November, 2008
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I like Games!
Thursday, November 6th, 2008Well, it seems I’ve taken a little bit of vacation from writing here - life’s been busy!
Upon my return, if there’s one thing I can say with confidence (and that’s been dancing around my brain as of late) it’s this: I LIKE GAMES!!!! Why do I like games? Well, mostly because they are fantastic ski training (I am a wee bit competitive too). In my humble opinion, too many people spend too much time just skiing down a trail without every really challenging their ability to move on skis. If you never challenge your abilities (at anything) you never improve, it’s that simple.
So what makes games so good? Well, for one, they force you to move fast in a confined space, often dodging obstacles, teammates or opponents and trying to accomplish a somewhat contrived goal (say throwing a ball backwards through your legs between two cones) all in the name of success. All that movement challenges and ultimately improves agility, balance, coordination and one’s feel for the snow. Add in the competitive component and it really pushes people to do everything faster and more precisely - and nothing is better for improving than a firm commitment from ones own mind to do things better! (Whether you are aware of it or not!) Balance, agility and coordination are essential to technique as technique is often defined as the ability to produce power on skis. If you are balanced and stable on a ski, it is much easier to transfer the energy of a push-off, kick, leg swing or poling motion into momentum on skis. Furthermore, games and play on skis in general is essential for learning - very often inadvertently - better ways to move on skis. Things like Skating, the hop (double push) V2, and the catapult (sprint) double-pole, were not invented in a lab somewhere by some national ski federation R&D department - they were invented on the snow by living, breathing ski racers!
So games, yes, I like them… a lot. I think they are an essential component to the training plan of every junior skier and the younger the skier is, the larger part they should play in the training (get it?). I think it is a shame and a disservice when people just copy an ‘adult’ training program for junior skiers and don’t actually pay attention to the needs of the age group and level of skier that they are working with. Heck, I think most adult skiers could benefit from more time spent playing games, if it would seem so funny and out of place to see a group of adults playing speedball or sharks and minnows.
So I guess the moral of the story is: (1) Juniors: play games, and (2) in general play on your skis. (3) Adults: if you want to be better skiers and can’t find someone to play games with, become a Junior Nordics coach!
Lastly: a few more photos from the World Championships of the World Comp team speedball game last Thursday afternoon at Birch Hill.
The thrill of Victory and the agony of defeat
Moving in new and different ways... or maybe just popping out of an automatic binding