It’s not Stupid

[karlo]

On the matter of testosterone,

https://www.pugski.com/threads/testosterone-increases-performance-whaaatttt.16728/#post-396277

I wrote

In the context of skiing, that would explain it. One needs to do some pretty non-intuitive, “stupid”, things to advance.

That got me thinking. How can the function of a good turn be explained, off ski’s, in order to get buy-in from a new skier or a skier that is having trouble advancing, so that the idea of “throwing ourselves downhill” is no longer “stupid”?

One recent thought I had was to review the physics. More detail and demonstration would help, but the concept that a turn is acceleration. Acceleration takes energy. Falling from a high place to a low place converts potential energy to kinetic energy. That kinetic energy can be used to increase our velocity down the hill. Or, it can be used to turn the skis. The amount of energy is fixed. Hence, any energy used to turn the skis is no longer available to increase our velocity down the hill. That’s the concept. The method by which this is conveyed and demonstrated off Snow is another thing.

After buy-in of that, then the concept we don’t throw ourselves down the hill. We control a constant velocity at which it goes down, rather than alternately slowing and accelerating down the hill, which requires uninterrupted linking of turns.

Uninterrupted linking of turns requires body position to get the turn started high and early, a body position that is static relative to hill.

Any comments on this concept as a path to understanding, particularly for someone who is stuck with no apparent physical impediment? Any other paths?

 

[LiquidFeet]

Convincing an intermediate skier to "get" their body/CoM downhill of their skis at turn initiation is very difficult. One can convince them that it's an important thing to do in order to advance their skills, an instructor can show them how to do it and demonstrate what the benefits are, some instructors might even decide to discuss physics on the hill (not recommended, though), but the student's body is likely to resist doing it.

Rational understanding can be inadequate to overpower the desire for self-preservation. Tactics for self-preservation - when falling is possible as it is in skiing - have been formulated from experience on sticky surfaces over the life of the skier. Those tactics are wrongly calibrated for the slippery tilted surface of skiing, but the desire to go home unharmed and use what's worked in the past to make that happen is still in charge.

In my experience, means other than verbal explanation need to be employed. The skier needs to be "fooled" into doing it. Or the skier needs to trust the instructor so deeply that mimicking the instructor's dangerous-looking movements happens without hesitation. I never point out that the body will end up downhill of the skis when I work on this with skiers.

Once a skier has done some move that "gets" the skis uphill of the body and the body downhill of the skis, and notices that good things happen and that legs do not break, skis do not take off out of control, and life is not lost, then progress is possible.

 

[Sibhusky]

Personally, telling me about acceleration is not going to help! Why would someone who is leaning back want to hear about acceleration?

I've talked about maximum control of the ski being exerted when the skier is perpendicular to the slope of the hill, but as I'm not an instructor (at all), I've never gone beyond that. At least when I'm doing hand demonstrations of this it's not as scary sounding.

Telling people to throw themselves down the hill works better once they've actually done it a few times. Then it's a mental nudge instead of a panic attack.

 

[KingGrump]

After buy-in of that, then the concept we don’t throw ourselves down the hill. We control a constant velocity at which it goes down, rather than alternately slowing and accelerating down the hill, which requires uninterrupted linking of turns.

Not sure I am getting your meaning correctly. When I am skiing, My velocity is never constant. Whether my body or my skis. Velocity has both a speed and a direction component. Change either one and the "velocity" changes.
For my skis, they are almost always changing directions constantly. Even if I disregard the constant direction changes, the speed of the ski changes up through out the turn. Perhaps I am skiing wrong and just didn't know it.

 

[mister moose]

How can the function of a good turn be explained, off ski’s, in order to get buy-in from a new skier or a skier that is having trouble advancing, so that the idea of “throwing ourselves downhill” is no longer “stupid”?

