Fellow Ski Instructors: I need tips!

Cincher

Cincher

Active member
So as of this year I started doing ski instruction I have my CSIA level I certification since January. Sometimes a tough job for me as I'm not the best at explaining how to do things, especially when all the things I can do have become such a natural movement for me.

Anyways, I'm fairly good at teaching first timers how to get moving and how to get them sliding down the hill most of the time, but when I have to teach the more advanced skiers and the repeat customers who are ready to start moving into parallel skiing, I start to lose my cool.

The challenging lessons are often kids who are between the ages of 5 to 10 that can snowplow fairly well and turn while snowplowing, but I often have trouble getting them to break away from snowplowing. I tried doing tactics like stomping your inner foot through a turn, balancing on 1 foot, hockey stops or just turning your feet and doing little ski slides left to right. When we tried doing these maneuvers, I've try to emphasize bending the legs more, but sometimes I have a hard time explaining how much I want them to lower their body into the turn. it frustrates me when I can't seem to find some method of getting the results I want to see. a lot of them are understandably very rigid and very straight like it and sometimes I can't quite get them to loosen up and become more mobile.

So I'm asking any other ski instructor: what tactics, tricks, and tips do you use to help people get on the "fast track to parallel"?
 
I find especially the younger ones often ski backseat also,

you can work on a little stance and parallel at the same time as making it fun by jumping between turns. This requires a balanced stance and feet underneath (i.e. skis parallel).

for up and down motion I like the drill: Tall as a house, small as a mouse

for this, extend your arms fully upwards and straighten your legs, emphasize being as tall as possible - "tall as a house". During the turn make yourself "as small as a mouse", knees bent etc...

don't sorry too much on the "right" amount of up/down motion, it's important for them to feel it for themselves and find the balance themselves.

There's plenty of other drills too, do you have your CSIA handbook? look through for examples, and contact me if you want more/ more questions

hope this helps

 
oh, and most importantly for children, fun is the key, don't make a focus on drills and being too strict etc, focus on playing games (which unbeknownst to them can also improve their skiing), and having fun.

children will learn way more having fun and sliding around, mileage is key
 
Find the widest trail where you teach, and make big turns so you're skiing parallel across the whole trail, and have them have their skis parallel here, its much more comfortable for them because they are not actually going down hill and it gets them used to having their skis like that.
 
Threads, trying to teach my ginger roommate how to ski. Just had our second day on the mountain and she's getting better for sure but I don't know how to explain the techniques to her
 
Hockey stopping and side slipping I find work very well. A good metaphor I learned this season (for little kids only, I'd say under 7 but you never know, it might be good for older kids too) is to tell them to be like a snake. Snake works well because you can say that snakes are NOT wide (snow them a snowplow stance) they ARE skinny (show them a parallel stance). Also you can say how snakes are low to the ground (they will bend their knees more) and since snakes "slither" you can remind them to always turn.

Little kids have great imaginations, if in their head they are a snake, they will ski like one because it makes so much more sense to them than technical words (parallel and stance for example).
 
So true. The next step after the first parallel is to correct the position. Make them ski switch a lot and make them explore the mountain. At this stage; mileage is key.

To make them start parallel, make them ski faster. The change will be gradual and rapid if you stick to flat hills.

Hockey stops are incredibly hard for beginners. Make sure to work hard on those so they can pull the handbrake when they need to stop.

I recommend to slack off on the exercises and be more of a guide to the mountain. When you see a place to try something; give it a try. You can bullshit anything if you are not that sure. Act like you know what you are doing and gauge the client's reaction.

5 to 10 is a huge gap. 5-6 is still very young and you should play a lot more. Wasting time is ok as long there are smiles. 6-8 are the hardest. They are super stubborn and parents tend to give you the hardest kids and vanish. 8-10 are fun. They are strong enough to explore harder terrain, but their lack of experience makes them hard to contain.

 
the best advice i can give is to take them onto an easier slope than they're used to, they wont try to change old habits on terrain they are not really happy on

you're probably aware that you are trying to get them to steer their inside ski more gradually further and further up the turn, any sudden changes to parallel will not make things easier in the long run

focus on keeping things smooth and slow

get them to follow you lots and give them a couple of runs on their own to see how they're getting on

in terms of drills and games just use your imagination
 
Basically what I tell people when i'm trying to teach parallel turns is to start the turn with a normal snowplow but after the turn is initiated to pick up their up their uphill ski/foot and to flatten the ski to where its not on its edge anymore and it brings their feet somewhat parallel.
 
