Is one week enough (to improve)?

A snowHead

So here's another question. I'll try and word it carefully enough that it doesn't have too obvious an answer nor be a meaningless "piece of string" question!

I've frequently heard a comment running along the lines of, "I only get to ski one week a year and that's why I can't improve".

As a rule of thumb (if one can be defined!): At what general stage do you need to ski more hours than a standard 6 day package to get better? Assuming that at least some lessons are taken and that there is some motivation to improve.

Opinions please? And for those unlucky enough to only get one week sliding around what suggestions as to maximise the experience?

Cheers

DM.

P.S. Please, please please, no-one chip in with the self-evident...obviously one week isn't enough!!!

A snowHead

I think you can improve with one week a year as long as you take lessons and push yourself that little bit more.

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

One week is plenty of time to improve - a couple of days of good lessons can be enough.

If one week wasn't enough for people to improve, then most UK skiers would be just about able to snowplough on green runs.

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I'd say it depends on many things, for instance a beginner will normally progress quite rapidly in their first week more slowly in their second week (year) and so on, as we become more experienced many of us stop taking lessons whilst others may use private lessons rather like some people have guides, it really depends on what you wish to accomplish, for instance you may decide that your technique for skiing moguls is poor, a private lesson with a good teacher could improve those skills enormously, so I think it fair to say that yes one week per year is enough to improve, but obviously if you get the opportunity more than one week is better, even a few days more can make quite a difference, I recall reading an analysis of accidents whilst skiing, most accidents occur on days 3 or 4 of a trip, day one you take things easy, day two your going faster and skiing further day 3 or 4 you now think you can ski as hard as the previous day but your body unused to all this extra exercise needs time to recover and you're pushing it harder still, by day 5 you just start to enjoy yourself, day six is fantastic and day seven you leave, if you stay for 10 nights insted of 7 you get 3 more good days of skiing

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I Generally find it takes 2 days to get back to the standard you reached at the end of the previous year. I have skied for 10 years and only this year have I done more than 1 week a year. I now an intermediate skier that can do up to moderate blacks, slowly, but in control. This leads me to believe that there must be some improvement year on year. I would suggest a 2 x 2 hr private (or small group)lesson each week not that I have adhered to this. If I had followed my advice I would be without doubt a much better skier.

Skiing is exceptionally rewarding, even once a year. If all you want to do is become a great skier then get fit, first up - last down, and loads of lessons. If you want to have fun and gradually improve then promise yourself a lesson on each holiday.

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see? I knew I hadn't phrased well enough.

Wear The Fox Hat, not quite. As I think we've established (else-thread), as you increase in ability the time taken to progress further gets longer. So presumably there's a level, naturally different for each individual, at which point a week is no longer sufficient to improve by much, if at all. Which means the average 1 week a year skier isn't confined to green runs, but at some point learning becomes harder than the available time in which to do it. I'm wondering whether it's possible to determine a generalism for what one might expect. Probably not possible though!!

D G Orf, interesting injury profile. I have a perception that my skiing on day two is always a bit less accomplished that on any other day. Never really worked out why. It's not apparent to observers either so probably something weird in my head. Although less noticeable last year and not noticed on 2 day weekends.

I'd agree, 10 days better than 7 and the more the better. The last time I had 2 consecutive weeks I actually found my ski fitness noticeably improved.

Of course, if you have such a lot of time you have to be careful not to fall into the "it doesn't look perfect, it's a bit cloudy, I can always ski tomorrow trap!

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I think it is, and as Fox says it's down to instruction. If you get decent class, then private lessons you will improve, although the rate of improvement will slow as you get better.

After all it is free

David Murdoch, You may only get one week on snow. You can take lessons on plastic or artificial snow in the UK, which (alongside lessons whilst away) will help you improve. Practise makes snowHead

perfect.

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David, perhaps as we progress we learn slower, but that doesn't mean we don't learn - provided:
1. We WANT to learn
2. We are in a small enough class of people who want to learn
3. We have a good instructor, who can get their point across in a way we can understand.

