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hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard....

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
... Shocked Laughing Any thoughts on this new directive by the BSS

http://www.teambss.org.uk/news/latest-news/new-alpine-selection-criteria-published/
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
my thoughts when I read that were, just as well we dont have a young Bode then!! Cool trouble with most UK sports we try and pigeon hole people and make them fit the program rather than the other way round, still what do I know, Im not a performance coach ............
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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?
The thing that worried me was not being 'Athletic'. How do you know someone is 'Athletic' when they are under 14?

I remember at school, kids developing quicker than others, and it was often these that were picked for the school teams.
However there were many talented kids that had all the skills but hadn't developed physically as quick.
Later when they became 16-18 they caught up and were often better than their counterparts who had grown quicker physically but were less talented.
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spud,

Actually they have now proven in ice hockey that the kids who have their growth spurt slightly later go on to be the better players, as they have had to focus on skills.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
gryphea wrote:
spud,

Actually they have now proven in ice hockey that the kids who have their growth spurt slightly later go on to be the better players, as they have had to focus on skills.


Just goes to show what i was saying then.

I'm sure i read somewhere that most British Professional footballers were born between the months of September and January...this would make them the oldest in their school year. Again a likelyhood of developing physically stronger quicker for their age group. Probably the reason our football teams are so naff Laughing
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gryphea,

Yeah, I was agreeing and may have missed actually for it to sound like that.

Its why here they encourage a wide participation up as high as possible becuase you can't tell the good uns until way after their growth; and for guys that can be quite late
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I played county cricket until I was 17 in the same year group as 1 current and 1 ex England international. Suffice to say the 1 in the test team now and for a long while to come was the one whose presence we questioned in the squad and we used to pepper with short aggressive bowling and basically was the rabbit. One lad even told the coach how rubbish he was and the coach just said "you'll see". The other was monumentally talented and hit double tons for fun in junior limited overs games. He made it to the England senior team but got found out technically at international level.

Point I'm making is talent without a work ethic is nigh on pointless with the way sports are heading. There are so many boot camped kids at sport that talent will only get you to the door but the coaches are looking for people who can improve to at least their athletic peak, if not beyond. Why would they invest time and money in trying to coach the uber talented kid who won't be coached?
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spud,

Mattew Syed's book "Bounce" has some interesting insights which are relevant to this sort of discussion.

http://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/

In particular he argues that 'talent' is mostly a myth, whereas many hours of purposeful practice and good coaching from a young age can allow most people to achieve a very high standard in any given activity. He does qualify this by saying that folks who are 5 feet tall will likely never be top basketball players etc., but you take the point.

It's a good book.

chemistry
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chemistry wrote:
In particular he argues that 'talent' is mostly a myth, whereas many hours of purposeful practice and good coaching from a young age can allow most people to achieve a very high standard in any given activity.

It might be in theory but in real life this is completely wrong. Sure hard work is needed and noone, no matter how big talent he or she is, will never achieve anything without it, but unfortunately it's not enough. Hard work might be enough to win some kid races, even junior WCH, it is enough to win any recreational race, but when we come to real thing, top level pro sport (and it can be alpine skiing, xc skiing, swimming, cycling, golf, football or whatever else), just hard work is not enough to be on top. It's enough to be somewhere in middle, but never for top. With lower category races, or in kids categories, this is possible simply because people don't train to their limits. So it's easier to win with training more. Once everyone are on their limits, it's impossible to train more then the rest, so other things come to play. And this "other things" are mainly called genetics (let's leave doping aside now).
Personally, I was never anything (placing top 15 or top 20 on EC races is really not much of success), yet I probably trained more then most of others, and definitely more and better then few guys who were always infront of me. Hell... my brother was also racing, and I know his training, and compared to mine, it was joke, yet he was always at least as good as me, but most of time better.
Realistically, do you really think Bode was training more then rest? Or Wiggins is training more then everyone else in peloton? Or Thorpe or Phelps trained twice as much as second one in pool? If just hard work would count, and talent wouldn't matter or it would be myth, then we would have group of 50 guys in every sport, where each of them could win each race, and there would be all in range of few seconds (in Tour) or few 1/100s in skiing. Yet we don't see that Wink
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Quote:

I'm sure i read somewhere that most British Professional footballers were born between the months of September and January...this would make them the oldest in their school year. Again a likelyhood of developing physically stronger quicker for their age group. Probably the reason our football teams are so naff



Yup. Lionel Messi would never have made it at an English club: he needed growth hormone treatment as a kid, when he moved to Barcelona.
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spud wrote:
I'm sure i read somewhere that most British Professional footballers were born between the months of September and January...this would make them the oldest in their school year. Again a likelyhood of developing physically stronger quicker for their age group. Probably the reason our football teams are so naff Laughing


