by Keith and Heather Nicol
In the ski lessons that I
teach I like to give students a way of checking their ski improvement through
the season. Of course one way to do this
is to take more lessons (which is great for ski instructors) but for skiers
that don’t have instructors close by or can’t find an instructor at the last
minute here are is an idea that may help you improve- watch your shadow.
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| Watching your shadow can improve your skiing |
Shadows can help you see
what arm position you have or how flexed your ankles and knees are. At the
early season Supercamps at Silver Star – Sovereign Lake B.C. I used this with many of my classes. I told my
students that cross country skiing is a lifelong learning process and the only
way to really get better is to aim for perfect practice. The old saying that
“practice makes perfect” really should be adjusted to “perfect practice makes
perfect”. We used video tape feedback
frequently in the Supercamp classes but
I mentioned to my students that a quick way to get immediate feedback while you
ski is to look at your shadow when the sun is behind you. Shadows can’t tell you everything but I find
that they are particularly useful for checking arm (are my arms at 90 degrees
at the initiation of poling?) and torso position (do I crunch my upper body to
start the poling cycle in double poling or 1 skate?). In the photo above I am checking my arm swing
in free skate. For a you tube video on
this topic see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xy62ShlWBQ&t=3s
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