By Dylan Henderson
The Whitewater Ski Team is focusing on love of the athletic process this season.
In order to succeed, we will experience some failures, but it is important to remember that we are loved even when we fail. In order to improve we need to have some risk of failure.
As athletes train, they push themselves to their personal limits. Often only by exceeding these boundaries will the athlete have a real sense of where the line is. Failure while skiing can result in a crash, which often just means a tumble on soft snow with low risk of injury. If we don’t take this risk, how do we know what we are capable of?
The part of our skiing that takes the most trust is getting our skis further out from under us and trusting that they will hold us up. The time to increase this lateral movement is in the transition between turns. The transition is when we finish a turn, pole plant and begin the next turn. At the pole plant it is necessary to get forward and reset balance so that we can begin the new turn with full confidence.
We know that rolling the ski up on edge with the ankles starts the turn, then knee, then hip, but we have an opportunity to steer the skis out from under us before we start that sequence. The easiest way to get success is continue the end of the previous turn for a split second longer through the pole plant. Letting the skis move across the hill under us while using the pole plant to keep the body from following.
Play with how far out the skis can go before rolling on edge and starting the turn while trusting that they will carve back under and scoop you up before you fall. If you go too far and exceed your personal limits, or the laws of physics, then you will fail, and you will still be loved.
Rather than giving you a drill for this, I will get you to go to your favourite groomer and begin carving turns with some speed. As you build turn shape, concentrate on continuing your turns a little longer at the end so that your skis are pointing across the hill at the pole plant. Then focus on where you are planting your pole. Plant your pole just forward of your boot and leave the pole planted until your boot has gone by your pole. This should be testing your balance and your trust, but should be allowing the skis to get out from under you to where the real fun is.
The more trust you build the more love will come back to you!
Dylan Henderson is the head coach of the Whitewater Ski Team. He is a certified Development Level coach with the Canadian Ski Coaches Federation and a Level 1 ski instructor with the Canadian Ski Instructors Association. Henderson was also named 2017’s top ski coach by B.C. Alpine.