Fulcrum Mechanism

There were not very many lessons today, so there was plenty of time to ski and work on our own technique. Early in the day we worked on fore and aft balance, the need to adjust your balance from the front to the back in order to stay "on top" of your skis. In the deep powder we currently have, being able to make this adjustment is vital. Too much forward and your skis dive in and make you stop, too much backward and you lose your balance and the skis shoot up and you end up on your butt. One of the exercises that helped me here was bouncing up and down in a straight run. It gave me a feeling for the snow and helped me to adjust to the bottomless powder.

As the snow gets more packed and we generally try to avoid the stuff that is so deep and stops you, my focus shifted today to the concept of the Fulcrum Mechanism. Here is how I've heard it explained. Lift one ski off of the snow and try to "turn" the ski that is on the snow without moving your upper body. It's impossible. Now with both skis on the snow, with both feet locked together, try and "turn" your feet without moving your upper body. It's pretty much impossible again. Now stand with your feet wider apart, at least as wide as you shoulders and try to "turn" your feet without moving your upper body. You can do it! This shows how much more effiecient it is to "turn" your feet without using your upper body if they are a comfortable distance apart. This is called the "Fulcrum Mechanism." What is happening is that in order for your feet to turn independantly from your upper body they need something to turn against while they have weight on them. While in motion, sliding down a hill, this feels like I am transfering pressure from one ski to the other new turning ski as I apply a steering movement to make my skis go a new direction.

I've known about this before, but getting reminded of it today was hugh for me. All of a sudden my upper and lower body were more separate. I didn't need to to exagerated upper body movements to get my skis to change directions. It felt much smoother and more efficient.

My First Students of the Season

The Mountaineers Program started yesterday. I've been assigned the advanced students. So far there are four youngsters in my class. All of them are back from last year. Two of them were with me before and the other two were with Brad. Parker, 13, and Jake, 12, were with me last year and Jack, 9, and Jessica, 10, were with Brad. It's a cohesive group with the two older boys and the two younger kids. I've been doing some reciprocal learning with them, having them ski with each other looking to see if the other is making the movements we're trying to do.

I find that with youngsters who have started skiing when they hardly have enough weight to flex their boots, they tend to compensate for their lack of ankle flexion by bending over at the waist and sitting back. They tend to bend more at the waist with their center of mass behind their feet. You also see a stiff outer leg. Since these four are a little bigger now, I was trying to get them to start flexing their ankles more. So most of the day we were looking at what happens in our skiing when we do flex our ankles. Through a little bit of explanation, lots of demonstration, and then practice, I hoped to show them how much easier it is to stay in balance if their flexion and extension movements begin in their ankles. The results I hoped for was a more centered stance, better edging capabilities, and easier steering because of their added abilty to flex and extend appropriately. By the end of the day I was seeing much less bending over at the waists and much less of those stiff outside legs. It looked to me like they were in better balance and not working so hard to get their skis to turn and control their speed.

Working Now! So Much Snow!

After 17 days of waiting past the scheduled opening date, Monarch opened yesterday. We went from zero percent open trails to enough snow for 100 percent open trails all at once. We got so much snow it was ridicules. I believe yesterday we were reporting over 60 inches at mid-mountain. That's five feet! The level of excitement was pretty high. Everyone was hootin' and holerin'. I was one of the crowd that took the Tumbelina chair first, heading for the Panorama chair. We often ski down a short blue run called B-Line to get to the Pano chair. As of yesterday morning it still had not been groomed. The snow was so deep we could hardly get down it. I think one of the funniest sites I've ever seen at Monarch was looking back up B-Line and seeing so many people up near the top wallowing around in the snow trying to get back up. Everyone was so excited to get to ski deep powder, and yet so many were having such a hard time just trying to get down the hill! My first run of the season at Monarch was High Anxiety. It's one of our steeper runs and usually doesn't even open until sometime in January after we've had enough snow. This is the first time I've ever seen runs like High Anxiety, Kanonan, Lobo, Examiner all opened on the first day! I wish I could say it was great skiing down it, but in reality it was hard work putting first tracks down. The snow was so deep that we could barely make it down. Then if you fell you were likely in for an ordeal trying to get back up.

