Nervous skier - scared of losing control at speed - any advice?

A snowHead

I am desperate for some help.

My wife is a very nervous skier. Technically she is OK but her fear is about going too fast because she worries about losing control while at speed and not being able to stop. So while she can parallel ski, she tends to always be close to snowplough because that is her comfort blanket.

We've tried skiing lessons in groups, we've tried private lessons but we don't seem to be getting anywhere.

I'm looking for suggestions as to what to try to give it one last go. She refused to come this last season and really missed out, so I'd love to find a solution so she doesn't have to.

I've noticed that Oxygene ski school is running something called Scaredy Cat skiing in Val d'Isere, does anyone have any experience of this?

Ideally we need to find some way to give her the confidence to ski without fear but I am beginning to fear that this is a lost cause.

Any advice gratefully received

S

A snowHead

How about trying Rob and Scott's Building Confidence clinics? http://www.insideoutskiing.com/confidence.html Especially bearing in mind your location - the clinics are at Hemel Hempstead. I am a regular on their Skills Clinics and can really recommend their teaching, as can many others here.

It's taken me a long time to increase my confidence, although I'm still a scaredy cat on what I perceive to be steep slopes. What goes on in the head has a lot to answer for! I would say instruction and time under the belt has been key for me, especially skiing in peer groups such as you get with Inspired to Ski or similar outfits. The more confident I became in my ability to be able to ski different slopes in different conditions, the faster and more confident my sking became.

Good luck snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Essentially, building confidence is going to come down to a personal realisation - I think Scott and Rob are ideally placed to help her get there, and indoors might also help as really the worst possible scenario is a mildly bruised ego/bit of embarrassment - can't come to any real harm! On holiday, does she have anyone to ski with at her level? People can put themselves under tremendous peer pressure, even if it's not coming from the peers they're with.

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kosciosco, might she be interested in the "Cautious to Confident" week in les Deux Alpes? I've fixed this up the past two years and it's running again March 20th 2011 (see sig). She is NOT alone! Fear is my biggest hurdle too but I am making progress. The most important thing for me is to learn skills to the degree that I am really confident with them on comfortable terrain at a speed I can cope with - then I can move the terrain or speed up a notch. Pushing the envelope too hard is counterproductive. Ideally you'd come too and ski both with other "hangers on" and also with your wife and course members when not in lessons. Our lessons are in groups for cameraderie and mutual encouragement, but the max size is 4 per group so there is plenty of individual attention. You can PM me if she wants to discuss it by email or on the phone perhaps.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

DaveC, Peer group skiing has been a problem. We have had people join us where one of their group classes themselves as a beginner but in reality they move ahead of her very quickly as they develop and she doesn't.

Butterfly, Will take a look, dates might not work for us, but its a possibility.

Thanks for all the advice

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kosciosco, another enthusiastic vote for cathy's recommendation:

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both the above suggestions should help a lot. But nothing much will help unless this is something she wants to do for herself, not just because you want her to.

After all it is free

kosciosco, I really think lessons with a good patient instructor who will teach her how to control her speed properly will increase her confidence no end. Its the fear of not being able to stop or turn when you want which then makes a nervous skier even more nervous I think, especially if she is usually holiday skiing with others and feels she's getting behind or others are always waiting for her etc. I'd second the Hemel recommendation since you live close by, and also because it wouldn't involve an additional week away. If she was interested in doing a week away then as cathy has said, you could consider Inspired to Ski as I've seen them work wonders with plenty of nervous skiers before, they run a Novice and Nervous week I think.

pam w, very true! I agree.

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Given your location I'd agree on letting Scott or Rob loose on her then determining if she thinks she is fixable (honestly). It could just be general risk aversion - does she happily freewheel downhill on a bike?

I'd generally say that practising falling is a great way to increase confidence although I know there are issues with instructors teaching falling. I was certainly never mentally entirely there after knee ops until I had my first major fall (which fortunately is never too long in my case).

Some people are never going to be confident though and its not much of a holiday if they are genuinely in fear, no matter how much it is just in the head or they want to please spouses etc. I think it would be even worse for me if I was doing something I genuinely hated just to keep a loved one happy.

