I led a clinic today with about a dozen other instructors. The focus was on the PSIA milestone called basic parallel turn. Just in case you don’t know the milestones, they are wedge, wedge cristi, basic parallel turn, and dynamic paralell turn. It was very obvious to me that we can focus on a specific manuver and do movement analysis for that particular manuver to determine specific needs of individual skiers. This would be true for any of the four basic milestone manuvers. Reinforced to me was the fact that how someone is able to perform any of these manuvers will show movement patterns that help or hinder their overall skiing. These four manuvers display the appropriate combination of skills necessary to perform the maunver which display and show a mastery of the necessary skills for great skiing at any level.

At first is was a little intimidating to have a dozen other instructors, and my supervisor, as well as a couple of other upper level instructors watching my performance. I think I was able to keep the clinic on task and I hope everyone got at least one thing that could understand to improve their skiiing over all.

I think the single most important movement, as a group, was to improve/enhance ankle flexion, both flexed and extended (some were levered on the front of their boots, others didn’t flex at all). The other most important element was to get them to slow down. The Basic Parallel turn needs to be demonstrated to students like you want them to do it. Once we slowed everyone down we were more able to see the movement patterns and turning mechanisms they were using and thus give them constructive feedback on how to improve their overall skiing.