I was thinking about the class I was going to have and the unique challenges we were likely to encounter with so much snow. The Mountaineers students I was anticipating were likely to not even be as tall as the snow was deep. At first I thought I was going to have to find some florescent tape to string from their skis to make it easier to find them if they fell. But then after skiing a little bit, I knew we would not be doing any powder skiing. I'd decided we were going to pretty much stay on any groomed slopes we could find. One fall and we could be stuck on run for a long time.

Saying the amount of snowfall we just got was extreme would be putting it mildly. I was brought back to my mountaineering days and reminded of the dangers and challenges Mother Nature can throw at you. I have a renewed respect for the mountains and remember their vastness and how small we are.

Should Be Working

Well we still do not have enough snow to open. I'm kinda bumming. I should have been working since the day before Thanksgiving. Our ski school wants us to reschedule our days to add days later in the season, of course during busy times, to make up for the days we're missing now. If we don't open pretty soon, I'm not sure I can fit in 90 plus days into the season. I'm going to have to ask about this.

I've been spending so much time looking at EpicSki and getting friends over in MyMonarchSpace that I have neglected this blog. The real intent for this blog though is to talk about my students and how lessons go. Once we get going expect to see daily entries.

Ski Forum Filled with Great People and Links

A heckler called out "Have you seen Epci Ski? They got Bob Barnes over there." This was during my talk in front of about 100 Monarch instructors about the MyMonarchSpace (here I go mentioning MMS again). Needless to say that I had to check it out for myself.

She was right, over at http://www.epicski.com/ there truly is a wealth of information about skiing, great links to other ski related sites, and best of all some of the best snow sport instructors from all over the universe posting comments and discussing great stuff. You'll find Bob Barnes, Weems Westfeldt, Ric Ricter, and Stu Cambell and lots of others.

They have a section called EpicSki Instructor & Coach Listing where instructors from all over can register and offer their services.

In their Training and Technique section they have:

Technique
Fore/Aft Alignment
Footwork for Good Skiing
Release Timing
Tip Lead
Angulation
Anatomy of Turns
Inside Leg Extension
Elements of Edging
Absorption

Terrain/Conditions
Steeps
Ice
Powder
Skiing "in" Snow
Hopping Off Cornices

Moguls
General Tips
Active Feet & Legs
Efficiency in Moguls

Conditioning
Weight Training
Injury &Skiing

Body Mechanics
KISS Biomechanics
Movement Analysis

I found all kinds of cool links in these threads and some really great discussion going way back. And I'm just getting started. I haven't registered yet. At the moment I'm still in awe. I think there is much to learn there, especially in the practice of articulating all things skiing.

Activity at MyMonarchSpace

At this moment there are over 170 people that have joined MMS. Personally I find it a little adicting. It may wear off, but right now I keep going back to check out how many new friends I have, looking at new postings in the discussion/forum areas, and looking at the new uploads that members are posting.

I created a private group in MMS that I think our ski/ride school might use to help get announcements out to part-timers and instructors that live in other towns. I suggested to the marketing department that they register a new domain name to point to the MMS. I sense confusion about how to find it when talking to people. Currently the best way to get there is through a link on the www.skimonarch.com home page.

The effectiveness of helping students/guests to find me and book lessons on MMS has yet to be seen. It's just another piece of the marketing pie. I think I'm about done talking about MMS here. I'd like to continue looking at other instructor website/blog examples. This whole experience is turning up some very interesting online sites.

The MyMonarchSpace Intro Talk

The MyMonarchSpace seemed to be well received at the instructor re-hire orientation last Saturday. It looked like there were easily over a hundred instructors there. We sat through a bunch of policy and proceedure topics before it was my turn to talk about MMS.

I started by asking how many people knew what an online social network was. I'm not sure how many hands actually went up, but my impression was that the hands mostly belonged to the younger people in the crowd. The handout mentioned below was handed out which I used to remind myself of what to talk about next. My focus was on how the MMS could be used to help instructors promote themselves.

Our ski school director seems to be very much behind the MMS, although his focus seems to be more on how to use it as another avenue of communication. (I'm working on a "private" group in MMS for that purpose.) Hopefully the handout will provide easy instructions on where to start.

If even a fraction of the instructors joins the Snow Sports Instructors group on the MMS, we will easily have the largest group, at least for a while. As the winter goes on, I wouldn't be surprised if the Snowboarders group grows even larger.