WARNING: Didn't read everything some of this may already have been stated



1. Play the step up the hill game. Have them use wedge turns and side step up the hill after. Make them step up earlier and earlier forcing them to use less of a wedge and more parallel.

2. The jump game. Same idea as the step up the hill game. Also keeps them out of the backseat. Try to have them jump multiple times on one turn.

3. Use terrain to help you. The hill I teach at has a very non-steep mogul field. Once I feel a student has mastered the edge and decent at parallel/ hockey stops ill send them in. The moguls force parallel skiing, flex and extension and hockey stops.

4. The balloon game. If you have balloons tell kids to put them in between their skis. Tell them to keep it snug between their boots but not to pop it while turning. If you don't have balloons tell them to make believe there is one there.

5. Steeper terrain helps decrease wedge size naturally so use it to your advantage with speed demon children.

6.REPETITION

7. Keep it fun. Once kids get bored they will not want to ski or start thinking its stupid so make sure you switch it up.

Best of luck from a fellow ski instructor
 
Just got my Freestyle 1 cert and we talked about this for a while. to get them out of the huge wedge find a huge straight low box and have them ride straight over it a couple times because their going to fall if they pizza. If there really young but ready to learn parallel tell them its against the rules to do pizza turns.
 
Kids around the 5 to 7 age group are quite hard to get into proper parallel turns because they often lack the motor skills required. I usually do something along these lines:

1. Teach them how to side slip as they need to be able to release their edges and flatten the ski on snow before they can turn them.

2. If they can do that, start getting them to lock edges on and release them in a traverse.

3.Once they have mastered this, get them to do a single turn by releasing their edges and letting the skis find the fall line naturally. (Gentle terrain required)

4. Tell them to pretend they have a jar of peanut butter or whatever spread they like under each foot and they have to twist the lid off for the second part of the turn. (this can replace step 3 of you want them to turn their legs all the way through the turn too.)

5. Link turns together.

I've found this to work really well and you can easily work it into a game of "making sandwiches" or something similar. Hope this helps.

p.s. is there an instructors cult or something similar on here? Would be cool to get one going and get a bunch of ideas off people.
 
especially with smaller kids try to gain their trust and be really nice to them. when they arent scared of you, they start having more fun. Chat with them on the lift a lot, like what other hobbies they have, what they like to do etc. Sometimes when a kid says he likes football for example, i might take a ball with us to the hill and toss/kick it around while skiing so the kid has to concentrate on the ball while sliding down, which makes the skiing more natural. Use your imagination! Exercise trough play is what its all about. (+ when they tell their parents they had a lot of fun, it isnt so important if he/she didnt learn much) When they get older, like lets say over 12, then you can move to straight up exercises.
 
Playing boot wars gets them to feel the sides of their feet in the boot and muscles required for parallel skiing.
 
this is not want we want though, we want to improve the steering of the inside leg to match the outer ski to parallel. picking up the inside leg is exactly what we don't want because it just avoids the problem and creates bad habits
 
well I work at Spring Hill, which is on the side of Winnipeg's floodway so I really don't have to worry about a wide trail; the whole Hill is one wide, 120 foot tall, trail.
 
What is this 'park crew' you speak of? I literally ski a ditch, so no such thing exists here. My hill sucks, I know.
 
yeah, I agree. I've been doing side slipping and hockey stops for a lot of the little guys. Eventually they start to pick it up very fast.

However, I've had a couple cases where I've tried to do hockey stops and they still made a snowplow shape. Their inside foot just kept pointing down the hill while their outside foot turned to stop. I've tried explaining that the motion is all in just rotating your feet and keeping your body pointing down the hill, but sometimes they just can't quite understand the movement.

I don't know what to say to have them start bringing their inside foot to match with their outside foot is doing...
 
Yeah, when I took the course, they gave me a CSIA handbook and also a smaller guidebook for teaching children. Sometimes I forget to do jump turns, and I also forget how useful they can be in showing proper stance. I really should read through my guidebook more though....

I like your phrasing for the up-and-down motion there. I had not heard that and I think it should prove quite useful.

I've been trying to do little side slipping turns, I don't remember what my course conductor called them... Was it cantage? it was like portage but it started with C.... Anyways, it's all in rotating your feet I think and trying to use only a little edge to get the ski sideways
 
I really should try to teach switch skiing more.