One recent thought I had was to review the physics. More detail and demonstration would help, but the concept that a turn is acceleration. Acceleration takes energy. Falling from a high place to a low place converts potential energy to kinetic energy. That kinetic energy can be used to increase our velocity down the hill. Or, it can be used to turn the skis. The amount of energy is fixed. Hence, any energy used to turn the skis is no longer available to increase our velocity down the hill. That’s the concept. The method by which this is conveyed and demonstrated off Snow is another thing.

After buy-in of that, then the concept we don’t throw ourselves down the hill. We control a constant velocity at which it goes down, rather than alternately slowing and accelerating down the hill, which requires uninterrupted linking of turns.

Uninterrupted linking of turns requires body position to get the turn started high and early, a body position that is static relative to hill.

Any comments on this concept as a path to understanding, particularly for someone who is stuck with no apparent physical impediment? Any other paths?

Let's clean up that thinking just a little. Kinetic energy doesn't give you speed, kinetic energy IS speed, mv². A turn doesn't decrease speed necessarily, just ask a decent racer. I think your point is better asked without the energy physics and just pay attention to the fear and lack of a certain necessary skill*.

Once a skier has done some move that "gets" the skis uphill of the body and the body downhill of the skis, and notices that legs do not break, life is not lost, and skis do not take off out of control, then progress is possible. I never point out that the body will end up downhill of the skis when I work on this with skiers.

I think this applies to more than just turn initiation. I think it applies to the entire turn. The skier transitioning from a static posture to a dynamic posture need to learn how to move the COM (center of mass) independently of the feet. That can happen slightly at the intermediate level, as the COM can move from the center of the feet, but not go farther than the feet. Getting the COM to move in beyond the inside foot takes a new level of skill by the intermediate skier. Why? Because once the COM moves beyond the inside foot, dynamic balance must exist. Before that, static balance can still rule your world.

The skill* that must be learned is where to position the COM relative to turn radius and speed. It's a part bundled into what we mysteriously refer to as balance, a very large bucket of skills. Normal upright balance (COM over feet) doesn't provide the training to do this, it must be learned. I haven't seen this addressed much, other than the obvious gradual introduction, increasing turn intensity gradually, smoothly, so the advancing skier imbeds this new kind of awareness.

Truly advanced skiers learn where to anticipate and place their COM in advance of the feet being in a new place, the skis steered in a new direction, and the edges set on a new edge, and how to make small adjustments in all of those to maintain equilibrium. In other words, the feet are moving laterally, either across the hill completing the prior turn, or actively being retracted. If the skis are now steered towards downhill at the completion of the prior turn, and a new edge is set, the body needs to anticipate where to move (the COM) to be dynamically balanced for the new turn's forces. And that new spot feels downhill of the prior spot. For me, sometimes as you move a little too far to the new turn, you can feel yourself "falling" just a wee bit. Then the skis bite and provide dynamic support. This is what feels most like throwing yourself down the hill. For small errors with good skills, you have plenty of time to correct. Just like when you point skis straight down a steep slope, an advanced skier has way more time than they need to make a turn before the speed builds to an unacceptable level. Being straight down the fall line for a quarter second is perfectly fine. On the turns where you anticipate without error, all you feel is balanced support, but you are still aware of your motion relative to your feet.

 

[Unpiste]

One recent thought I had was to review the physics. More detail and demonstration would help, but the concept that a turn is acceleration. Acceleration takes energy. Falling from a high place to a low place converts potential energy to kinetic energy. That kinetic energy can be used to increase our velocity down the hill. Or, it can be used to turn the skis. The amount of energy is fixed. Hence, any energy used to turn the skis is no longer available to increase our velocity down the hill. That’s the concept. The method by which this is conveyed and demonstrated off Snow is another thing.

This is not actually correct from a physics perspective (as others have pointed out).

