MegèveSki

Free ski and practice - Day 1

Today was the first of my practice days between the Trainee Instructor course and the main event... We have 3 more of these days this week and then, three days of instruction next week with the possibility of one more free skiing day before the course starts, I expect I'll take that last day as a rest day...

I had planned to work on my carved turns today but circumstances dictated otherwise. I still don't have "the numbers" but my action plan says that I should work on the following:

• Short turns - don't drop back and inside in the last 2/3rds of the turn; i.e. be more forward always.


• Carved turns - angulate both legs equally (I tend to edge the outside ski more than the inside and this gives my legs a slight 'A frame' shape. Work the skis all the way through the turn, don't just 'park and ride'. I'm currently just setting up the carve and riding it, I could be modulating the pressure more during the turn and therefore controlling and changing the shape of the turn more.


• Bumps - more effort, absorb them and push down on the backs, keep the skis in contact with the snow the whole time and keep the pressure on so that speed is easier to control. This is something that I normally do better, the bumps that we skied weren't that bumpy so I was lazy...


• Central Theme - more flexion, exaggerate a bit more, a slightly narrower plough, no pole planting, smoother. look more like an instructor than a pupil.

So, anyway, this morning I planned to do a bit of work on my carving and help some of the other guys who were also working on various aspects of their carving. Unfortunately there's some racing going on here at the moment and the racers were using the piste that I wanted to use to practice on, however, even if they hadn't been I expect I'd have made other excuses due to the snow conditions. On Sunday, when I last skied, the conditions were ideal for fast carving. It was quiet and the snow was soft enough to provide reliable grip and hard enough to give you plenty of speed. Today the snow was patchy and hard. Lots of hardpack that had been scraped clean by all the racers with sections of soft, loose snow every so often.

So, I made some excuses to myself and worked on my short turns instead for a while under the quad. I then headed over towards Condor II where some of the other guys were supposed to be working on their Central Theme. I hooked up with Steph, Paula and Hepzi and we played around on Condor II and III for a while, doing whatever seemed appropriate for the pitch and conditions. Generally this was short turns or small carves on the upper sections and plough-parallel on the lower sections. We looped around here for a while and then Steph suggested some bumps so we dropped over back towards the sextuple and took the Lynch chair and did the bumps that were just off of the ridge. These were hard and scrapey so we cut lower and did the bumps between the base of the quad and lunch. These were slightly better. We took the two man chair and this time came down the off-piste and then cut down to do the lower section of bumps again. After that we were all tired and so headed for lunch.

After lunch we picked up Will and Tom and took Militares and then skied down to the quad, took that and then headed over towards the drag lifts to see if the racers had finished on our carving piste. They hadn't so we took the longer drag and cut across to the steep off-piste to skiers right. This was a lot of fun, steep enough to be interesting and with good snow. We looped on the drag one more time and did the same again and then headed down to Princessa III and went up to the area above the gondola. Steph fancied a run down Pista 6 and then one down Amancay but Tom said that they'd been closed yesterday. Instead we dropped down 2000 sur Luipe to the Del Bosque double chair and then decided to try Pista 6. It was open and have some lovely slushy bumps on it all the way down. I skied these bumps well, pulling up my feet as I rose up the bump and extending all the way down the backs. The slushy conditions made the bumps easy, but my technique was better too...

After the bumps we were all tired and it was getting late so we called it a day. I put my skis in for service at the ski locker (rather than at the usual place) and we then went for an apres ski beer (my first of the trip!) at the bar next to the gondola. I didn't work on quite as much as I wanted today but the skiing was good, my short turns were good and I worked hard at staying over the outside ski and not dropping into the inside of the turn. The last set of bumps were good and my Central Theme is coming on... More of the same tomorrow.

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Posted by Len at September 5, 2006 07:08 PM | Categories: Argentina 06 - Ski Days