Might have been "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell? Only as I recall he was talking about NHL players
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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.
eng_ch wrote:
spud wrote:
I'm sure i read somewhere that most British Professional footballers were born between the months of September and January...this would make them the oldest in their school year. Again a likelyhood of developing physically stronger quicker for their age group. Probably the reason our football teams are so naff Laughing


Might have been "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell? Only as I recall he was talking about NHL players


spud, I think your months are wrong there, most age cut-offs in sport are based on the calendar year so someone born in December would be the youngest on the same team as someone born 11 months earlier in January.
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chemistry, As Syed was an anti loop defender he probably had plenty of time to think this sort of thing up, some are born bright in a sport and most are not and try to make up by trying harder, they rarely defeat the bright who have that extra gear in reserve.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Peter Ross wrote:
eng_ch wrote:
spud wrote:
I'm sure i read somewhere that most British Professional footballers were born between the months of September and January...this would make them the oldest in their school year. Again a likelyhood of developing physically stronger quicker for their age group. Probably the reason our football teams are so naff Laughing


Might have been "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell? Only as I recall he was talking about NHL players


spud, I think your months are wrong there, most age cut-offs in sport are based on the calendar year so someone born in December would be the youngest on the same team as someone born 11 months earlier in January.




Spud is correct!

This is the reason why at school students will remain to be the oldest if birthday is between Sept - Dec
Local Youth Football will have the oldest players in January as it moves registration to calendar years as of 2013 / 14 season.(FA Mandatory Guideline) It evolves starting with the U7 age group.


Matthew Syed theory is well thought of amongst PE teachers and pro club coaches. Most children who make it as a pro footballer have started a pro club between the age of 8 and 11 years. Not many players are replaced in the secondary age groups.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Look at the way some other sports have selected people for development programmes - physique first - eg womens' rowing. I think one of the medal winners had not even got in a boat 4 years earlier. No experience at all wouldn't work for skiing due to the length of time it takes to develop skill, but it must play a part. The new criteria means they can select people with the raw talent and the right athletic attributes, even if that may not have translated to as many podium finishes as others just yet.
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Look at the way some other sports have selected people for development programmes - physique first - eg womens' rowing. I think one of the medal winners had not even got in a boat 4 years earlier. No experience at all wouldn't work for skiing due to the length of time it takes to develop skill, but it must play a part. The new criteria means they can select people with the raw talent and the right athletic attributes, even if that may not have translated to as many podium finishes as others just yet.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Was Matthew Syed World table tennis champion through hard work?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Cynic wrote:
Was Matthew Syed World table tennis champion through hard work?




Continuous hard work, quality repetition, good coaching and hunger to succeed
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spud wrote:
The thing that worried me was not being 'Athletic'. How do you know someone is 'Athletic' when they are under 14?

I remember at school, kids developing quicker than others, and it was often these that were picked for the school teams.
However there were many talented kids that had all the skills but hadn't developed physically as quick.
Later when they became 16-18 they caught up and were often better than their counterparts who had grown quicker physically but were less talented.




Athletic can be judged on your present condition but also science analysis plays apart for those in elite systems,
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I'm a bit leery of Syed after his farcical crusade against former director of British Swimming, Bill Sweetenham. British Swimming went back to old habits after he left.
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Quote:

Cynic wrote:
Was Matthew Syed World table tennis champion through hard work?


Continuous hard work, quality repetition, good coaching and hunger to succeed


1969jma, No he wasn't, that's the point
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This whole debate is very interesting.

The number of UK male FIS registered skiers stands at less than 100. Adding women, children and those who compete indoors or on dry slopes to this does not alter the fact that British alpine ski racing is a very “thin” sport with a very low participant base compared to most other sports.

The skiers who are enthusiastic enough to be registered on the FIS list take their ski racing seriously, work hard and make sacrifices in pursuit of their sport often in difficult circumstances. However, in my opinion, the defining characteristic of those near the top (say top 30) of the British FIS list is quite simply that they or their parents are able to fund both time on snow and access to coaching over several years.

The reality is that access to snow time and coaching is essential (I don’t think we can ever parachute in athletes from other sports no matter how suited athletically) but it is not clear that those in receipt of this parental indulgence always have the athletic ability to succeed at the very highest level. BSS is right to include an athletic assessment when deciding who should receive help and support. Where I think they get it wrong, and badly so, is to start with such a narrow field (they start with a very tight points criteria) and then add the athletic element on top. They should widen the talent identification process to include more skiers earlier and try to identify those not yet on their radar who might have the potential to benefit from snow time and coaching.
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Gmd wrote:
Point I'm making is talent without a work ethic is nigh on pointless with the way sports are heading. There are so many boot camped kids at sport that talent will only get you to the door but the coaches are looking for people who can improve to at least their athletic peak, if not beyond. Why would they invest time and money in trying to coach the uber talented kid who won't be coached?


