MegèveSki

Drills and crud on Mt Joux

We started the day by skiing down the red to the Arbois lift and then doing a couple of runs down the Michel Dujon black. After that we headed down Sources and up the Mt Joux chair for a run down the unbashed snow between Valmonts and the slalom course. The idea was that we'd continue Miche's work in "less than ideal" off-piste conditions.

The unbashed snow was still pretty hard and crusty. It was rutted by snowboarders, generally cruddy, ideal for what I had in mind...

I dropped down the slope to watch her progress and Miche did a turn and stopped, then another and stopped, then stood there for a very long time; things did not look good from my vantage point. One more turn and she cut across from the crud and back onto the groomed snow...

By the time she'd dropped down to where I was waiting I could tell that things hadn't gone well. The hard, cruddy snow had thrown her around a lot and she'd twisted her foot a bit when she'd hit one of the snowboarder ruts; typical, it's always a snowboarder's fault ;) Her immediate view on the snow conditions was that she never wanted to ski them ever again; not ever, never...

I decided to try and cure the problem she had with being thrown around by getting her to ski with a bit more force. The idea being that rather than just standing on the skis and pressing them appropriately when you want to do something you press them all the time and press them more to do stuff... This was one of the things that the Rossignol B2s made me do, they don't take kindly to people just standing there, they want to be skied. I spent some time trying to explain what I meant and eventually I seemed to get the idea across.

By moving your weight slightly forward and straightening your thighs (clench that butt) you can apply pressure down on your feet that keeps the boots slightly flexed at the ankles all the time - it works your thighs a bit more but means that your feet are in a better position and the skis are being worked the whole time so they don't flap or get pulled around quite so much.

We worked on this on the piste for a while, quite a while, and then we took it back to the unbashed snow. By the time we'd got back to the hard, crusty, crud it had become softer, lumpy, crud; bad in different ways. The technique we'd been working on helped and we started working on making linked turns in the crud. Miche has a tendency, on "less than ideal" terrain, to stop as soon as things don't feel quite right; she likes to be in control and isn't one for the "in control, out of control, in control" style skiing that I sometimes use in challenging situations... By the end of the run she was doing 20 or so turns with no stops and continuing on even when she had some difficult moments during some turns.

We stopped for a coffee and then took the Ideal chair to the top with a plan to head home, it was getting quite late. The off-piste under the chair looked nice so I suggested a run down it before our run home and Miche agreed. I took a run down the steep face and Miche took a slightly less steep route but kept going and managed well in the difficult conditions. We took the chair back up to the top and I did another run down the off-piste whilst Miche stuck to the piste as her legs were tired.

Today was a bit of a breakthrough for Miche. The slightly more 'active' skiing style that I'd suggested worked well for her and made a big difference in the difficult conditions. Once she felt more in control of her skis it was easier to keep going in linked turns rather than feeling the need to stop due to being out of control. Hopefully this will continue.