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kosciosco, this is not an uncommon scenerario which we come across with clients quite frequently. In order to help a skier with these issues one needs to understand a little bit more about what is going on and what exactly is causing the issue. Where do things start to go wrong? Does she get frightened skiing on gentle slopes or do things become worse as the piste gets steeper? Do snow conditions play a part? Does she have a real fear of falling and hurting herself?

It would be interesting to know whether the problem is just a lack of confidence at speed or whether it is actually in making parallel turns. It is common to find that clients have a fear of turning into the fall line, and therefore a lack of commitment to crossover which can cause the skier to feel like the skis aren't going to turn and that they are going to zoom off uncontrollably down the piste.

How much skiing has she done and where? What is her preferred type of run? Another important factor to consider is her motivation. Does she actually want to improve or is she happy at her current level of ability? What is her motivation for skiing? Does she really want to ski or is she just keeping others happy? This is useful information when trying to formulate a teaching plan and the more info you can give her instructor, the better.

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kosciosco, As someone who until recently was very much the same as your wife, I can totally understand her fears.
I have been having Building Confidence lessons with Rob and Scott at http://www.insideoutskiing.com/confidence.html and am now at a much happier place. I actaully feel as though I can get to grips with this skiing lark LOL
Rob is very very patient ( and he has to be with me) and he does manage to instill a confidence in me that I didn't realise that I had. His way of teaching makes everything seem so clear. I am sure Scott is just a brilliant, he's just been lucky and managed to avoid me so far Laughing

Is she fancies a week away they are running a joint skills development week and building confidence week in meribel just before Christmas, I already have my flight booked so she wouldn't be alone in lessons.

Also as Butterfly has already mentioned, there is the Cautious to Confident week in LDA in march - again with another brilliant instructor Easiski that many of us know, being a fellow snowHead

Hoping to join everyone on that one next year too LOL ... Definately worth considering as well

kosciosco, This man can help, and has helped people in a similar situation. http://www.bobski.com

You know it makes sense.

kosciosco, I've seen this many many times and not yet seen anyone getting 'cured' to any great degree. You'll no doubt have no shortage of offers of help, all for a fee of course.

Some people just aren't cut out to go very fast and they shouldn't be made to feel like failures because of it. Also, don't put any pressure on her to improve, this will only compound her feeling of inadequacy when she doesn't. Spend some time with her going at her speed and doing the runs she wants rather than pushing. Don't expect her to ski all day or even everyday. Arrange for the odd lesson if she wants one. Go to resorts where there are plenty of things for her to do during the day when she's not skiing. Sort out a trip and make sure she is involved in the planning and that she ends up with a very exciting (for her) itinerary that maybe revolves more around heath spars and shopping than it does skiing.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

juliad, I comprehend the fear of turning into the fall line. I expect its at the route of most beginners fears coupled with the increase in speed that spending time in the the fall line seems to promote. It took me many years (and a SH bash!! LOL) before I got over my fear on even easy slopes. These days I can cope with more modest ones, BUT as the slopes get steeper (particularly if I get onto blackish red bits) I am acutely aware that turns get sharper as I try to rush round and clear the fall line as soon as possible. These days I know that if I were to be comfortable with the increased speed that the skiing would flow more easily if I did S turns rather than Z turns on the steeper slopes, but knowing that and deploying that means increasing the skill set at the higher speeds required I think this will come from a combination of lessons and practice.

I think kosciosco's, OH would be well served by following the advice above. Based on my own experience could I also offer that setting her sights too high too soon, might be destructive. Accomplishment is a wonderful confidence boost. If she found that she could after some lessons ski for example, an indoor slope with confidence, and a little style, it might be all she needs to tackle a longer version of a similar incline in a resort, where the added width will make it seem easier anyway. I find that confidence is self fulfilling, continually failing isn't she might find that going back to a slope that she knows she can ski easily and perfecting that might be better that doing one that she feels the need to snowplough on.

kosciosco's, Also I note the use of the word 'we' a lot in the OP. Please don't take this the wrong way, but if you have been taking lessons together (and I do accept it could be that you are using 'we' when you do actually mean her alone) and skiing together maybe she is trying too hard to keep up with you, because she feels it is what you want. Perhaps some time apart with you in separate lessons or just her whilst you go off to play might allow her to experiment on her own without feeling that you are watching out for her to succeed. It could just be that taking the pressure off might be all it will take to gain the first confidence she needs to grow from.