There was actually some applause when it was time for me to sit down, which was cool. I got lots of comments afterwards about how cool the idea of a Monarch social network is. And during the talk a young lady instructor interupted for a couple of minutes to explain her perspective on "Friends" and how if they joined the MMS they didn't necessarily have to be Rick's (meaning me) friend. Aside from making me laugh a little, her enthusiasm warmed my heart. Her trying to convince people not to be afraid to sign-up was a good indicator.

A warning did come from a couple of people in the audience about posting pictures of guests without some sort of signed waiver. That kind of took me by surprise. I had not really thought of that issue. I guess I was assuming a verbal approval from my guests would be enough to allow me to post their pictures. I am even inclined to think guests will be happy that I would want to post pictures of them in my own forums. Hmmm, we'll have to think about that one.

Upcoming Posts

Some things I’ve been thinking about posting.

1. How the MyMonarchSpace presentation went on Saturday.
2. All the activity going on over at MyMonarchSpace.
3. Other blogs/ski forums I’ve been learning about (EpicSki.com).
4. Weems Westfault’s The Sports Diamond. (http://www.edgechange.com/)
5. Two new websites I have been asked to work on: SnowMonsters and NextSnow. http://www.snowmonsters.com/ and http://www.nextsnow.com/.
6. A few things I read again in The PSIA Core Concepts For Snowsports Instructors manual.
7. A friend asked me why he should blog and my response.

I think I’m overwhelming myself with too many items and it is causing me to have writer’s block. Now I’m wondering if this blog is making my butt look big.

Handout for Re-Hire Orientation Meeting

I'll be talking tomorrow for 10-15 minutes about the MyMonarchSpace. I created a handout to use at the meeting today.

It's my feeling that the MMS can be used by instructors to help promote themselves and improve by participating in online discussions and forums. As I said in earlier posts the MMS is wide open and will evolve by user contributions. I'm still looking for tricks and tips to help people sign up for bookings with me on the mountain.

How the whole concept will be received is still an unknown. I'm not even sure how many of our instructors even use email, let alone get involved with online social networks. The younger instructors are probably more apt to embrace the idea.

A couple of instructors so far have brought up the point (online and f2f) that they don't want anything that will just take up more time and create more work. And of course, naturally ski/snowboard school management does not want to create more work. I can totally understand that. But on a personal instructor's level, it's no skin off my back if other instructors don't want to take the time to market their own professional services by taking advantage of a such an easy to use and accessible means as MyMonarchSpace.

Getting Ready for New Season(s)

We have our re-hire employee orientation coming this Saturday. It's where we are officially re-hired for the new season, we go over all the policies and procedures important to us in ski/snowboard school, and get our uniforms and lockers. Most of us leave our boots and equipment at the area then as well. It's also a cool time to get reacquainted and say hi.

Later on we have required reorientation clinics on and off snow. These help to refresh our memories. I find that when we all get together and start talking and sharing, it all comes back pretty fast. You hear statements like, "Oh yeah, I remember that!" It seems like a lot of the younger or not as experienced instructors hesitate to speak up if they have questions or don't know the answers. Then on the other hand it seems like some instructors will continue to add and add more and more until we're beating a dead horse. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just an observation.

Off-piste over on Alpenglugen got me started on this blog entry. I thanked him for the quick quiz he has over there. I too forget the PSIA terms but remember the ideals. I think blogging is helping me a lot to get back into it. I'm feeling much more prepared this year than in years past. On the physical side though, I remember in years past feeling that first slide of the season on skis and thinking, "this feels just like yesterday!" For me, it shows the power of muscle memory.

There were some comments in off-piste's entry about skiing all year, switching from the Northern and Southern hemispheres. I'm one that would love to do the back-to-back seasons in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. I'm sure that the experience raises you up to a much higher level of professionalism, that is, as commenter sharpm said, if your knees can handle it.

Last year about this time I was seriously contemplating going to New Zealand for their winter after our winter to teach. I found the whole passport-work-permit-visa-having-enough-money thing too difficult for me at the time. Now that I know more about it, I'm hoping to take the right steps to make it happen for after this season. That is if I can also get past the am-I-going-to-miss-summer thing.