It's been a while since I've been in a physics classroom, but here's my attempt at something vaguely intuitive: Kinetic energy, in physics, is transferred via work, which is the product of force and displacement. Since it is effectively impossible for a skier to displace Earth (as in, the planet), it is similarly effectively impossible for a skier to do work on Earth. A skier does not lose kinetic energy to the turn itself, because any force a skier exerts on Earth is opposed by an equal and opposite force exerted by Earth on the skier. From this, conservation of energy tells you that, absent other forces, two skiers who start at the same point and cross another point on the slope below will be moving at precisely the same speed as the pass that point. (They may be moving different directions, of course.)

Energy is lost to a variety of essentially frictional-like effects. You have air resistance and the friction of the skis sliding across snow, of course. (In a perfect carve on hardpack, these are the primary factors that slow you down.) Then, you have energy lost to changing the configuration of the snow itself. Compaction, skidding, etc. all involve to varying degrees snow sliding against itself, resulting in friction, as well as the breaking of chemical bonds holding ice crystals together, which also requires energy. And of course, there's energy lost within the body itself. (If you land a jump and don't slide, you're primarily just converting your kinetic energy to heat within your body.)

Undoubtably there's more I'm missing, but going "fast" on skis is primarily just a combination of route selection (since a shorter route at the same speed is faster) and minimizing losses due to other effects (which is why racers wear speed suits, skid as little as possible, and don't generally absorb turns with their legs).

 

[Josh Matta]

On the matter of testosterone,

https://www.pugski.com/threads/testosterone-increases-performance-whaaatttt.16728/#post-396277

I wrote



That got me thinking. How can the function of a good turn be explained, off ski’s, in order to get buy-in from a new skier or a skier that is having trouble advancing, so that the idea of “throwing ourselves downhill” is no longer “stupid”?

One recent thought I had was to review the physics. More detail and demonstration would help, but the concept that a turn is acceleration. Acceleration takes energy. Falling from a high place to a low place converts potential energy to kinetic energy. That kinetic energy can be used to increase our velocity down the hill. Or, it can be used to turn the skis. The amount of energy is fixed. Hence, any energy used to turn the skis is no longer available to increase our velocity down the hill. That’s the concept. The method by which this is conveyed and demonstrated off Snow is another thing.

After buy-in of that, then the concept we don’t throw ourselves down the hill. We control a constant velocity at which it goes down, rather than alternately slowing and accelerating down the hill, which requires uninterrupted linking of turns.

Uninterrupted linking of turns requires body position to get the turn started high and early, a body position that is static relative to hill.

Any comments on this concept as a path to understanding, particularly for someone who is stuck with no apparent physical impediment? Any other paths?

The thing is you missed the mark in the first sentence one. a functional good turn explained off skis is absolutely useless. Thinking about it will NEVER get you there and thinking learning types need to accept that doing and feeling what they do is the only way to improvement.

Its also never a throw yourself down the hill. Its moving to wear your skis are going to be before they get there. An easy explanation to someone who understand a ball sport, is you pass the ball a head of the player and the player has to catch up to it but realistically I feel this does little for most people.

My own wife struggled with honestly still struggles with moving down the hill, explanation by me and several L3+ including examiners and national team candidates got nowhere for years. I literally sat there and said she did it wrong for 100s of ski days, because telling someone they are doing a movement when they are not doing it does no one any good. it wasnt until I convinced her to try high siding on purpose in 3 feet of powder did she learn it. When she finally found that point she did describe it as nearly falling down.

Technically speaking your COM needs to move inside of your BOS early in the turn or every turn you ever do will be a crap. We can argue for days about the movements that get you there but for me, and how I perceive it is that my new inside legs tips/flexes and lightens to let my COM move into the new turn with out being blocked. Many people "block" because of the security they feel, that security is false though and leading to many more issues including speed gain. Their are several prominent posters on here who are "blockers" I wont name them but you probably know who you are.

also more people need more time doing these moves. If you time on snow is limited and you have single track trails to learn to MTB on, you can repeat this moves anytime you ride single track. The correct COM over BOS and projecting down the hill is the same on a MTB with a lowerered seat. While everyone talks about skiing and tries to conceptilize the movements its a ton better top just go out and practice the movements, 100s, 1000s, maybe millions of times.