A snowHead

Update - My OH and I chatted about this last night and she is going to try Rob and Scott out at Hemel and see if it helps her overcome her speed issue

Just in case you are wondering, her fear was created when she was 18 on a trip to Romania where she had an instructor who spoke little English and she spent the entire week starting at the top of the slope, covering the entire slope with skis pointed downhill and crashing at the bottom. A week of that has taken its toll on her confidence understandably.

Megamum, I appreciate what you are saying with regard to the "we" bit, I am very conscious of not pushing her, especially after a couple of tearful situations on blue runs in previous years. So last night we talked about where she felt her problem was and how she felt about skiing - I didn't want her to do this just to keep me happy. However I was encouraged by what she said, particularly that what she wanted most was to be able to tackle a blue run without having to think about it too much and just enjoy it. I was also surprised about her reaction to my suggestion that she wouldn't be interested in reds, on the contrary she would like to be able to feel confident enough to give them a go!

All in all I think repeated confidence building sessions with the same instructor may well be what she needs to help her overcome her speed issue through improved technique and an understanding of the control that that technique will give her.

So now we have to wait and see how it goes

A snowHead

kosciosco, sorry just stumbled across this thread. We get a fair few people in the same situation and although there aren't magic bullets for improving confidence, we work in smaller groups (max 4) on increasing range of movement and making very small step progressions when introducing new things and this has definitely helped a few of our clients to move along and enjoy their skiing. We find that we spend a lot more time just chatting through things to get someone to understand why we are doing what we ask them to do and this helps a lot as well. Most people in this boat had a bad experience to start with and need to feel comfortable with an instructor, until trust is built trying anything new is quite difficult so coming along to a few of our confidence sessions hopefully will help.

also, well intentioned partners tend to do more harm than good when trying to help on the slope with tips or follow me, not putting you in that category, but i see it all the time indoors and on the mountain....

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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kosciosco, Jaegermeister should do the trick Smile

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kosciosco, that sounds a productive discussion - at least (if she was telling you the truth) she feels that that is something she wants to persist and ultimately succeed at. Maybe you could treat her to a course of lessons with Rob and Scott as an early Christmas present in the Autumn which would also give her some skiing practice and a chance to get her 'ski legs' back close to when you go on holiday next? If it helps explain to her that many of us on here know what she is going through and that in the finish something came along that suddenly made it all click into place (with me it took countless trips until I found the magic bullet, but in the finish I did Happy

) and it will probably happen to her too.

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One lesson with Rob and Scott booked and if it goes well others will follow.

Unfortunately I do fall into the well-intentioned OH and I have to admit I think I have done more harm than good. Despite efforts to find other people to ski with my wife more at her level, our attempts failed when they progressed quicker than she did.

I like the snow-boarding idea, just not sure I like the idea of snow boarding!

After all it is free

pam w, I must say I'm entirely in agreement with that. Maybe at the very least kosciosco, should imagine how he might feel about a steep slope or going fast on a snowboard, then imagine how his OH feels.

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I am sure some good lessons will help your oh loads - I just one solitary lesson with Easiski (of Cautios to Confident fame) last Christmas as that was all the space she had....the drills we did in the lesson gave me coping techniques for when I scared myself back on my own again. It was enough to know that I had the drills there - I didn't then even 'need' to use them and only did them for practice sake rather than because I was scared!

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My OH had/has the same issues.

Work on building confidence through improving control skills, ie hockey stops etc, with a good instructor (BASS Cham) has helped a lot.

At the end of the day we enjoy skiing differently and we are never going to be able to fully enjoy skiing together but that does not stop us enjoying our holidays, but it works best when we go in a larger group and we can pair up with others who want to ski similar stuff, as well as skiing together.

