Good stuff!Here's the piece. It's brief and fairly obvious but does seem to have some good reminders, so I thought it was worth sharing.
Not always fathers either.
Yes, but doesn't usually apply to children under age 8 or so, which is what the article was about. Most of the points will help the most if applied before kids are into their tween years.Also boyfriends. My first foray back into skiing three years ago was in a group beginner lesson. There was a young woman in my group who of course had never skied before, but she was athletic and seemed to pick up the basics pretty quickly.
After the lesson, I spent the rest of the day riding the beginner chair, and she joined her boyfriend on the same green trails. I watched as her bf "taught" her to ski by encouraging her to fly straight down the trail at MACH-1 speeds until she crashed. She did this over and over and over. I couldn't believe she kept getting back up for more, honestly, and I can't imagine she learned anything useful. She certainly didn't seem to improve.
But that's the kind of experience people are usually talking about when they say "I tried skiing once, it was scary and awful and I'll never do it again."
Ironically, one of the advantages of having a kid learn at a small hill with limited terrain is that the temptation to over terrain is less when only groomers exist. But still happens.
Most kids don't WANT to be overterrained anyway.
Yes, but doesn't usually apply to children under age 8 or so, which is what the article was about. Most of the points will help the most if applied before kids are into their tween years.
You are quite right that all of the ideas in the article apply to beginners of any age. But the actual approach is quite different for beginners who are young kids less than 8 vs a teen vs a young adult vs an older adult (30-49) vs a senior (50+).True, I was thinking that "outsource instruction" would be well-applied to any age group. As well as revealing my age as I saw the young woman as a child, which she obviously wasn't!
Good idea but wouldn't apply in the southeast or most of the mid-Atlantic because there is no blue terrain that isn't a groomer. For that matter, not much black terrain that isn't groomed and very few places have tree skiing. It's more common that someone found skiing in trees after a rare snowstorm that provides enough coverage would have their ticket pulled for the day. I would guess the same is true in the midwest.I recall reading somewhere that for kids who don't like to turn but can do it, it can help to take them through some easy glades if you can find some with less pitch. It's exciting and different, plus the have to turn to avoid obstacles. I'm sure some simple version of a scavenger hunt or something like that could help too. For my brother it was if you ski to mommy at the side of the trail she'll give you a Hershey's kiss.
Good idea but wouldn't apply in the southeast or most of the mid-Atlantic
When are you thinking about at Massanutten? The place has changed somewhat since the lifts were upgraded and the lodge was renovated. My family started skiing there just before the the start of spending $10-20 million over about five years. There are less people drinking on the lifts in recent years. Although I haven't been skiing at night on the weekends for a while.Gotta work with what you got! would love to see somewhere do beginner friendly slalom gates. "small fry slalom" we could call it, and get kids all excited about controlling their speed while doing French fries! I think I did something with little traffic cones in a lesson during my magic carpet days.
I've also had friends get passes clipped at Nutt and would honestly prefer they did it more. they have a huge problem with the college kids not being respectful to families as well as drunk skiing.
When are you thinking about at Massanutten?
Ah, that's more recent than I thought. The SuperSaver pass is a great deal. I take advantage of the early bird and timeshare owner discounts when I know I'll be skiing at least 3 Saturdays, but have done the SuperSaver too.2014-2016ish, I mostly skied midweek. I actually would build ski days into my class schedule, as I did the saver pass which wasn't valid holidays or before 4 on Saturdays. 2016 when we got the big snow storm was when I noticed the most people trying to ski under the lift to the blacks up top. talking about it really makes me miss that hill though!