Getting child to use a narrower stance

[karlo]

this video when she Gwen was 3

@Josh Matta, @ella_g, very, very cute!

 

[mister moose]

The thing is so many parents want their kids to be able to ski with them on the terrain they ski, so they drag them there, what they do not know is they really are delaying the process. Be patient, let the kids skills develop, its not about where you want to ski, it about where your kid should be skiing..

Some kids are more developmentally advanced, and some kids just don't get the days on snow that others do. But this IMHO is the nugget of Josh's post.

 

[Josh Matta]

The thing is Ella's Daughter is not the only one I have been able to teach Parrallel skiing to that early or have seen.

Even if a kid cannt do a movement, you can teach it eventually if your stubborn enough.

I am not all saying all kids can be taught extreme feats of condination, what I am saying is that yeah its hard to teach supposedly "adult" movements, but even young kids can learn them.




I think that any child given the right coaching and motivation could learn to move like any of the above videos.

 

[PTskier]

Make it a game to ski with a narrow stance. Put a glove or hat or dog bone shaped car wash sponge between the feet. Have small candies. Set a target, reach the target without dropping the prop, get a candy. Make it fun.

Pick slopes where the kid doesn't need the power wedge to slow. Get the kid to follow the tracks your skis make (not follow you, follow the tracks--following you will result in short cutting the curve) and continue your curve uphill for speed control.

 

[ella_g]

This shows more of what they did ... it was a long video and part of what you don't see here is a heartwarming hug about 2 minutes in .

 

[Josh Matta]

entirely off topic but Vail has deemed backwards skiing in front of student dangerous...and we are forbade from doing it .

Thanks for the video Ella. Jackson Hole Trip maybe next year.

 

[tball]

That's some awesome stuff, Josh! I wish I could ski switch a tiny fraction as well as you! Bummer about the Vail assimilation rules.

 

[Brian Finch]

We’re working on this w out kiddo too. Just made an appt for a lesson!

 

[Tricia]

outside ski to outside ski......

A wide stance in any aged skier is caused by lack of outside ski balance. Artificially narrowing a stance like you did can "backdoor" your way into outside ski balance....but never beats true outside ski balance. By having them stand on just the outside ski you take away the in-rigger of the inside ski.

Make sure they are not trying to "push" on the outside ski as this quite often leads to a wide stance as well.

Let me ask you a question (Hoping not to derail this thread)
When @spencer was teaching kids at Northstar, he'd take them into the trees, on trails from the downhill mt bike course(nothing extreme). The swoopy trails and small ups and downs seemed to encourage the kids to have a better stance and edging.
Am I off on this?
(That's a loaded question )

 

[Josh Matta]

not at all.... Terrain based learning is an awesome way to teach when you have it, you can teach with out teaching a single thing.

I wish we had some swooping berm turns on our easiest hill......we have some on the Meadows buts they are not really done well so they do not really help, but I could see a MTB trail being better than what most mountain ops try to make for terrain based learning.

The reason why it works is even if the skier is complete static the Berm would cause outside ski balance with out the skier doing anything and get them to feel what that feels like.

 

[Tricia]

I had to chuckle when I was with Spencer at the end of a ski school day with his group of kids.
He asked, "What did we do today?
Kids: "We skied swoopy stuff in the trees"
Spencer asked: "What will you tell your parents when they ask what you worked on?"
Kids: "Extension and flexion"

 

[Smear]

Following this thread. I have a 6 year old daughter who ski in a wide stance. She has excellent balance and stability in the stance that she has, and has been skiing the swoopy bumpy stuff in the trees at mach speed since 3,5 year old and is always in control. But some of that stability comes from "false premises", the ultrawide stance. Fore/aft usually good.. She gets good carving action of the outside ski, but always seems to use the inside ski as an inrigger for balance. Sort of feel that she will never progress any further if she doesn't loose that wide stance.

I have generally tried to stay on appropriate terrain and not over terrain her, but sometimes it happens

She started XC-training last week and will be doing that once a week. Mostly organized playing around on skis on the spot. And we tried ice skating yesterday. Hoping that these other activities will improve her balance and coordination.

Have tried to challenge her with lifting the inside ski. She enjoys that challenge in small portions, and understand that the wide stance makes it more difficult. But not much success so far.

Will be trying the jumping drills. Going down in at straight line or traverse and jumping up and down?

Tempting to try @PTskier's spounge holding drills, but it feels a bit forced. Sort of learned to hate the look of locked up legs. But might worth a try.

 

[James]

Get your kids to stand across the slope parallel when not moving. So many will stand there in a huge braking wedge. They feel this is safe and standing across the slope feet close together is not. How will they possiby be comfortable skiing feet close together if they can't stand there not moving?

Also, with very young kids their bindings tend to be way aft almost forcing a wedge.

 

[Smear]

The more unstable I feel, the wider my stance is. Boots too big, unbuckled boots, and ear infections make things worse. Improving my balance, practicing standing on one ski, and better fitting boots made it better.

