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I'm making what feels like skating motions, but they don't seem to be
getting me to anywhere effectively -- not even on smooth friendly snow on wide
flat land.
Answer:
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
There
are several possible reasons why you don't feel like your skating
actions feel like they're not getting you to anywhere. The quickest way to sort them out is with an instructor
right there watching you -- who can also easily diagnose if the problem is
more with the snow conditions or terrain or equipment, than with your own
capabilities or learning approach.
If your problem is not mainly something with the snow or terrain or
your equipment, then often it's related to one or more of these facts:
Basic skating is really not much like basic walking:
- Instincts and concepts from walking often get in the way of
learning to skate.
- Balance skills from walking and running do not help much with
balancing in skating.
- Methods of pushing forward from walking and running do not help much
with moving forward in skating. (Like in walking we push the
foot back in order to move our body forward -- but that doesn't work
much with skating skis.)
You really can fall down (will fall?) while learning to skate:
- The most effective ways to move forward in skating actually increase
the risk of falling while trying to learn them.
- So your body's built-in safety warning systems want to avoid them
and instinctively try to make you feel like you cannot do them.
- Adults over the age of 17 years have further to fall before hitting
the ground than a child age of 8 years.
- Intelligent adults over the age of 25 must deal consciously with the
knowledge that falling could have consequences. To their own body,
actually and personally.
Therefore, unless you've already got a solid feel for the basics of
skating from years of experience on ice skates or inline skates (like
"Rollerblades"), it really really helps to have some guidance from an
experienced professional ski instructor.
I feel OK skating on smooth friendly snow on wide flat land, but almost
anything trickier throws my skating for a loop.
Answer:
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
Maybe the situation that's giving you trouble is not "almost anything".
Maybe it's some specific thing that really is difficult (even though it
doesn't look that way to you).
Or maybe it's a combination of two tricky things.
Without an experienced instructor, how could you really know how hard
the situation really is?
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I've heard I should commit all my weight to one ski on each side, and
glide out toward each side. But when I try to do that, lots of times
I fall over out to the side.
Answer:
That's right. That's what can happen when you start on the path
to real skating -- when you strongly commit your body over one ski and
glide out toward one side on it.
As usual . . .
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
Things to watch our for and to work on:
- Make sure you are practicing in a space with lots of room so you're
in no danger of hitting other objects (or skiers) that might cause
bodily damage -- or at least make you afraid and hold back from trying
out more new moves that could be key for your learning process.
- Do not practice on hard or icy snow where you might bruise or even
break a bone it you fall down onto it. Even if you do not suffer
bodily damage or pain, the fear of it could hold you back from trying
out new moves that could be key for your learning process.
- Falling in toward your center is usually not a big problem:
You can learn to put your other ski down on the snow when you feel that
happening.
Falling out over on one side is trickier to handle.
- It's tempting to use your ski pole to try to keep from falling over
toward the outside. But in the long run your ski pole has more
important uses than this. And in the short run you can hurt
yourself from the sudden jolt when your pole tip instantly stops when it
catches in the snow -- and the handle end suddenly twists some of your
joints, or pokes into some soft body parts.
- A better recovery move to practice and learn is what I like to call
the "emergency chasseé" (pronounced
"shah-SAY") -- or for those who don't like French words, we can just
call it the "duh-DAH" recovery move.
Emergency quick-step (or duh-DAH):
- (0) When gliding out toward left side with all
your weight over your left ski, you feel yourself starting to fall over
even further to out toward the left. You notice you have some open
space available further out to the left in front of you, so you're in no
danger of colliding with anything.
- (1) So you quickly touch your right ski down onto
the snow alongside your left ski and roughly parallel to it. Then
quickly transfer all your weight to the right ski, and simultaneously
lift your left ski up off the snow.
- (2) Then put your left ski back down aimed even
further out toward your left side -- out where your body was about to
fall into.
- (3) Finally lift up your right ski and put all
your body weight on your left ski -- which is now underneath you where
it belongs.
- (4) If you do not want to continue going in this
new direction, make a quick turn or stop.
Practice: A good way to practice for the "emergency
quick-step"
move is to make deliberate quick-step moves going
around a curve in a wide smooth ski trail. Usually called
"step-turns" or "skate-turns". Start practicing them at slow speeds
on easy snow and terrain. As skill improves, can try higher speeds
and quicker variations in direction.
So I guess it would be more accurate just to call it
the "emergency quick step-turn" move.
Sometimes I catch my ski around the tip of one of my poles, and fall
over or almost.
Answer:
That's right. That's what can happen when you start on the path
to real skating.
There's no magical solution.
But it's usually a straightforward problem -- of trying to put two
different physical objects into the same space at the same time.
With the usual solutions:
- (a) Don't try it.
- (b) Get better at keeping the ski and the pole tip far enough apart
so can almost never happen.
- (c) Get better at detecting when it's about to happen and pull away
the pole tip or the ski very quickly.
