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Chris Fellows was fortunate to have parents who insisted that he take lessons when he first became interested in skiing. And he was blessed to have an instructor "who was knowledgeable, patient and really turned me on to the sport."
Fellows sharpened his skills, became a member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America and worked with his students to improve their snow-sliding abilities. In his early years as an instructor, he often found himself "spouting the dogma of adopting an athletic stance, proper leg steering ... and a number of other 'instructor-speak' catch-phrases.
"[I] worked with my students ad nauseam trying to ingrain the 'proper skiing moves.' Eventually the students came to believe that a strict diet of these technique drills would deliver them to greatness."
But the drill diet didn't deliver. When students continued to fail to make basic movement changes on the slopes, Fellows took them inside and asked them to perform a few "fundamental movements," including:
• A basic squat with their hands over their heads.
• A lateral lunge. Legs apart, hands under the chin, extend one leg out as far as it will go and then bring it back in. Do the same with the other leg.
• Balancing on one leg.
"As I expected, many of them had great difficulty performing these simple tasks on a flat cafeteria floor," Fellows said. "It was absurd to expect deep flexion movements out on the slope from a student who could not flex properly indoors."
Once he explained how properly performing those and other fundamental movements translated into enhanced skiing skills, the students improved.
Fellows, 51, of Truckee, Calif., goes into great detail about all of that in his new book, "Total Skiing: The proven pyramid approach for improving functional movement, fitness, technique and tactics." (Human Kinetics, $24.95)
"Understanding the physical components that make up a skier's fitness profile will speed up the improvement process and help pinpoint the areas of development for the fastest results," he said.
But it takes time and it takes practice.
First Published December 5, 2010 12:00 am