They certainly are, they're also incredibly hard to teach in some cases. I try to say to just pick up your inside ski a little bit and turn your ski sideways.

That would be doable if I was actually at a mountain. But I'm at a dinky little hill on the side of our city's floodway. besides the icy moguls for the freestyle team, the "half pipe" (it's like half of a half pipe), and the terrain park, there's not a whole lot of terrain I can explore and use in my lessons.however, I understand the thought process, and there's been a couple times where I was just talking out of my butt.

Yeah, I was little to broad in my age range. Just one extra year age difference really does make a huge difference in how and what I can teach.

The younger they are the harder it is for me; I can't communicate well with young children quite yet. my favorite clients to teach are the 9 to 12-year-olds; they have the skill to learn how to pick it up fast, and still some of the fearlessness of a child. if it were a graph chart, there be a line that progressively goes up to about age 18, plateaus and then takes a bit of a dive. Adults are a little more of a wildcard. It all depends on how athletically inclined they are; but at least with adults I don't have to think so hard about how to explain what I'm teaching.
 
Two people sit on the ground opposite one another with their legs interlocked so their feet are touching. i.e.

person 1 leg

person 2 leg

person 1 leg

person 2 leg

Each person has to turn their feet against the other persons foot as hard as they can.

It's the same movement as turning their legs through a parallel turn on skis and it also gives them a feeling that they can use to recreate the movement on their skis.

 
For that age range just go have fun with them, don't talk a lot to them and go off of side jumps on runs they will stop snowplowing really quick
 
When skiers get stuck in a wedge it is because they are pressuring one ski way more than the other. Basically, for example, if they are turning left, they will have almost all of their weight on the right ski and the left ski will basically be an outrigger. If you get them on something a little steeper, you will ofter see the non turning ski lift off the ground in the turn.

The inside ski(the left ski if you are turning left) is the ski that you need to focus on. You need to get them to distribute their weight more evenly on both skis. The stomping drill probably won't do much. They can stomp the inside ski without getting the feeling of what it's like to weight it consistently.

What I do is get them to focus on a lead change with their skis. Basically, if you can get them to have their weight distributed more evenly, they can initiate a left hand turn just by pushing the left foot forward. Tell them to pretend that they are testing the water in the bathtub with their toes. If they want to turn to the right, they put the toes on their right foot into the water. Opposite for left. You just have to make sure that they do this without leaning back. If they are leaning back too far back it won't work, and you'll need to back off and get them to get centered again. Standing still and rocking back and forth works for this. Have them lean forward and feel the balls of their feet in the boot, then rock back and feel the heals. Try to get them to feel like they are standing on the arch of their foot and tell them that this is how it should feel when they start skiing.

Think about the way you make turns switch and get them to do it forward. Just remember that switch skiing means that you are pushing the outside ski ahead of the inside which is the opposite of what they will be doing. Actually, I will often have lower level kids turn around and try skiing switch on something pretty easy. It can get them out of the "wedge or die" frame of mind. Side slipping also helps. They have to weight the skis more evenly to pull it off.

I could go through this with you in 2 minutes on snow. It's a lot tougher in a post, but I hope this makes sense. BTW, I am PSIA Level III, USSCA Level II, although I am receiving therapy to get over it.
 
This shit will work on getting those little rats out of snowplow mode: Its my proven method lol.

Set them up cones to ski through and put them far enough apart that it makes it hard to ski thru them in snow plow mode. The kids will tighten up their stance and start turning uphill more in order to go thru the cones. It works. They will start to turn better quickly. Kids are fast learners. Key is to get them to start turning uphill more.
 
The best way is to put a weedgie on their tails, not their tips. The kids will hate it, but they will be parallel skiing in no time.
 
Damn thats crazy. At first i had no idea why you quoted me with that but then i noticed. If you are a fellow instructor tough, you might now that the safety of the pupil is always the first priority. (our hill has under 200ft vert and no trees, + the kids slope is basically like an airfield where you can only hit other people, if there is any)
 
Yeah no I just heard you say it and sparked my memory of the Kennedy death.

I would imagine it wouldn't exactly be dangerous for kids.
 
If someone is lifting their inside ski through a turn it is usually because they are turning with their hips or shoulders and have to snap their turns around really fast to control their speed.

