Ski goddess returns to Treble Cone

Once Treble Cone opened I've been getting in quite a lot of skiing. Not only am I volunteering most weekends at Cardrona on the Adaptive program, I'm also doing some advanced skiing training with Rookies.

This time has been a real eye opener as Dean and Garrett have brought in some new trainers to provide a fresh insight into the mechanics of skiing. In my first week I had Reilly, an expert boot fitter and a former member of the Australian ski demo team. He taught us a lot about positioning our stance and bodies for maintaining a stable ski edge and to execute a basic short turn in all terrain. By the end of the week I was doing javelin turns down terrain I never would have thought possible five days previously! And I was pretty happy with my short turns, something I had comprehensively failed to demonstrate accurately during my Level 2 ski exams last year.

My second week got better. Tom Gellie, another Aussie demo team member, has taken his interest in anatomy and biomechanics to quite another level and has pulled apart the movements required to ski well into functional body movements that show you how to get edge angle, or flatten your skis, or angulation and separation at the absolute extreme of your functional movements. And about 3 or 4 ways to get yourself forward and leaning down that hill!! Having a highly tuned awareness of body positioning, and then moving body parts so they align your centre of mass into the correct position, allows the body to ski efficiently. Knowing how to get the body into those positions is something few ski schools ever teach students, or rather they teach generalisations rather than very specific biomechanics. A knowledge of anatomy definitely helps, but a good kinaesthetic awareness is crucial. The brilliance of his teaching is you not only can feel when you get it right (or wrong!) but you know exactly what movement you need to do to get yourself back in the right position when all goes pear shaped. The latter being a not uncommon occurrence!

At the start of the week I had woken a bit too early so decided to work on another aspect of my skiing: the psychological component. I've come a long way since my days of complete paralysing terror, through the use of a tool called EFT. Also known as "Tapping", this technique frees negative emotions that restrict personal growth. In my case I am still feeling apprehension and low grade fear when attempting to ski steep bumpy terrain, and it's much worse when the visibility is limited. Although this is understandable, dealing with the fear helps me to tackle the slope without an involuntary holding back. This holding back leads to physically leaning back in my skis, directly affecting my ability to face down a mountain and tackle bumps with the relaxed athletic approach required. So for a few minutes before getting up I recalled the emotions I'd felt a week or so ago when heading over the roller into the top section of Cloud Nine and tapped my way to a point where that emotion had dissolved. Then yesterday during training we went over that roller and I absolutely smashed a fast awesome run down that face to my beaming trainer below. I had completely forgotten that Monday session, but I knew when I got to the bottom of that slope that the EFT had worked. Zero fear, I just threw myself forward down that hill and smashed turn after turn. Oh what a feeling!!

The week with Tom has been a real eye opener, because I now feel, through his approach, that I understand much more clearly the physical blocks I have to becoming a very good skier. Through video analysis, I can now see where in my turns there are weaknesses, and what parts of my body and movements need to occur to correct them. Part of my physical limitations are due to a lack of flexibility in my hip joints and lower back, but whether I can correct this through stretching and off snow exercises only time will tell. But there is nothing like a challenge to get me motivated....

The third week I had Jonathan Ballou as my coach. Jonathan has over 20 years of experience teaching in both NZ and the USA, where he heads up ski development at Aspen. He was able to really tap in to the problem I had getting my weight onto my left leg when turning to the right, through making a very conscious movement with my hip, to essentially unweight my right leg. Simple, but totally effective. It took all week, but on the final day we nailed the problem and solution, and I was able to take that away and work on it.

My biggest problem with my skiing is having a very weak right turn. My left turn is actually very good, but if one side works badly it just sets you up wrongly for the next turn. Fixing this problem has been my focus this year, and Jonathon's guidance has allowed me to at last shift my weight effectively so I am not being thrown off kilter continuously. Almost everyone has a good and bad turn, but my legs were poles apart. Prefect vs reform school!

After my three weeks of training I spent the next 2 weeks very consciously working on the new movements. I know they are cementing in to my skiing because I feel so much more centred and controlled, and when I ski off piste I can feel the discomfort of skiing differently. Off piste terrain that I used to be able to ski easily has now become more difficult, simply because I am learning to ski it anew. The old way was wrong, the new way is right, but it's yet to feel "normal". This may be a weird concept for people to understand, as the vast majority of skiers think if they just keep skiing a lot they will eventually get better. Not true if your technique is wrong, you just get more comfortable at getting down the mountain, but you can't progress because your technique limits you.

Last week my ski buddy Kathy, whom I met first in Japan, turned up to do 3 weeks of training with the Rookie Academy as well. She's loving it.

I have continued to be involved with the volunteer adaptive program at Cardrona 1-2 days a week, and then last Sunday I had an accident and everything went pear shaped.

That's next....

I'm adapting

Back in Wanaka for the season and it's another waiting game as the snow gods refuse to deliver enough natural snow to get the ski fields cranking. Most of the main commercial fields are open using artificial snow to create enough cover on the trails, but it's poor pickings off piste. Treble Cone, despite having more snow guns this year, still relies on the natural stuff to make its mostly off piste terrain rideable. So for the second year in a row, it's opening day has been delayed....

