FINLAND Cross Country for Total Beginners

By Jane Scheer

Cross Country Skiing for Total Beginners, Ola Peltonen, Nordic Technical Director for the Finnish National Association of Snowsport Instructors, FNASI.

Ola commenced the workshop having us walk in large circles following him for a good 10 minutes, firstly just walking, progressing to larger steps, and then leaning forward whilst taking larger steps. This approach introduced forward body lean to the beginner skier straight away.

Then with skis on but without poles, we started with walking on skis then walking with a bit of glide in the classic tracks. There was no talk about push, just walk. Then walk and lean forward with “hips up, not bent over”, like what we did without skis on. Then he explained the concept of weight shift by “movement in the knees” (flexion).

I thought this was a simple approach of teaching diagonal stride, without getting caught up with complicated explanations of technique.

 

 

We then partnered up and with only one ski on, practised some scootering with arms around each other (see photo below). One skier had the ski in the classic track whilst the partner stood outside of the track and together the pairs scootered up and down the track supporting each other. This allowed the skier to experience stepping forward and gliding whilst being supported. See photo below. We also tried opposite ski legs in the track so the free arm could swing with the ski leg more closely resembling normal diagonal stride. Ola explained that the push-off is a roll of the foot not digging like a dog.

  

 Above photo: Ola Peltonen with John Gallagher, Canada, CSIAAMSC.

 

Then with both skis on, we did a diagonal stride poling exercise in the track with legs together but not moving. Ola emphasised arms at 90 degrees.

He then demonstrated stationary body position for good diagonal stride (see photo below) where the angle from shoulder to heel is around 45⁰ in relation to the ground when comparing the line of the back with a pole.

 

 

He went on to talk about changing ankle angle according to the terrain, for example, more bend in ankle for skiing uphill.

Double poling followed next. Firstly, we worked on stabbing the ground with the poles with high hands, close to your face and doing some jabs whilst stationary with elbows out. Then this progressed to poling with forward body lean, heels up, and activation of stomach muscles like in a crunch. This was an interesting approach of teaching double poling technique to a beginner as this is quite an advanced technique.

He covered Stride Double pole but emphasised that it is used less these days as double poling is favoured.

He wrapped up the workshop with the comments that skiing needs to be relaxed, with rhythm, shifting weight from leg to leg and commented: “try to ski relaxed, body weight” (up and down) “rolling side to side”, “like Kerttu and Livo Niskanen” (elite Finnish skier-siblings)! 😉