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Reprints From The Professional Skier

Winter 1997 - "How Children Take To New Shapes" by Jim Heldt

This article is reprinted from The Professional Skier. All copyrights apply. Please see our copyright and disclaimer notice page.

Amid the excitement generated by shaped skis this season, little information has been available on the impact these skis may have on children's instruction. Children now have the opportunity to ski on shaped skis with sidecuts that vary from moderate to radical. As a result of this influx of new equipment, children's instructors have an excellent chance to compare and contrast movement patterns in younger students as they relate to shaped and conventional skis.

Last season a number of ski schools throughout the country had limited access to shaped skis in shorter lengths to accommodate children. After observing students on shaped skis at various education events, the PSIA National Children's Committee and Junior Education Team (JETs) members recently shared their thoughts with Communications Vice President John Armstrong. The input received provides a glimpse of the future for children's programs. It should be noted, however, that due to the limited number of skis available to fit children, the following findings should be viewed as preliminary and not necessarily the norm for all children who move to shaped skis.

Ski Sizing For Junior Skiers has been much more open-ended as limited availability forced some students to ski on shaped skis the some length as their conventional skis. Results showed that children performed well on shaped skis of lengths over head height, however, skis of chin to head height provided the most dramatic results.

Rotary Movements did not disappear from the skill blend. While children's shaped skis provide excellent potential to explore edging awareness, children continue to incorporate pivoting, steering, and skidding in their turns. Instructors still had to guide their students toward lower-extremity movements that would allow shaped skis to exhibit their edging capabilities.

Inefficient Movements are still possible on shaped skis. Simply putting children on shaped skis won't necessarily modify their movement patterns. However, shaped skis are an excellent tool to help instructors guide their junior students to new movement awareness.

Children On Shaped Skis experience markedly different sensations than their peers on conventional skis. Many students on conventional skis have never experienced the sensations produced by an edged ski. Since children thrive on sensory awareness in any learning environment, skiing on shaped skis allows them to experience the feeling of riding an edged ski versus the more familiar feeling of guiding a flat or skidding ski. A positive result in this context was strong curiosity and the motivation to explore now sensations and movement patterns. In many cases this become the catalyst to expand student motivation for learning. Sensory feedback become a focus, if not the main focus, in skill development.

Balancing Movements become focused from the feet up. Conventional skis are more forgiving in slightly off-balance stances, while shaped skis react more to an incorrect stance. Because the shaped skis respond to students who are off-balance by carving a turn or crossing at the tips, they often help children adopt a less rigid reactionary stance rather than a static one. Focusing on foot movements provided children with immediate feedback in finding and maintaining their balance. Working without ski poles also provided a strong advantage in achieving balance awareness.

Edging Awareness was greatly enhanced in young students who used their hip as the "power joint" to initiate and maintain their skis on edge. The classic children's strategy of moving the hip inside and bracing against the outside ski provided young skiers with their first clearly defined shaped turns. Once they experienced this edging awareness, many children demonstrated the athletic ability to make carved turns at low speeds. Being able to perform the carved turns on shallow terrain and at slow speeds gave the children time to record the sensations produced by carving into their motor muscle memory, making it easier to repeat the movement later.

When Children Are Exposed To Movement Patterns in their lower extremities they tend to mimic the movements with their upper extremities (e.g., the "stork look"--arms and legs in the wedge position when attempting initial wedge movements). Instructors can use this sympathetic arm movement concept to their advantage by directing the children to use their hands and arms to show the edge angles, stance width, and slope angle their feet are making.

Task Orientation Formats can greatly help in developing greater sensory awareness. For example, an instructor can establish a controlled setting where he or she assigns a specific task to designated terrain. Using props such as cones and duct-taped drinking straws to create "mini courses," the instructor can direct the student to concentrate on one exercise until they reach a course marker, such as a cone. When they reach the cone, the instructor can then ask them to concentrate on a different task until they reach another point on the run. Restricting the children to one area of the hill and assigning exercises to practice, as opposed to free skiing, helps the instructor analyze the children's technique. By repeating the exercise while skiing the designated section of the hill, students gain heightened sensory awareness.

Instructors Found Themselves gravitating to a guided discovery approach rather than command-style teaching. Because children are less likely to become bored with the lesson when they are discovering these carving sensations on their own, adding exercises to the students' realm of familiar techniques proved easier for the instructors. This format complemented the focus on sensory awareness. in many cases the actions of the students mandated this approach.

As with any innovation in our industry; shaped skis have positive and negative aspects in the context of children's skiing. Shaped skis have the potential to speed up the rate of skill development and increase the fun factor for many children. Instructors, however, need to recognize that mixed classes may yield varying results, and should be prepared to accommodate the different skis with teaching methods tailored to conventional and shaped skis. It is also important that children's instructors try the various models of shaped skis to better understand their potential. The above observations provide a view into a new world of options to make the mountain playground more exciting and multidimensional for children attending ski school.

Jim Heldt is the PSIA National Children's Committee Chairman and the owner and director of the Otto Hollaus traveling ski school based in St. Paul, Minnesota.