Last year, during ski instructor training, it became increasingly obvious that a Level 2 qualification would not get me employment in the Northern Hemisphere ski fields. The initial plan had been to supplement my income with instructor employment whilst exploring more ski fields, but the big problem is visas, or rather the lack of ability to get a work visa once you are over 30.

The ski industry relies heavily on acquiring young staff travelling on working holiday visas. No sponsoring required, and the seasonal nature of ski field employment means that the working holiday visa requirements are fulfilled. (Mostly, employers cannot employ someone on a working holiday visa for more than six months). This situation feeds a good little industry in training and qualifying new instructors each year, many of whom may never work in the industry, or will do one or two seasons before pursuing a more lucrative professional career. Which means the vast majority of instructors teaching beginners to ski tend to have minimal experience themselves.

To work in the Northern Hemisphere ( at least, being Australian I can work in Oz and NZ no problems) I need a sponsored work visa, which doesn't happen without many years of experience and at least a Level 3 qualification. This essentially means making a commitment to taking on ski instructing as a career rather than as a sideline income. I'm not sure I'm prepared to do back to back winters to achieve this....

Last year I met an Alaskan ski tourer who suggested adaptive ski volunteering as an alternative way to supplement my northern hemisphere ski trips. Not being paid circumvents the visa issue, but there's likely to be a season pass or at least some free skiing thrown in. Many North American ski fields, in particular, have large adaptive programs, and getting a US work visa: forget it!!

Adaptive skiing is skiing for people with a disability, be it physical or cognitive or both. Having been a paediatrician and GP I've a vast experience with most disabilities and certainly don't suffer from apprehension of the unknown like most of the public might. I've also often railed against the negative thinking of bureaucracies that limit less abled people rather than look for opportunities, so this field actually ticks a lot of boxes for me. And I can even get a qualification out of it!!

So this year I have joined the Adaptive Volunteer Program at Cardrona. We started with a weekend of training, which involved learning about the equipment as well as the types of clients we would be accompanying around the mountain. Learning how to guide a blind person required us to pair up, then take turns at closing our eyes and trusting someone else to guide us through a lift queue, on and off the magic carpet and ski down a gentle slope. Then there was loading and strapping people in to sit skis, loading the sit ski onto and off a chairlift, and finally, guiding a sit ski down a mountain. Depending on the client's level of disability and experience, this can be anything from the client having full control, to tethering, where the sit ski is guided using ropes, to bucketing, where the sit ski is guided by holding on directly to the back of it. There are mono-ski and bi-ski set ups for the sit skis, and they turn differently, so there are a lot of new skills to learn. But bucketing a bi-ski is hellishly good fun. Those things turn on a pin!!

We also learnt how to use outriggers, used by one legged skiers and abled sit skiers, to provide lateral stability and control, and also techniques and strategies to manage clients with cognitive impairment. School kids with ADHD, Aspergers, Autism or Down Syndrome, are the most common impairments seen, and it's the volunteer's job to help the ski instructor in a school group to keep the kids all on track and skiing together as a group. And deal with the fallout if the kid loses the plot!!

There were a lot of people at the training weekend so although it was fun, there was a fair amount of waiting around for your turn to try the gear. There's more training available throughout the season but the best way will be to get the hours in. For my Level 1 certification I only need to have 4 days of volunteering but I'd rather get a lot more hours under my belt. Luckily, I have the time to do it, and with TC still closed, there's no time like the present.

So at the first opportunity, I jumped on it. This week I've had more training at tethering and bucketing, as well as loading onto the chairlift. I'm not yet fully confident with the bucketing and loading but happy to do more practice before letting me loose on clients. So after a couple of half days of further training I accompanied a couple of volunteers with an adult client with cerebral palsy and limited verbal communication. She required full bucketing but can do some steering by leaning her body, and turned out to be quite the speed freak. As a disabled sailor she sails independently using just a toe to control the boat (must be some awesome electronics involved) so she wasn't scared of adventure so we took her down to Captains and over a few unscheduled bumps! I helped block, which means skiing behind creating a triangulated barrier to protect the disabled skier from the other punters on the hill. Not an easy task with the myriad out of control skiers and boarders on that mountain now its school holiday season!!

What was really interesting was our feedback to each other after the session. Both the other two volunteers, despite both being ski instructors themselves, said they weren't comfortable with the small talk, whereas when I joined them and immediately built up a rapport and conversation with the client that really helped them. Although they did all the physical work, I provided the light entertainment!! Of course I have years more experience communicating with people with disabilities than they do, and zero apprehension about doing so, so I was really glad I could be so useful given I wasn't doing the lifting and steering work. It really is a team effort.

By the end of the session we had all had an awesome time, including our client who was grinning from ear to ear and even heard to chuckle loudly when I sussed out that she was a girl who loved speed and adventure. All of us volunteers got such a thrill out of the experience, and I'm sure the rest of the volunteers helping her out this week will have as much fun as we did.

Later in the week I will be volunteering with a lass with Down Syndrome. I'm looking forward to that.

In the interim, we've had more snow and Treble Cone is scheduled to open tomorrow.

At last!