Now, points 1 and 2 can be an issue if you book with a TO who gives "free lessons" as part of the package. People will go with the TO, and will take the lessons, but their reason for taking them is not an eagerness to improve, but because they are "free". (or you will get other reasons - like "my partner/friends are taking lessons, so I need something to put in the morning", or "my partner/friends are off skiing with their mates down the steep stuff, so I want something to do")

And point 3 comes from asking people who know to recommend instructors - which is where places like snowHead

come in very useful.

I guess 2 & 3 are to do with the learning environment.

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So, what do I do?

Well, day one I like to ski by myself, and do various exercises to get me "dialled in" again, and to explore the ski area.

Day two, as has been said is normally the worst day of the trip. So that's the day I start my lessons. With something like the ESA, it's 4 days of lessons. After that, I'll then spend the rest of the trip putting into practice what I've learned.

If I'm doing multiple trips in a year, one will be the ESA, so that's 4 days of lessons. The other trips, Ill try to have one or two days of lessons.

This year, I did 3 trips - each a week long.
Wengen: 3 days of lessons
Big Sky (ESA): 4 days of lessons
Vail: 2 days of lessons/guiding (they weren't official lessons, but were carried out by local instructors who gave me several tips)

When you've being assessed by BASI they use quite an interesting analysis of learning - it's split into 3 stages:

awareness - when you know you should be doing something but aren't really doing it
practice - when you start doing the relevant thing but it isn't second nature
acquired skill - when it is second nature and you can use the relevant technique spontaneously and improvise around it

(those are just precis of the full definition)

i think as you improve, the time taken to move from one stage to another changes. the practice stage (I would say) probably becomes longer. in my own experience, a couple of 2 hour lessons with Easiski was plenty for me to get a couple of things into the practice stage. she and i reckoned it would take quite a while to get them fully ingrained. This also assumes that I am disciplined enough to keep working on it rather than just keep doing what I had been doing

so... when you're early in your development, you may be able to "acquire skills" within a week. later on, you can get to the practice stage pretty quickly but it will often take more than a week to acquire the skill fully

You know it makes sense.

Arno, yes, they copied from elsewhere actually, it's a fairly standard assement jargon used pretty widely.

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

ise, yes - they didn't present it as their own. probably has more credibility than something BASI cook up all by themselves! wink

A snowHead

Arno, I was thinking the same, it's not so much the tuition time but the time taken to get new movement patterns ingrained as a subconscious action.
It's easy to come from a lesson and let yourself fall back into old movement patterns that are comfortable.

A snowHead

Wear The Fox Hat, Re day 2, I suspect you;re right. Possibly also not helped by first night in resort partying wink

so monster hangover. (Although I used to find hangovers improved my skiing...) What I find odd is that on 2 day weekends, the sunday is not noticeably different to the saturday, so I reckon I'm probably taking the evening easier. Maybe it's just adrenaline and a determination to get the most out of the two days.

I must confess I don't have a routine, I just point the tips (the front tips to be precise) downhill and go for it. Thankfully it takes no time to get back in the groove - I'm not sure I ever get out of it, at least mentally. SHs clearly helping there!

Oh and I totally agree that provided you have motivation, good external guidance and encouragement you will improve, so maybe once again we are arriving at a consensus that the single biggest missing thing in most peoples skiing performance are lessons.

Arno I did one morning's lesson this season (would have liked another) and I'd add to Arno's list of stages. There's the "Insidious adoption of bad habits" stage.

I definitely get bad habits, that manifest themselves in reduced performance. So the big lesson in Feb was 1. that I was getting a little lazy in some respects and 2. that I really didn't want to do the 50:50 weight split thing. (Let's not go there). What I'm doing now is working quite fine thank you. Oh, and also that I really need to work on fall-lining bumps with no poles.