To be successful in professional sport or do very well in "amateur" sport is so competitive (everyone thinks their son/daughter has the talent to do it) that you not only need talent but to be ready/willing/able to push yourself physically to superhuman levels. None of us are superhuman so in physically demanding sports the result is often broken bodies that no longer function as well from middle-age at a time when we are living longer. Chances of reasonable success in life are greater by pushing yourself mentally instead, as most people do eventually reluctantly realise.

primoz wrote:
chemistry wrote:
In particular he argues that 'talent' is mostly a myth, whereas many hours of purposeful practice and good coaching from a young age can allow most people to achieve a very high standard in any given activity.

It might be in theory but in real life this is completely wrong. Sure hard work is needed and noone, no matter how big talent he or she is, will never achieve anything without it, but unfortunately it's not enough. Hard work might be enough to win some kid races, even junior WCH, it is enough to win any recreational race, but when we come to real thing, top level pro sport (and it can be alpine skiing, xc skiing, swimming, cycling, golf, football or whatever else), just hard work is not enough to be on top. It's enough to be somewhere in middle, but never for top. With lower category races, or in kids categories, this is possible simply because people don't train to their limits. So it's easier to win with training more. Once everyone are on their limits, it's impossible to train more then the rest, so other things come to play. And this "other things" are mainly called genetics (let's leave doping aside now).
Personally, I was never anything (placing top 15 or top 20 on EC races is really not much of success), yet I probably trained more then most of others, and definitely more and better then few guys who were always infront of me. Hell... my brother was also racing, and I know his training, and compared to mine, it was joke, yet he was always at least as good as me, but most of time better.
Realistically, do you really think Bode was training more then rest? Or Wiggins is training more then everyone else in peloton? Or Thorpe or Phelps trained twice as much as second one in pool? If just hard work would count, and talent wouldn't matter or it would be myth, then we would have group of 50 guys in every sport, where each of them could win each race, and there would be all in range of few seconds (in Tour) or few 1/100s in skiing. Yet we don't see that Wink


Not even in theory. Amazing that anyone's willing to listen to such tosh. This isn't a flat earth. People are taller shorter, fatter thinner, cleverer stupider, prettier uglier, better/worse at numbers/logic/abstraction/memorising/perseverance/aesthetics/music/emotional engagement/reactions/agility/balance/coordination/strength/fitness/tactics. People need to just accept that, I mean, duh! Of course some sports require relatively less technical skill (not the same as talent) so training mainly strength and fitness makes a relatively bigger difference in these disciplines but nonetheless there is still talent at play in natural genetically conferred strength and fitness. I think people are taken in by this idea because of course at low levels of performance and competition, if the talent differential isn't too great, training makes all the difference.
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slikedges wrote:
Not even in theory. Amazing that anyone's willing to listen to such tosh. This isn't a flat earth. People are taller shorter, fatter thinner, cleverer stupider, prettier uglier, better/worse at numbers/logic/abstraction/memorising/perseverance/aesthetics/music/emotional engagement/reactions/agility/balance/coordination/strength/fitness/tactics. People need to just accept that, I mean, duh! Of course some sports require relatively less technical skill (not the same as talent) so training mainly strength and fitness makes a relatively bigger difference in these disciplines but nonetheless there is still talent at play in natural genetically conferred strength and fitness. I think people are taken in by this idea because of course at low levels of performance and competition, if the talent differential isn't too great, training makes all the difference.

What exactly are you opposing? Because I don't think you wrote anything different then my "rubbish" was Wink
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Syed ( and various others, eg Coyle) don't say it is about " training hours" - they talk about quality of coaching and focussed practice alongside that quality coaching

That is a very different thing

And Syed's book talks about champion level sportspeoeple - not amateurs
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sev112 wrote:
Syed ( and various others, eg Coyle) don't say it is about " training hours" - they talk about quality of coaching and focussed practice alongside that quality coaching


I guess if you are a coach, everything is a coaching problem.
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Prob so, but I dont think Coyle is, and I was under the impression Syed isn't
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So why isn't Syed helping coach table tennis he must know where he went wrong?
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You know it makes sense.
primoz, Laughing sorry, to be clear, apart from your opener ("It might be in theory...") I'm completely and totally agreeing with you. The tosh I refer to isn't what you said but the bizarre and laughable notion that talent is a myth.
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slikedges, this, that talent is myth, was obviously said by Mattew Syed (whoever that is), and I just replied to this, telling that in real life talent is NOT myth, but real thing which makes difference between hard working athlete, and equally hard working World champion, no matter what this guy's (Mattew Sved) scientific or "scientific" researches prove.

from someone else and not me Smile wrote:
Mattew Syed's book "Bounce" has some interesting insights which are relevant to this sort of discussion.
http://www.matthewsyed.co.uk/
In particular he argues that 'talent' is mostly a myth
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Probably because writing for the Times pays better than coaching table tennis
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