 

[Unpiste]

In my experience, rational understanding can be inadequate to overpower the desire for self-preservation. Tactics for self-preservation - when falling is possible as it is in skiing - have been formulated from experience on sticky surfaces over the life of the skier. Those tactics are wrongly calibrated for the slippery tilted surface of skiing, but the desire to go home unharmed and use what's worked in the past to make that happen is still in charge.

In my experience, means other than verbal explanation need to be employed. The skier needs to be "fooled" into doing it. Or the skier needs to trust the instructor so deeply that mimicking the instructor's dangerous-looking movements happens without hesitation.

I think this is key and it really applies at all levels. Simply put, if you're on terrain that forces you to ski defensively, you're going to have a very hard time picking up new skills.

I'd say that especially at higher levels, the need to "fool" the skier diminishes. I certainly find this sort of instruction to be less effective than simply telling and/or showing me what I'm supposed to do, for instance. Nevertheless, if you put me on terrain where all I'm looking at is what I don't want to do to avoid getting hurt, I'm not going to be trying any moves I don't already trust 100%. If you're trying to get me to do something I don't trust, it's going to require a really good explanation vs. just doing the same thing someplace where I don't need to worry about getting hurt.

Of course, "someplace where you don't need to worry about getting hurt" is going to mean different things to different people. For an intermediate, this might mean a moderate green. For someone else, that could be a bump-filled double-black.

 

[Josh Matta]

I think this is key and it really applies at all levels. Simply put, if you're on terrain that forces you to ski defensively, you're going to have a very hard time picking up new skills.

I'd say that especially at higher levels, the need to "fool" the skier diminishes. I certainly find this sort of instruction to be less effective than simply telling and/or showing me what I'm supposed to do, for instance. Nevertheless, if you put me on terrain where all I'm looking at is what I don't want to do to avoid getting hurt, I'm not going to be trying any moves I don't already trust 100%. If you're trying to get me to do something I don't trust, it's going to require a really good explanation vs. just doing the same thing someplace where I don't need to worry about getting hurt.

Of course, "someplace where you don't need to worry about getting hurt" is going to mean different things to different people. For an intermediate, this might mean a moderate green. For someone else, that could be a bump-filled double-black.

people can and will still ski very defensive on terrain they claim they are comfortable on. I think one of the best things a "blocker" can do is go ski easy terrain that they always feel like they are going to slow on.

 

[Unpiste]

people can and will still ski very defensive on terrain they claim they are comfortable on. I think one of the best things a "blocker" can do is go ski easy terrain that they always feel like they are going to slow on.

That sounds like exactly what I was suggesting. What terrain a person claims to be comfortable on doesn’t enter the equation.

This is the approach both Taos ski weeks I’ve done have taken, for instance. Even the top level groups spend plenty of time working on skills on what, for the group, is very easy terrain.

 

[Seldomski]

I found skating downhill a very gentle green is a good way to feel your mass project downhill, ahead of the skis. If you hold onto the skate stride, you will actually make a turn. As you start to turn on alternating feet, you can stop skating, but still allow you body to project down the hill.

This skating progression started first on a totally flat pitch -- skate with progressively longer strides. You will start to carve turns once your angles are high enough. Then take this to a very very gentle green. Try in a traverse, then try skating directly downhill.

At the time, I was on a narrow carving ski, which certainly helped really feel the bend and sensation of carving. This may not be as successful on a wider or stiff ski with little sidecut.

Edit to add: I am with others posting here that explaining the physics will not help the person in the moment. You need to create the sensation. Talking about 'acceleration' and 'energy' will not help most people have this kind of breakthrough.

 

[Josh Matta]

yeah I know the PSIA is pro skating, and thinks it leads to people moving down the hill, but I personally have never seen it stop from someone blocking their movement because its doesnt address the two underlying problems with blocking. Getting the new inside legs to edge/flex/and unweight, and letting the COM move across the skis.