My preferred learning "stages" are the cycle of

* Conscious InCompetence
* Conscious Competence
* UnConscious Competence (the bad one...)
* UnConscious InCompetence (the really, really bad one)

IncogSkiSno, hmmm, I will go out in the pouring rain, but if it's raining at 3,000m I probably won't stay out very long. Also, I get nauseous in white outs. I mean, seriously sick, wanting to die stuff. It doesn't compel me to go ski bumps! If I can't find a nice narrow tree lined run or two, then it's "game's a bogey" till vis improves. I can get quite fussy over snow as well...

((ski, I am very, very lucky enough in current circumstances to get a little more than one week on snow, even working full time in London. And I do, definitely, very much appreciate that!! If I lived closer to MK I'd contemplate the dome, but it's too far to schlep.))

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

Wear The Fox Hat, what exercises do you do to get dialled in?

David Murdoch, I reckon if you do a high quality course with your one week a year, you could progress quite a way. Certainly to a level obviously above that of the average Brit holiday skier. I suspect even more so if you have had good lessons from when you started and have never been allowed to develop bad habits which need unlearning.

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slikedges, thank you. If I only managed one week a year I am sure you're right.

Thankfully (and I do deeply, deeply, deeply appreciate how lucky and privileged I am) in recent years I've manage to squeeze in rather a bigger and healthier number of ski-days than just one week.

But no matter how many days IMHO, if you aren't having "them" caught by some external agency (coach, teacher or even just some video footage) bad habits develop all on their own. Generally, or at least in my case, through laziness. I mean, when I was skiing on my old skinny skis I'd probably have wiped out doing some of the things you can get away with these days snowHead

weight on both skis for goodness sake, etc. ad naus. wink

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

slikedges, I'll start off with a thousand steps, to help me find my balance again, then do patience turns. After that, I'll go for long sweeping turns (using the full width of the piste), then go for short turns, and then a mixture of long and short. Next I'll try a few faster runs - getting down more into a tuck. I'll do most of these on one or two runs (probably blues), so I have a good feel for the conditions on them and won't be too surprised as I push harder and speed up.
After lunch, try a few more runs around the place (blues and reds), exploring, but not pushing too hard. Finish the day with a blast down one of the blues, stopping before I'm too tired.

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I hardly go skiing, and my skiing doesn't seem to improve too much, though my courage does a bit. I am always cr*p on the first day of the holiday!
Hmmm. Warm up. Got into resort, thought 'wheeeeeeeee let's go!' took chair to top of steep blue, half way down and i'm stopping and moaning in pain at my legs. think I'll warm those little-used muscles up next time!
Julia

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David Murdoch, sorry, I know you do more than one week a year Laughing

. I should have used one Very Happy

.

After all it is free

Hmmm, interesting question. Firstly, some excellent responses, virtually all of which I agree with (is that a first?) Secondly I do think that 6 days per year is enough if you want to improve. However the practise time point has already been made, and that's really the problem with only 6 days per year. As you get better you need more practise time, and if you can ski more or less everywhere and only have 6 days, then the incentive to spend an hour everyday practising is much less.

I personally don't like to take advanced skiers (or even intermediates) for daily lessons, as they don't have enough time to practise what they learnt in the last lesson. I advise 1 or 2 lessons per holiday, spread out a bit in the week. Then I try to get all my people to do 2 or 3 runs first thing in the mornings, just practising whatever it was we learnt, including the exercises. I also try to suggest places on the mountain where certain exercises can be done to good effect - boring paths etc can be made interesting in this way.

BTW poor Arno, for the first warm up run: I thought "we'll go down that nice easy green" - huh - it was dreadful, holes bumps and narrow, bits of snow, bits of ice, you name it. Some warm-up!!

Wear The Fox Hat, I suppose I'd guess at a turn that relies on a knee roll and edge and then waiting for what comes naturally but exactly what are patience turns?

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slikedges, they are also known as "orgasm turns" but that's not their offical name. Wink

Make a nice big long carve across the hill, keep turning so you're going up the hill, holding on your edges. Wait. Wait a bit more. Just as you think you're about to stall, release the edges - woooooosh, down the hill, then carve across the other direction, and repeat it.

