skiing with the pros

[liquidfeet]

Last Wednesday I skied with two former US SkiTeam members, Lisa Densmore (who wrote the book How to Ski Faster) and Pam Fletcher (who went to the Olympics). They work for Head now, and were offering a women-only all-day clinic with Head demo skis. This was a great experience, and I recommend it to anyone who has the opportunity to do one of these clinics.

What was so fascinating for me was how these two women did such a good job teaching eleven different women students who were at different skiing ability levels. The rapport was immediate; women teaching women worked easy this time. None of the students appeared apprehensive (of being less skillful than someone else; of not knowing something everyone else knew; of being more cautious than others; of whatever). They put everyone at ease by offering positive observations to each individual. And they isolated one or two things for each student to work on after watching us ski.

I suppose it went so well for two reasons, and I don't know how these overlap. One is the women-teaching-women thing. That just was good for many reasons. The other is that Lisa and Pam are animated teachers who clearly love what they are doing. I wish I knew how to find a list of all their clinics so I could advertise them here on Ski Diva.

 

[ski diva]

Sounds like a great clinic! And I'd love to have stuff like that posted here, so if anyone knows of any upcoming women's clinics, please be sure to post it on the forum. Also, LF, if you have any contact info for the Head clinic, let me know and I'll try to find out if they're holding it anywhere else.

Were you able to demo any Heads? If so, be sure to tell us about it.

 

[liquidfeet]

I have not got any contact info. The clinic was at Wachusett last Wednesday.

I skied on the Fast Thang, and the Wild Thang. (I find it so embarrassing to write those names. I don't like them spelled that way - yuk.) The Fast Thang is narrow in the waist and has a tight turn radius much like what I'm on now, and I can't tell you the difference.

The Wild Thang is 77mm underboot, still has a tight turn radius, and I loved its stability. It felt like I was skiing on boards instead of twigs. I'll look at other similar "cross" skis the next time I get the chance. I'd like to spend a day on them, and maybe take some into the gates to see what happens.

BUT I don't want a ski with girly graphics if I can avoid it.

 

[Thatsagirl]

Head doesn't seem to do a very good job of getting a full schedule of events out to the media. I did find out that Wintergreen in Virgina is having one of the Head clinics with Lisa and Pam on March 4 and 5. Information is on Wintergreen's site:

https://www.wintergreenresort.com/Activities/march_2007.aspx

I know Lisa and she is such a wonderful mentor for women skiers. If you have a chance to take one of her clinics, I'm sure you'll get a lot from it and have fun too.

Thatsagirl

 

[Thatsagirl]

See information about a clinic at Nashoba in this thread:

https://www.theskidiva.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7278#post7278

Thatsagirl