All you have to do to correct it is teach them to turn with their legs and utilize turn shape to control their speed and give them enough time to make all the movements they need to complete the turn.
 
What this guy said! It's incredibly rare to see a beginner with too much weight on the outside ski.
 
i actually still remember the day it clicked for me how to ski parallel. All you have to do is when you turn right move your right ski forward to it is staggered and put your weight on that ski and it will come around. same thing with a left turn and boom you can french fry
 
Before you even go up the hill, have the kids stand on each ski separately, slide into a wide stance and back to a narrow stance, hop with the skis on, then have them take one ski off and push with their boot (do that with each foot). Usually it's fun for the students, and helps first timers get used to the weight and feel of the skis. Also good for mobility, bending knees, moving feet and such. Makes the kids feel more comfortable on the skis once they are on a slope, so often they can break out of the snowplow quicker. Also I think someone already mentioned turning uphill. This is also a good drill, especially if there is some sort of bank running parallel to the fall line of the slope, turning up this and back down on to the run will force the skis parallel at some point and is low risk, as the learner will slow down as their skis go parallel.
 
I have to ask. I have seen so many complicated ways of showing KIDS not adult skiers how to break out of the pie mode on this thread. Do the kids have any fun skiing with you guys?!! Keep it simple, keep it fun. Keep them logging mileage under their skis. They will learn more from extra runs/turns then they will from any of these excersizes off the hill. Plus its more fun. Oh and nobody cares what level you were certified as an instructor(I am PSIA level 3 dipshit that no one cares about). It by no way means you are an effective teacher! Get results and then get the respect as a good instructor.

Another thing I have seen teaching of late that drives me nuts is young instructors trying to teach way more in a session than ever should be attempted with a kid. In short, most not a good enough instructors yet to teach experts, so thats why you are working with a kid in the first place. The goal of teaching and skiing with kids should be to make it so much fun, that they cannot wait until they can get back in their boots.
 
transition from snowplow to parallel is all about choosing the right path, large round turns with a long traverse will force them to go to parallel on the traverses, then just increase the speed and make the turns bigger and more round and they'll have to go parallel :)

 
Exactly This. Add a game into it to make it fun and watch the class teach itself. You can then think about the big pow line you got planned on for the following day when you dont have to teach kids how to ski. Hopefully for you it will only last a season or two and you can move on to teaching the better skiers. If the ski school is worth a shit, most of the kids teachers will be almost kids themselves. 18-20yrs old. The goal is to make the kids have fun to love the sport and at the same time, progress yourself into a better skier and teacher. You gotta move up for that shit.

 
I was talking about lower levels. Level 3s and 4s will often lift the inside ski and still be in a wedge. They are completely aframed and on opposing edges or would be if the inside ski was on the ground.

I worked with so many people who learned how to ski totally outside foot dominant. Usually they learned to ski on the East Coast like I did. These people can't ski bumps or powder until you get them to stand on both or their feet. If you try to get them to slide a butter box, they destroy themselves.

I completely agree with helping them to learn how to use turn shape to control speed. It's also good to use terrain to help them out of the wedge, like having them start the turn on top of a knoll and finish it on the backside. That will often make them skid their skis spontaneously. It's still really good to get them thinking about keeping their weight more evenly distributed on both feet. It makes it so much easier on them. I can't tell you how many times I have just told people to shift some weight to the inside ski and magic happens.
 
Oh, so basically a little bit of a foot staggering? I hadn't really thought of doing that. I also like that visual example you used, now I have a good way of describing it.

Thank you very much Mr. Huck, I know you could probably show me within 2 minutes how to do it, but I might forget some of it. Personally, having these exercises & tips written out are a world of help. It will kind of help jog my memory if I make a note of it in my phone.
 
Glad to help.

One last point. Tell to and help them to keep their feet moving. Meaning that the lead change/stagger should happen without any dead spots. You can get them to simulate like cross countrying. Feet sliding back and forth to propel them without any jerkyness or spots where the feet stop. Hope that makes sense. It's something that you can really feel if you are teleing. It's like your feet keep moving past each other back and forth, but they never completely stop. The stagger maxes out toward the end of the turn and then comes back to even as you are initiating the next turn.

Tell them to pretend that they have a bungee chord going from their right hand to their right foot and from their left hand to their left foot. Tell them to reach forward to plant their pole and feel the bungee pulling the inside foot into the turn. That usually works pretty good.
 
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