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slikedges And your point, is IMHO still spot on. I guess we are circling around a serious issue, possibly particularly acute for UK skiers (?) that there are many fellow snow lovers who seem to avoid lessons for manifold reasons but really should be taking at least some instruction. A case illustrating your point is an ski mate of mine who has very good technique on relatively little skiing but always takes lessons every year. No bad habits AFAICS and a pleasure to watch. Exactly the effects you are suggesting.

Your question for WTFH exactly mine, and I guess we both now know. Orgasm turns sound a little messy to me... Twisted Evil

I wonder if you can do multiple ones? Or would that be in-spiral? Tantric skiing anyone?

WTFH, don't you need quite a wide piste for these? Like very, very wide? Or maybe my definition of big long carve is not the same as yours wink

Don't you also need a very empty piste (if you're noisy that way).

So why not spend time and money at your nearest dryslope ? There are good instructors to be found, and the unchanging nature of the surface is great for practice.

BTW - David, I think you will find that ski racing is about the best training there is - have fun snowHead

You know it makes sense.

easiski,

The number of people I hear/know who resolutely resist lessons while complaining that they never get any better is astounding. So why the negativity? Hearing this I tend to advise having an hour or two on day 2 or so with maybe a review later on. No-one has reported back disappointed. It tends to generate breakthrough performance and more frequent subsequent "lessons".

I totally take your point about practise time but are there other things in effect - i.e. Is it that the T.O.s don't promote private lessons so the (UK maybe more than most) skiing public generally isn't aware of the possibilities and benefits? Are private sessions just perceived as prohibitively expensive?

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

A snowHead

easiski, yes - that run was a bit like jumping in at the deep end, esp after 3 hours sleep wink

. still, i was there to be challenged!

A snowHead

marc gledhill, I think this is a common occurence. I had the same perception (even though I'd repped a few seasons...but then they are expensive on a rep salary!) until I found myself exploring every possible alternative to try and get my ex-wife skiing better. Result!!! One bad week with some grumpy anglophobic sheep sh*gger in <deleted for discretion's sake> meant regular ski lessons were never going to happen again. This is not a general criticism of any ski school.

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

..........or sheep shaggers in general.

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Marc, speak for yourself!

Although I have fond if hazy memories of a now defunct bar in Morzine, officially called Les Ruttenets but affectionately known as "sheep shaggers" by the seasonal workers. Actually, it was officially known as Shaggers for one season. Ah, the heady days of youth.

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eEvans,

A friendly bunch out there, alwaysn welcoming. Just keep ewe're hands off Daisy. She's the white woolly one.

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David Murdoch, I certainly think that the perception is that private lessons are prohibitively expensive, and that group lessons are a waste of time/money.

I'm sure this is largely the fault of the TOs who push people into the ski school that gives them the biggest commission. However, have read some posts on the cost of private lessons on both artificial slopes in the UK and from some of the British ski schools in the alps I'm afraid the majority are right. They are just charging too much. Check out the prices and if the British schools are twice as expensive go the the French/Austrian/Swiss schools. NehNeh

When booking private lessons, it's essential that you ask for someone who speaks good English and that you make it clear to the instructor what you're looking for from the lesson. then you shouldn't have any problems. It's not necessary for an instructor to speak fluent English, know slang and understand all our wierd expressions - just that they speak it well enough to explain what they need to. Oh yes - make sure your instructor teaches modern carving method! Razz

After all it is free

easiski, 1 hour private snowboard lessen at snowdome £65 - ridiculous!!!

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Wear The Fox Hat, Obviously it isn't an issue in US/Canada/Oz/KIWI etc., but many people have been put off trying European ski teachers by the group lessons, which seems a bit unfair. The majority of posters on here seem to ski in Europe.

IncogSkiSno, That's ludicrous! In winter I charge €40 per hour 1-2 people and €55 per hour 3-4, which is fairly typical of LDA. In summer it's -25% all round. Very Happy

Help!!

Is one week enough (to improve)?

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