Skip to main content

Bump progression for kids

By
I picked this up from a clinic with an examiner. I just wish I was this clever. This is a simple, fun progression you can use to teach speed control tactics in the bumps. You can use it with adults as is or make it a bit more serious.

We have a mission, a great destiny to create castles in our hilly kingdom. Where should we put our castle? Why on the top of the hill of course. Stop on the top of each bump to place your castle.

By focusing on stopping on each bump, you use turn shape to control speed. Also, your students will be able to easily pivot on the top of the bump since there isn’t much resistance.

Now, all castles must have a flag pole right? What color is your flag? Plant your flag like this when you get to the castle on top. Then motor around the castle to cut the grass.

You can demonstrate touching pole on the top of the bump or the downside of the bump depending on your student. Touching on the top is the most neutral. Touching on the downside helps the student move down the hill, but it can also lead to breaking at the waist and over-rotating.

Adding a pole touch will help block the upper body from rotating and add rhythm to their bump skiing. Keep a close eye on the hands and arms.

There are a couple of different directions you can go next. You can paint the tower by swinging the pole down the hill or you must defend the castle by knocking the trolls off the ramparts with your pole.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning Styles – Doers, Feelers, Thinkers, Watchers

By
A learning style is the way a person’s sensory, perceptual, memorial, decision-making, and feedback mechanisms operate. Or more simply, the preferred technique to approach learning. Some students have a dominant style and others are comfortable in more than one. PSIA references different theories on learning styles, this is a classic one. Doers Values active experimentation Pragmatic, practical, functional Good problem solvers, work well with others Constantly active, doesn’t like being idle and gets frustrated with too much talking Learn by experimenting, trial and error Instructor should provide experiences that will guide the child Experiential learning is an effective method for all students
3 comments
Read more

VAK - Visual, Auditory, Kinesthetic

By
Visual learners These students learn best by watching and imitating others. The following guidelines are helpful when teaching visual learners. • Ski well-executed demonstrations that illustrate the point. Be careful not to exaggerate and destroy the picture of good skiing. • Target the students’ attention to a certain part of your body or to particular movements.
1 comment
Read more

Creativity with kids

By
Sometimes, I see instructors preparing for exams and getting bogged down in all of the terminology, studying kids development literature, and others' progressions or ideas.  That stuff is important, for sure.  But in order to have a ton of fun teaching kids, we have to apply all of that professional knowledge while looking at the world through kid-colored glasses.  Yeah, the big fluorescent ones.  Like these: A few of the Liberty gang were clinic'ing with me this weekend - a kids' teaching clinic.  One of the required clinics everyone has to take each year.  Usually I make everyone sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" loudly while skiing at some point during these clinics.  But we never got to it. I gave each of the three groups a description of children we often see come through our programs and asked them to develop a program to share with the group.  Once they got started thinking about movements and their ideas, I bugged them to get more...
3 comments
Read more