FOR ALL SKIER LEVELS
AND OTHER PRODUCTS BOOK SKI DATES
WITH KENT STAYING IN
TAOS SKI VALLEY
"As ski instruction, these clinic videos will be invaluable for everyone, beginner through expert."
All parts of the clinic will be useful for beginners. When a beginner realizes that most everything presented in their first lesson will be used as a path to mastering skills at all skier levels, they truly experience an "a-ha" moment. Kent simplifies these ideas and movements for beginners during the first segment of each clinic.
In many respects, we could say that many advanced skills are really just souped up beginner movements. We could also say that beginner movements are decelerated advanced moves. One might not likely say both, which is why this could become a good pretext for a debate in which instructors might engage...
The Intermediate Skier
Often there's a point where intermediate skiers find it difficult to experience improvement. It's a kind of plateau that can sometimes go on for years. Kent delves into this intermediate phenomenon with a passion, as most guests take lessons for this kind of assistance. For instance, what is your upper body or core doing when you initiate a parallel turn? Where are your hands? What should you really be doing? And there's lots more new sensations as speeds ramp up from the beginner level. But are you safe and in control? Key skills, movement patterns, and the right mindset are needed to break out of the intermediate plateau. You will find nuggets that work for you in all of Kent's clinics.
The Advanced Skier
Some have said that despite an intermediate emphasis, the advanced skier can easily get as much out of these tapes as anyone else. There is much value in reviewing the fundamental moves. Good instructors, of course, do it all the time. Trying to understand the beginner skier gives instructors and advanced skiers an opportunity review critical issues applicable to all levels.
It's no coincidence that the lower level turns are frequently failed at PSIA certification exams.
The advanced skier has typically become so adept, responsive, and skilled that they can "power on through" and recover when bad moves get them into trouble. That is, after all, one of the qualities that places a skier in the advanced category. But slowing things down and really inspecting the movements beginning movements gives advanced skiers opportunities to rediscover fundamentals, and make big strides in improving agility, grace and control.
Can you make a parallel turn from a stopped position? Can you engage the edges by moving the hips inwards on a slow traverse? An instructor must do these things, and an advanced skier will obviously benefit from doing them too.
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