I do find skating down the hill absolutely terrifying on small boards with tons of sidecut unless the hill is very flat.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....We can argue for days about the movements that get you there but for me, and how I perceive it is that my new inside legs tips/flexes and lightens to let my COM move into the new turn with out being blocked. Many people "block" because of the security they feel, that security is false though and leading to many more issues including speed gain.....[/MEDIA]

^^ This.

 

[Seldomski]

@Josh Matta - yep, I agree that the skating doesn't stop the blocking at turn completion. But for someone who has never put their CoM out there down the hill ahead of the skis, skating is a way to get them started. They won't be making linked carves, but at least the turn initiation may improve. They could get a carved turn into a traverse (blocked), then start the next turn, go into traverse (blocked again), etc. I don't think @karlo was talking about getting someone to link carves with flexion/absorption at transition, just getting them to make that first leap of faith into a carved turn with the body in front of the feet.

 

[karlo]

Not sure I am getting your meaning correctly. When I am skiing, My velocity is never constant. Whether my body or my skis. Velocity has both a speed and a direction component. Change either one and the "velocity" changes.
For my skis, they are almost always changing directions constantly. Even if I disregard the constant direction changes, the speed of the ski changes up through out the turn. Perhaps I am skiing wrong and just didn't know it.

Hope I can express my meaning more clearly. The constant velocity I refer to is in the idealized situation, a boundary condition for conveying a concept only, in which the COM is going straight down. One can go straight down without turning the skis (go faster and faster straight down). Or, one can go down while turning the skis. Turning the skis changes their velocity (direction). Change in velocity is acceleration (we can feel the sideways acceleration when we turn our cars around a corner). Accelerating requires force. Application of the force absorbs energy, specifically the portion of kinetic energy that is going towards downwards velocity of the COM. Hence, turns are acceleration, turns use energy, turns reduce energy available for downhill COM-velocity.

The less ideal and more realistic situation is that not only are the skis turning, but our COM is also being projected side to side as we go downhill. That also requires forces. That absorbs energy and reduces that which is available to accelerate our COM straight down the hill.

If this is a correct concept, then the question is how to convey it to someone in a way that is more understandable and can be demonstrated off skis.

Kinetic energy doesn't give you speed, kinetic energy IS speed, mv²

Agreed.

If the skis are now steered towards downhill at the completion of the prior turn, and a new edge is set, the body needs to anticipate where to move (the COM) to be dynamically balanced for the new turn's forces.

Getting the COM to move in beyond the inside foot takes a new level of skill by the intermediate skier. Why? Because once the COM moves beyond the inside foot, dynamic balance must exist

Yes, and we can demonstrate that in our normal dryland activities. @Josh Matta shows that we do it when we bike. We do it when we run,

and when we ride

Moving COM inside of BoS is not an unfamiliar thing. The new thing is doing it on a slippery slope. So, the question, how to convince someone that doing this on skis is not throwing oneself downhill? It's allowing oneself to continue downhill, to collect energy, energy that can be used to turn a ski that in-turn slows us down? How to convince someone that they already threw themselves downhill when they started skiing, that they are not repetitively throwing themselves downhill with each turn, that the turns are simply controlling the speed at which they (COM) are going down?

Its also never a throw yourself down the hill. Its moving to where your skis are going to be before they get there.

Hadn't thought of it that way, but you're right. We are turning the skis towards the center of a circle. We have moved our COM to the center of that circle. The runner and the rider and the biker has moved COM in the direction that their feet, horse, or bike are heading.

While everyone talks about skiing and tries to conceptualize the movements its a ton better to just go out and practice the movements, 100s, 1000s, maybe millions of times.

For sure. But, as I've learned in my own PT, using the wrong movements over and over again just reinforces a movement, making it very difficult to correct.

