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Piste Conditions

Posted on
December 12, 2008

Hello everybody from a very cold Méribel, which is currently suffocating underneath yet another fresh thick blanket of snow. I can't believe how well the winter season has started. Every piste that I've skied on this week has felt creamy, fluffy, velvety, forgiving, dreamy and any other words that spring to mind........If you've been lucky enough on previous holidays to have had these sensations, then you know what I mean, it's very hard to put into words. Anyway, this is how it is right now, every turn, every piste, each day, even on the way home at the end of the afternoon. Now before you strike me off your list of friends and walk past ignoring me in the (snowy) street, I just want to mention one more thing, there's nobody here, it's deserted. I just love early season skiing.

Early season skiing is exactly what Rick and Paul came out for this week. Their goal for the first few days with me was to kickstart their skiing. For example fine tuning balance, double-checking the quality of steering and making sure that no new bad habits creep in. It really doesn't matter what standard of skier you are, it's all very important stuff. Rick and Paul are at a very high level, so it didn't take long for me to really dive further into their performance: using my video camera helped with this.

Sometimes it's easy to become obsessed with technique, but we found it useful to learn and understand what else can affect performance. We spoke about the relationship between technique, tactics and pyschology. In conjunction with using the video, we broke down what would happen if we changed one of these three inputs. We also found it useful to talk about these inputs in sports that they participate in back home, golf and tennis. This helped the understanding further by comparing these sports to skiing. What I found interesting was that as soon as we went back out onto the mountain, they were both ripping around in control and with playfulness. I was really pleased with how those sessions went.

So what is there to look forward to in the coming week? Lisa had her first lesson of the winter this afternoon, see us together below, with more to follow this week. Helen and Olivia are also arriving at the weekend. Last December Helen unfortunately got hit by some rotter on the slope, and has spent most of the last 12 months recovering with a couple of operations on her shoulder and heaps of rehab. She emailed me last night and told me that she could not wait to get back on skis again. So with more lifts opening at the weekend, my job is to find some quiet slopes (that won't be difficult) and build her confidence back up again. Also the World Cup circus is coming to Méribel next week, with the first round of the bumps season long competition. I personally can't wait to see these rubber-legged individuals in action.

In the meantime, have a good week everyone, and don't forget to keep fit over the festive holiday period. You are all staying fit, right?

Martin

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