring to, but I agree with your disapproval of people telling others they should quit. You may remember my strong objections to one of the high and mighty on Epic doing just that when Little Tiger was sharing insights to her personal battles with fear. The heights to which she's ascended in the sport of skiing is glorious testimonial to what can be achieved if one doesn't quit.
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FastMan, I was referring in the main to "Whitegold".
...but it is true of anyone who believe that they have the right to rubbish anyone en masse, and that their view is the only one that is valid.
When a forum gets overrun with people like that, then most of the posters lose the chance to discuss and learn because every thread is twisted into a monologue.
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Intermediate skiers ruin the experience for everyone else. I'd like to see a ban on these people being alowed on the mountain, maybe just round them all up in a field and use them for target practice. I am, of course right.
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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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Dare I say it but I think Whitegold's points have some truth in them. True to form bluntly expressed generalisations, but not without some truth. Case in point: practise makes perfect. Glib yes but necessarily so to be pithy. Of course practising bad habits just makes them permanent, and indeed there may be a tendency to this in many sports due to people not having enough lessons, but yet obviously everyone's intention is to have been practising the correct movements so I think that should be implicit in this use of the word practise. I also think time on skis/miles under them is an important factor for improvement - lessons alone won't be enough if you're not doing the actual practising and real-world skiing. Experience is a big part of getting off the plateau.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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*must resist, must resist* 
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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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veeeight, Give in, shoot an Intermediate. 
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Its easier to learn bad habits than good...at least where my golf is concerned. And a week away on the golf course can take take a lot of undoing.
I guess it depends how bad your habits are tho'
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
I guess it depends how bad your habits are tho'
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My guess it depends on how long one has been "practicing" them?
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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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Flow is also important, but only a proper instructor would know that.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Or depends if you recognise a bad habit and can correct it quite easily. You will need something to tell what you are doing. A quick look at a video normally tells me what I don't like. You might then need to work on it.
Setting aside practise time is not so easy... the number of times we warm up with a quick fast blast and then we are off looking for something more interesting.
Might have to change that habit.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| JT wrote: |
A quick look at a video normally tells me what I don't like. You might then need to work on it.
Setting aside practise time is not so easy... the number of times we warm up with a quick fast blast and then we are off looking for something more interesting.
Might have to change that habit. |
My movement analysis skills are not that reliable... I find I tend to see the stuff I dislike - which is often stuff I'm a bit obsessed with in my skiing.... rather than seeing the effective movemnts and also the CAUSE of the less effective stuff...
Watching a video with my instructor commenting is very different to watching it myself...
Also the time after the shooting of video and time to work on correcting make a BIG difference... if I see the video immediately I have a much better chance of remember how "turn 5" felt and if I can ski again immediately to be changing that feeling... Delays in time until seeing video make it far less effective for me. So the Epicski Academy style of video at the end of the day was not really that much help for me, and the days where we saw our video a day or two later were almost useless.
quick fast run as a first run is not a great warm up tactic if you want to avoid injury...
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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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| Wear The Fox Hat wrote: |
| FastMan wrote: |
| Flipping the bird to those able and willing to help is not the attitude that will make it happen though. |
Very true.
But flipping the bird at someone who tells you to give up because it is worthless is acceptable in my book, cause they certainly aren't being helpful. |
I've never seen anyone on this forum telling you or anyone to give up. I don't believe anyone would.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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easiski, if you read the post made above my original one, Steve said he was about to give up.
I guess when he read the comment about 1 week trips being "worthless" then he felt that was rather discouraging. I would agree with him - it's not encouraging. That's what I was saying, it was a reply to a post above it, but I guess if part of my reply was taken out of context of someone using the word "worthless" then it would appear differently.
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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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Wear The Fox Hat, You seem to have completely missed the winkie at the end of that post.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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cfc5mu0, Andy Lockerbie is brilliant, John Gardiner is tough (or used to be on BASI courses), Alex Leaf is nice, and I don't know Pete Silver. How's that? OTOH, why don't you come to the PSB. See Snow events.
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| easiski wrote: |
| ... and I don't know Pete Silver. |
He's good.
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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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| rob@rar wrote: |
| easiski wrote: |
| ... and I don't know Pete Silver. |
He's good. |
He's better than good. He's Warren Smith's original business partner and video maker. BASI ISTD Trainer. I've Skied with Pete lots, He's as good as it gets
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I can vouch for Pete Silver-Gillespie too, top bloke, top skier, top instructor - insightful, experienced, encouraging, dedicated - as mentioned earlier in this thread, his own operation is www.alpinecoaching.co.uk
Edited to remove now redundant phrase detracting from main point of this post. If this affects the flow of the thread - tough!
Last edited by Ski the Net with snowHeads  on Thu 12-07-07 23:38; edited 1 time in total
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FAQ
(even those who've never had a lesson with her 