I think this is key and it really applies at all levels. Simply put, if you're on terrain that forces you to ski defensively, you're going to have a very hard time picking up new skills.

That's right to the point. Even if the concept is bought into, if one's instincts prevail, no way the right movement patterns will be developed. Safe, in the skier's mind, terrain is ultra important. I dislike it when a student is promoted to another level when an instructor says he or she made it down this slope or that slope. The question is, in what manner did the student get down that slope?

The skier needs to be "fooled" into doing it.

you could blindfold them on a very, very gentle slope.​

it wasnt until I convinced her to try high siding on purpose in 3 feet of powder did she learn i

What is high siding?​

 

[Unpiste]

The thing is you missed the mark in the first sentence one. a functional good turn explained off skis is absolutely useless. Thinking about it will NEVER get you there and thinking learning types need to accept that doing and feeling what they do is the only way to improvement.

I actually disagree with this statement, with caveats.

As a thinking-learning-type, there have been multiple occasions where the thing that ended up making a particular movement work was really thinking through a good explanation of the movement I was aiming for, "feeling" it, effectively, and then trying to replicate what I imagined on skis. You're certainly not going to learn to ski without ever trying things on snow, and each time you do that, you're refining your own internal mental model for the next time you try to think through something, but this can actually be a really useful tool for the right person.

 

[Josh Matta]

its when you move so far into a turn and down the hill you fall down, when done in control in powder there is no risk, I realize most people wont have access to that condition but I always use what I have to teach.

 

[Unpiste]

Hope I can express my meaning more clearly. The constant velocity I refer to is in the idealized situation, a boundary condition for conveying a concept only, in which the COM is going straight down. One can go straight down without turning the skis (go faster and faster straight down). Or, one can go down while turning the skis. Turning the skis changes their velocity (direction). Change in velocity is acceleration (we can feel the sideways acceleration when we turn our cars around a corner). Accelerating requires force. Application of the force absorbs energy, specifically the portion of kinetic energy that is going towards downwards velocity of the COM. Hence, turns are acceleration, turns use energy, turns reduce energy available for downhill COM-velocity.

The less ideal and more realistic situation is that not only are the skis turning, but our COM is also being projected side to side as we go downhill. That also requires forces. That absorbs energy and reduces that which is available to accelerate our COM straight down the hill.

If this is a correct concept, then the question is how to convey it to someone in a way that is more understandable and can be demonstrated off skis.

[Emphasis added.]

This is not correct. Application of a force over distance transfers ("absorbs") energy. Application of a force to an object that does not move (hardpack on a mountain) does not transfer kinetic energy from the skier, but it does change the skier's velocity.

One way to think about this is a ball connected to a peg with a string (so that it's able to rotate freely around that peg). Give it a spin, and absent friction, it will keep moving forever even though its velocity is constantly changing. (If the highlighted quote were correct, the ball would stop after traveling 90° around the peg.) Satellites in orbit are another example.


I think the confusion results from imagining your skis suddenly engaging at an angle different from your direction of travel, akin to the situation of a ball being thrown against a wall at an angle. It is true that in this case, the portion of your velocity moving towards your suddenly-engaged edges must, in that moment, go somewhere. (Just like the ball isn't going to travel through the wall.) On skis, you're going to lose a lot of it to a combination of sliding (if you don't actually get the edges set immediately) and absorption within your body. A perfectly elastic ball, however, does not transfer any energy to the wall, it just changes velocity as it bounces.

In a perfect carve, you're always moving in the direction your skis are pointing. The force you feel is the force required to change your velocity, but, from the reference frame of the "immovable" Earth (which is the frame from which we're measuring speed), your kinetic energy does not change due to the turn itself.

 

[LiquidFeet]

I found skating downhill a very gentle green is a good way to feel your mass project downhill, ahead of the skis. If you hold onto the skate stride, you will actually make a turn. As you start to turn on alternating feet, you can stop skating, but still allow you body to project down the hill.
This skating progression started first on a totally flat pitch -- skate with progressively longer strides. You will start to carve turns once your angles are high enough. Then take this to a very very gentle green. Try in a traverse, then try skating directly downhill.
....

