SWITZERLAND | On snow Inflatable Fun!

By Chris Lewczynski

The Swiss telemark workshop was one of the most unique and engaging workshops that I experienced in Levi. The workshop was extremely simple: let’s see if we can carve with as much edge angle as possible and get both our hands towards the snow turn inside the turn.

To help the participants, the Swiss brought with them a plethora of “pool inflatables” for everyone to experiment with, ranging from thick inner tubes to thin bodyboards. The guidance from the Swiss workshop presenters was limited to external rather than internal cues:

• Internal Cues: Focus on the participant thinking about a specific body part during a task or drill e.g. “can you roll your outside knee into the turn more”
• External Cues: Focus on the outcome of a movement or something within the participants environment e.g. “I want you to jump as high as you can” or “I want you to ski within one cat track width.

     

At first, I was skeptical about the inflatables, however, they worked. The large inner tubes allowed the more timid participants to place their hip and body weight on the ring and ride it round the turn, increasing their edge angles. The more adventurous participants could experiment with pushing the thin bodyboards as far away from their body as possible to increase edge angle and just using their forearms on the inflatables for stability. As the Swiss did mention, the body position wasn’t the ideal outcome for on piste skiing carving, with the upper body rotated inside and using the snow and inflatable for balance of the upper body. However, for the participants, the outcomes were having a lot of fun, trying something new and everyone experimenting with the extremes of edge angles they perceived were possible for them. It was a great unique clinic that demonstrated the strengths of external cues and physical teaching aides. Benny and I have purchased some of the inflatables, so if you want to give some crazy telemark carving a go, come and see us.