Can he sidestep up the hill well? Maybe he can't balance on his outside ski. Maybe he can't feel his edges until his skis are that far apart. Kids aren't stupid, they will take the path of least resistance.

Also, with very young kids their bindings tend to be way aft almost forcing a wedge.

There could be many equipment issues making things harder then necessary for young kids.

With my daughter I notice that she is standing with the feet wide apart also when taking the T-bar. When I try to put my legs at a similar angle to the ground, then that is very uncomfortable way of riding a lift since the skis are put on edge a lot. She can apparently do that with fairly flat skis. Makes one wonder how much lateral support/freedom those kid boot provide or how they are aligned.

 

[karlo]

Can he sidestep up the hill well?

Just had another case this weekend. Towards end of day, one of four girls had had it, feet hurting from the cold. After we warmed up, three wanted to play outside. One wanted to ski, the one who's feet kept spreading out. So, I set up the three with sleds and kept and eye on them. The one, we worked on side stepping. Again, really wide steps, resulting in the uphill ski being flat and not on edge. It took considerable time and practice to get her to do small steps (narrower stance). Had to keep reminding and demonstrating "tiny" steps. (for her, they were tiny because she was thinking and feeling that her wide step was normal. Anyway, she finally got it, along with side-slipping. Not sure if that will translate to narrower stance when she skis as, by then, it was end of day and she was picked up.

For sure, I know who is going to advance the fastest. The others wanted to play. She wanted to work.

 

[JTurner]

Karlo mentioned sideslipping, which I would second.

The two concepts I've seen work in grade school age juniors are:
1) Sideslips with feet close (do both sides, and you can incorporate an edge set, edge set to double pole plant, etc to get it more complex and work on upper body separation as they progress) Unless their canting is WAY off, you can't slip in a wide stance very well so this is the simplest way to get them to started.
2) Getting on one ski... Now this has to be a progression, but an easy way to start is lifting one ski in a simple shallow traverse. The next stage would be dolphins, where they lift the inside ski in a turn. This can work even if they skid their turns, so I don't think it has to be terribly advanced. Tell them to pin their lifted boot against their other knee. This handily also teaches them to have parallel shins and matched femur rotation, or whatever you want to call it.

 

[Brian Finch]

We sought professional help. Our daughter had a great afternoon with Katie Brinton over at Okemo. Katie’s a L3 that is trying out for he Dev team next month. She had some fantastic drills for her & some terrain based methods.

 

[Ohioskier]

@Josh Matta @ella_g great job. Looks really similar to my kids. I was lucky and just taught my kids that way. Kept them on really easy terrain on a magic carpet lift and no vertical until they successfully stayed parallel and skied it well then we went to next tougher and did that until they were ready. Pizza was for lunch and never while skiing. Not sure how it worked out that way as I had only skied one season before my kid started but I thought why start them with bad habits.

Funny thing happened. It took longer for them to move up in steepness but once they got it on a steeper blue they could Ski anything not long after. Did you have same experience on the progression?

 

[razie]

Following this thread. I have a 6 year old daughter who ski in a wide stance. She has excellent balance and stability in the stance that she has, and has been skiing the swoopy bumpy stuff in the trees at mach speed since 3,5 year old and is always in control. But some of that stability comes from "false premises", the ultrawide stance. Fore/aft usually good.. She gets good carving action of the outside ski, but always seems to use the inside ski as an inrigger for balance. Sort of feel that she will never progress any further if she doesn't loose that wide stance.

I have generally tried to stay on appropriate terrain and not over terrain her, but sometimes it happens

She started XC-training last week and will be doing that once a week. Mostly organized playing around on skis on the spot. And we tried ice skating yesterday. Hoping that these other activities will improve her balance and coordination.

Have tried to challenge her with lifting the inside ski. She enjoys that challenge in small portions, and understand that the wide stance makes it more difficult. But not much success so far.

Will be trying the jumping drills. Going down in at straight line or traverse and jumping up and down?

Tempting to try @PTskier's spounge holding drills, but it feels a bit forced. Sort of learned to hate the look of locked up legs. But might worth a try.

They tend to love it when you just take off one ski and make it a challenge to use just the one. Plus, you get to join in

 

[Smear]

They tend to love it when you just take off one ski and make it a challenge to use just the one. Plus, you get to join in

Have tried that one with her on magic carpet terrain. Surprisingly difficult when you have almost no speed on very flat terrain on sticky snow. Will try again in different conditions. But I feel that while taking the ski off is good training for balance and coordination, it tends to get into positions that is not relevant for technique. More fan of the simpler lift the tail of the inside ski keeping the tip down, or javelin turns keeping the inside ski across the outside ski.

She entered her first GS-race last weekend. She was very stoked, and has gone from "I don't want to go to training since It's boring and I have done everything before in ski school" to "Can I do this again", " Yes, next year", "Then I'm going to train a lot so that I can ski faster and win a big pokal".

Hoping that the desire for speed eventually will sort things out.