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jbob, Very sensible. IME too many couples get stuck on the idea that they have to ski together, and this is often a recipe for failure since they may both enjoy totally different things about skiing. If the slower/more nervous person is stuck on their own I always suggest not only 'proper' lessons, but maybe joining a ski school group. They then have skiing company, are shown the mountain, and may even learn something! Very Happy

I agree with all comments and this puts me in mind of two of my ski buddies, a married couple where the lady is slow and cautious and prefers to stay on blue runs controlling her speed using a snowplough through the steeper bits and the man is something of a liability, fast and fearless with no style and very little control. He is frustrated by her lack of speed and progression, she is frustrated by his reckless abandon. Yet because they are on holiday together they feel they have to ski together. In fact, when I ski with the lady in question, just the two of us, she skis loads better and is happier to tackle red runs, which suggests to me she is more confident when he is not around.

She has had a lot more tuition than him with the result that her control is spot on. She accepts she's never going to want to ski quickly or push any boundaries on steeper terrain, she's happy to cruise about at her own level. He feels he doesn't really need much tuition, he can get down anything, and doesn't feel a lack of style is an issue. I'm equally happy to ski with either of them, although I keep a safe distance from him! Laughing

I bet there are quite a few couples around like this. Does marriage mean that skiing alone or with people of your own ability group is frowned upon? Laughing

You know it makes sense.

queen bodecia, I hope you stay behind him

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Some excellant advice. Quality sympathetic instruction is the answer. The lady should be made aware she is not alone, its very common, its usualy fixable.
The first issue to resolve is whether the client actualy wants to improve. If they are happy skiing that way, & enjoy it, then you may be better leaving well alone.
My mother spent 40 years skiing pottering down blue path runs at 1mph, and was perfectly happy.
However it is worth pointing out that it is actualy easier to turn with a little more speed.
It is worth ensuring they have the core 'Get out of trouble' skills ie. side steping & side slipping
They then know they can get down anything, they aren't going to get stuck.
The confidence issues are more difficult as lack of confidence actualy makes things worse.
Nevertheless, there are lots of things you can work on, and an explanation of how things work is important too.
Feel free to email me direct alan@skierstoolbox.com if you would like examples
I'll stop waffling, instruction is the answer

A snowHead

Have you considered letting her hammer it down the fall line and crashing at the bottom?

In all seriousness, the fear of falling is far worse than falling itself, so perhaps worth her having a play at an indoor slope when it is quiet, get used to being happy off her feet.

Sounds like she wants to do it, but is struggling, so she is probably as frustrated with it as you are - the other thing is that her personality and approach to risk isn't something we can judge on the internet. A good instructor should be able to assess where the problems are and try to help.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Agree that quality instruction with a patient instructor is key. With the right approach you can normally bring about a marked improvement in confidence.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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Biggest issue we have is that our ski group is not very large - only four of us now - 2 dropped out to have a baby - and of the 4 left we have 3 competent skiers that like reds and blacks and my OH, so makes it a bit of an issue!

However, hopefully we might be able to enlarge it for next season.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

kosciosco, If that's true I wonder if there any mileage in your OH, once she gets some good instruction from Rob and Scott also booking into a group lesson in resort. It would stand to reason that others in the group are probably in resort all week and if she got chatting it could be that she could meet up with them sometimes after lessons to ski at her own pace with others of a similar skill set on occasions during the week. Who knows she might find a life long pen/email-pal in the process. Also, have the two of you tried a SH bash? A huge range of skiers and abilities attend those and there is usually someone around to ski with of ) a similar ability, and b) who might want a quiet morning or afternoon just pottering around the easy slopes with someone, whilst you jet off with a different and have fun at your own pace and good quality lessons are also available. I'm sure OH will do very well with the indoor lessons and this might just up the confidence sufficiently to take on board any of the above suggestions. Do impress upon her though that she is not alone, it wasn't that long ago that quite a number of us on here were in a similar situation and we do understand where she is coming from. You may not have ever been there yourself, but take it from me the fear and apprehension are very real to her - imagine yourself on that snowboard facing a red run!!

After all it is free

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Butterfly, See above LOL Didn't we have a great week learning together? snowHead

Help!!

Nervous skier - scared of losing control at speed - any advice?

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