I inadvertantly discovered that beginners can learn to ski pretty much parallel, skipping the wedge altogether, on day one if they are taught with a skating progression. This needs to be taught on downhill terrain where they can't gain speed no matter how hard they try, or they will not feel like they can trust the instructor and fear will invade the lesson.

I discovered the beauty of a skate-progression on a below-zero day. My group's rental skis did not have cold wax and the skis wouldn't slide. My usual beginner progression was producing unimpressive results as they all struggled to move downhill. In my demos I'd have to skate to get to where I wanted to start the demo. At some point about midway through the lesson I was leading them down the hill and turned to see what they were doing behind me and holy g'mollie they were all skating towards me, very competently. They were copying what I was doing, not what I was teaching. We all celebrated how that was working, got a good laugh, and I continued the lesson with the emphasis on skating. They all ended up feeling very much in control and were skiing parallel at the end of this 1.5 hour lesson, with both skis staying on the snow between turns.

I've since tried this on normal days with beginner groups. It doesn't work on the beginner terrain available to me because of the fear factor.

I used it once with a middle-school never-ever private lesson on that same terrain, on a day when the skis would slide, only this time I had my student skating downhill in a wedge. She caught on immediately and clearly loved the feeling of control the skating and gripping skis gave her. She learned to use turn shape for speed control very well by the end of the one hour lesson. But she was still in a wedge, and I haven't repeated that progression since with adult groups. It's worth a try though.

Anyone else here used this kind of approach to teaching beginners?

 

[nesneros]

I inadvertantly discovered that beginners can learn to ski pretty much parallel, skipping the wedge altogether, on day one if they are taught with a skating progression. This needs to be taught on downhill terrain where they can't gain speed no matter how hard they try, or they will not feel like they can trust the instructor and fear will invade the lesson.

I discovered the beauty of a skate-progression on a below-zero day. My group's rental skis did not have cold wax and the skis wouldn't slide. My usual beginner progression was producing unimpressive results as they all struggled to move downhill. In my demos I'd have to skate to get to where I wanted to start the demo. At some point about midway through the lesson I was leading them down the hill and turned to see what they were doing behind me and holy g'mollie they were all skating towards me, very competently. They were copying what I was doing, not what I was teaching. We all celebrated how that was working, got a good laugh, and I continued the lesson with the emphasis on skating. They all ended up feeling very much in control and were skiing parallel at the end of this 1.5 hour lesson, with both skis staying on the snow between turns.

I've since tried this on normal days with beginner groups. It doesn't work on the beginner terrain available to me because of the fear factor.

I used it once with a middle-school never-ever private lesson on that same terrain, on a day when the skis would slide, only this time I had my student skating downhill in a wedge. She caught on immediately and clearly loved the feeling of control the skating and gripping skis gave her. She learned to use turn shape for speed control very well by the end of the one hour lesson. But she was still in a wedge, and I haven't repeated that progression since with adult groups. It's worth a try though.

Anyone else here used this kind of approach to teaching beginners?

I’m not an instructor, but I do recall my earlier learning days. I began with a wedge and by the end of my first lesson my uphill ski was naturally falling in line (wedge christie). From there I slowly worked more into parallel, but it wasn’t until I realized I could skate that parallel skiing really clicked for me.

Before skating, I would be a bit hesitant in the turn initiation and I required a lot of runway to complete a turn. This was a problem on cat tracks and tight spots, where I’d fall back to a wedge to maintain speed downhill. Once I realized I could skate at speed (and I say “realized” because it was just a matter of trying, having rollerbladed before it felt natural from the start), suddenly I started being able to make quick parallel turns. Something about skating feels a lot like parallel turn initiation, just a slight difference in how you handle the inside ski. Maybe it just gets you used to quickly shifting your weight.