Sunday, August 17, 2014

US Ski Coaching in trouble!!!!

The kids in our camps are making amazing progress. They are learning "movements" that world cup skiers make and use. (Stay tuned I have photo coming after camp.)  I watch other camps and groups at Mt Hood and many are working on wedge turns, wedge hopping and pivot slips, these are totally incorrect movements for development of proper skills, and not for development athletes or expert skier development. Or anyone really? These are maneuvers that are biomechanically opposite to the movements racers need. The strange thing is that I rarely see expert movements being coached or taught to kids in camps. There are a few very few lights in the dark tunnel and they come from some of the established programs like Burke Academy. Well each to his own I guess, but if I was a parent and my kids were being made to do hop wedge edge sets, at a race camp, I'd be very upset?

And this is coming down from the US Ski Team and coaches education these people are at a loss and kids are learning skiing that will hold them back.

Fortunately many of the bigger programs and academies (like Burke) are not adhering to the US Ski Team's ski school instruction based development philosophy, and approaches in recent years. There is a division in philosophies between the well established programs and the US Ski Team, as there should be. The US Ski Team is on the wrong course.

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