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Walking -- sorta like walking on skating skis
Somebody said I look like I'm sorta walking, instead of really skating.
Answer:
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
The usual reason that someone is still sorta walking is that they've
found out that it still sorta works -- and for them it works consistently
and predictably -- even if not speedily or elegantly. And when they
tried some different moves, those often got them into trouble --
unpredictably. Or at least those moves felt rather scary.
An established history of fear and unpredictability is not likely to go
away just from reading something on a web page like this.
Much better bet to take a live face-to-face lesson from a professional
instructor with lots of previous experience in helping people work through
similar problems.
Classic -- sorta like semi-kick-and-glide on
skating skis
Somebody said I look like I'm still sorta doing classic striding or
trying to kick-and-glide. Instead of really skating.
Answer:
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
The usual reason that someone is still sorta striding is that they've
found out that it still sorta works -- and for them it works consistently
and predictably -- even if not speedily or elegantly. And when
someone has gotten very good at making their current approach work
for years and years, it can be very difficult to "make the leap" out into
something totally new.
Things to watch our for and to work on:
- Use true skating skis that are designed only for gliding. It
is definitely possible to skate on classic skis, but at this point you
probably need a complete break from anything like that.
- Make sure your skis have a good glide wax job which is well-suited
for the current snow conditions. So they provide no help at all
for any attempt you might make to get them to grip the snow a little.
The skis should feel ridiculously amazingly slippery on the snow.
You might need to rent "demo" skate skis in order to
get this level of glide.
Watch out especially when the snow is wet,
since to handle that the ski bases need a non-flat "structure" pattern
rolled or etched into their surface -- not just good wax.
Otherwise the base tends to "suck" on the snow by what is called
"surface tension".
Also watch out for using skis that are too stiff
for you when the snow is soft, because then tip and tail will dig
down into the snow no matter what special glide wax or "structure" you
put onto or into the ski base. Wait for a firm-snow day, or switch
to a different pair of (rental?) skis.
- The key exercise is to push the ski directly toward the side -- and
feel that push magically move you forward.
- Some people find this easier to feel when the put one ski into the
outside groove of one of those Classic-track parallel-pair of grooves.
Then repeatedly push out to the side with the tail of the other ski --
and feel that move your forward. (also called "marathon skate")
- The final exam for feeling this "magic" of skating is to try to
"slice" the ski slightly forward while pushing it directly out
toward the side.
Best bet still is to take a live face-to-face lesson from a
professional instructor with lots of previous experience in helping people
from the "classic-striding rut" achieve this key break-through into the
magic of true skating.
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If I keep touching my pole tips down any time I feel any tendency
toward falling -- and maybe sometimes even when I do not feel any -- then
I feel that gives me the best odds on not actually falling. So it
sorta works for me.
But I don't see strong confident skaters doing lots of little
pole-touches. I don't feel like I'm moving very strongly when doing
them. And I have a feeling I don't look very confident doing
them.
Answer:
Take some lessons from an official ski instructor at a good cross
country ski center with some very-wide safe-feeling learning trails.
It surely is tempting to use your ski poles to try to keep from falling
over.
But in the long run your ski poles have more important uses than this.
And in the short run you can hurt yourself from the sudden jolt when your
pole tip instantly stops when it catches in the snow -- and the handle end
suddenly twists some of your joints, or pokes into some soft body parts.
Most skiers can learn to keep their balance most of the time --
in some narrower or wider range of snow conditions and terrain situations -- without using
their poles to keep them from falling.
The really best way for most people to learn this is not so easy
to start trying: Find a wide safe gentle environment with good
snow and go "cold turkey" -- practice skating with no poles at all. Let your legs and body discover some new balance-perceptions and some new
recovery moves.
Best bet is to take a live face-to-face lesson from a professional
instructor with lots of previous experience in helping people work through
similar problems -- and might be able to suggest some other tricks and
exercises (perhaps easier than "cold turkey", or maybe harder).
There's so many possible ways to try to use ski poles with skating.
I'm afraid I might be doing something strange-looking with my poles.
Answer:
The problem with strange-looking pole moves is that they're so easily
visible to other people watching you -- even it they don't have much
negative impact on the real effectiveness of your skating.
Swimming -- One popular poling move is "swimming" with the arms:
moving the hands in a curved path around out to the sides
If you're not sure what else to do with your poles, just tuck them
under your arms, and focus on learning to skate with your legs.
I get passed by lots of other skiers when I skate.
Answer:
Maybe they're former Olympic competitors or collegiate champions.
Or genetic mutants. Or maybe they practice ski-skating 29 hours per
week. How can you know?
Or maybe they took lessons from a good instructor and practiced the
recommended exercises -- and it worked. And maybe they got lucky and
hit the perfect ski fit and base structure and glide wax for today's snow.
Simplest approach I know when I sense them coming is to pull off to the
side and stop and pretend to fiddle with my equipment.
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