March 26 Teaching Day
Spring skiing is alive and well at Breckenridge! Today I had a wonderful group of kids at level six. Level six skiers should be making parallel turns on Green and Blue runs, and beginning to explore some easy black runs and possibly even beginner bumps.
See the nearby photos for the sunny faces. Click the smaller thumbnail photos for bigger pics. We started off with runs from the Rocky Mountain chair as the Colorado Chairlift was closed for repair work. We tackled North star, High Anxiety, Four O’clock, and Claim jumper in the morning, then took on Peak 9 and Upper Lehman (known as ‘jump city’), among other runs throughout the day.
We had three focus points today:
First, we talked about and then explored edging vs. flat skis. We railed out the skis with a high edge angle and allowed them to carve beautiful turns in an uphill arc direction. We don’t quite have linked carved turns going down the hill, but certainly progress was made.
Next, we talked about pole usage and the proper way to plant or tap the pole at the beginning of a turn. “Swing, Tap, Turn†was the mantra echoing across Springmeyer during our practice time.
The last item we discovered was “heads up skiingâ€. We starting thinking not so much in terms of technique: the ‘how we turn’ mechanics of tipping our skis, etc., But more in terms of tactics â€" reading the slopes a head of us, seeing changes in pitch, snow conditions, and crowds. We apply our techniques in a tactical way by looking down the slope and picking the best line.
For lunch, the item of the day was delicious Subway Sandwiches. We finished off the day with a good run down Jump City on Peak 9. The kids were catching air left and right!
Leave a comment