 Poster: A snowHead
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Hi,
Spent a week at Christmas skiing and I now feel like I'm stuck in a rut with my skiing and want to improve. I'm an intermediate skier and manage about 2 weeks a year in the Alps.
My main question is, would I be better getting regular lessons in a UK fridge or just waiting until I go away?
Thanks
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Fridge or Dry. There are plenty of core skills and drills that you can work on 'on the relative flat' to secure your current level and improve if you want to between holidays. Someone that can explain that better will be along soon I am sure.
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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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There are a couple of things that I think can help you improve while in snowless areas but have no evidence to back up these thoughts.
The first is take up some other adrenaline sport, mountain biking fits the bill the best, by doing that regularly you will increase your confidence at speed in tricky situations and you will improve your overall balance and awareness of what your body is doing. Plus its really fun.
Watch ski films, even though the level people in ski at in the movies is presumably well above the top level you will ever reach the fundamentals are the same and simply knowing how you should be using your body to achieve different results is half way to doing it.
Take up fell running/xc running/cycling/other leg intensive sport but I like fell running the best. The better the shape you're in you get out there the more runs you will be able to put in each day and your technique won't drop as much in the afternoon as you start getting tired.
Ski some dryslope, unless you're going to get coaching I think dryslopes are better than indoors as Dendex is a much harder surface to ski. If you can get to the point where you can carve cleanly on Dendex you will be in a great position when you get out to the Alps and even if you have no interest in freestyle learning 360s and other simple tricks on Snowflex will massively improve your balance and spacial awareness for other types of skiing
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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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Forget fridges - find your local dryslope club and see what they do by way of a coaching program. A coaching program - regularly with the same coach who will soon get to know your strngths/weaknesses/skiing goals - will be of more benefit to you then just random lessons with different instructors. And as rambotion says dry slopes (as well as being easier on the pocket) are more technically demanding to ski - so if you can ski well on dendix it will be easy to transfer the skills to snow. My elder son has been out race training this season with other junior racers - so by definition none of them bad skiers - and it is amazingly obvious to look at them which ones have put in the hours training on the dry slopes as their core skills are far better than the ones who do snow only.
Where are you? We can probably point you at your nearest club if you let us know.
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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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Our experience is that you can definitely make good progress with your core ski skills if you use one of the indoor slopes all year round (although the same will no doubt apply to dry slopes). There's a lot you can do with a short, relatively gentle slope, enough to challenge even very able skiers. Okanagan makes a good point about working with the same coaches over an extended period. That's the model we use at Inside Out Skiing and we think it's the best way to improve. Feedback we get from our regular clients is that the skills they develop skiing in the UK enable them to get more from their ski holidays.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I already do triathlons as a summer hobby so like to think I'm reasonably fit.
I'm in St Albans, never considered dry slopes before though!
Thanks for the help
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The first is take up some other adrenaline sport, mountain biking fits the bill the best, by doing that regularly you will increase your confidence at speed in tricky situations and you will improve your overall balance and awareness of what your body is doing. Plus its really fun.
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Absolutely! The only thing is, when it gets steep and fast, the mountain biker instinct is to lean back. The steeper it gets, the further back you lean. That can be an issue when you're skiing! 
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| lnv63 wrote: |
| I'm in St Albans, never considered dry slopes before though! |
Welwyn would be your nearest dry slope then (do give it more than one session - it can feel odd at first if you've never done it before). Or Hemel if you want to go indoors.
Try the Welwyn Race Club perhaps although their website doesn't seem to have much on it (link to facebook page has an email address though). Race training does wonders for your general skiing too, and there are a lot of entry level events you could take part in through the summer which would give your training a focus.
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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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lnv63, if you're at St Albans then get try a course run by Inside Out Skiing, who teach at Hemel.
Good value and great instructors.
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lnv63,
What are you looking for? I will be running a masters(30+) race coaching session at Gosling on Saturday afternoons (2-4pm); starting the 28th Jan. Focus will be two fold:
1, Core skils and moving to gates for those that have not done much/any race training.
2, Progressing those that are already skiing gates / racing, but wish to develop core skills outside the main training session on Friday nights.
I also work at Hemel; there are a fine bunch of instructors and coaches that can help you.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Spent a week at Christmas skiing and I now feel like I'm stuck in a rut with my skiing and want to improve. I'm an intermediate skier and manage about 2 weeks a year in the Alps.
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Have you been having any tuition on your Alpine weeks?
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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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Carlos the Slackal, it's not actually a great idea on a Mountain-Bike either, for exactly the same reasons as in skiing. If you're too far back, you reduce the weight/grip on the front wheel and lose the ability to steer!
Drop the saddle and stay as close to centered as you can.
Definitely a good crossover sport. I'm a mountain bike guide and a snowboard instructor and I ski too. Making a good corner on a mountain bike has good parallels with making nice turns on both skis or a board (and isn't quite like either, obviously).
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stevomcd, don't you get your weight back over your rear wheel for steep descents on an MTB though???
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