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Posted on Tuesday July 13th at 6:30 p.m.
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Unfortunately our ski fields are often plagued with bad weather and our exposed slopes mean many closed days each season. To top that off our Kiwi "do it yourself" psyche, means we teach ourselves to ski and it can take years for our skiing and boarding to really improve.
So last year, when I was invited to attend the Salomon Ladies Week at Mt Ruapehu I jumped at the opportunity. The ladies week is a four day programme, run by ladies, for ladies to improve your skiing and riding skills. I joined the Turoa team and met on the first day at the Alpine Cafe. I was pleasantly surprised to see a wide range in ages of the girls and their backgrounds. There was a mother and her teenage daughter; a woman in her early 20's who was heading to ski Japan for her honeymoon; and a plethora of other women from all walks of life.
After the initial introductions, and a quick morning tea we were split into groups and headed to the slopes. All our group were competent skiers but the weather was somewhat inclement so we hit the pommas for a few warm up runs. It did not take long for our instructor, Mich to pick up our basic technical faults. Despite the advanced level of our group we were all sitting way too far back in our skis. Mich pointed out that this was very common in women due to the fact that we carry most of our weight in our hips. To correct this she had us skiing down without our poles concentrating on stacking our weight over our skis by "pushing the bush", Mich's fond term for a pelvic floor thrust. Between fits of laughter every time Mich yelled at us to "push the bush" we began to make small improvements. You could definitely feel what you "should" be doing but breaking old habits is not easy.
The first day ended (as every day did) back at the Alpine Cafe with all the other women, sipping on Lindauer and discussing our day on the slopes and the things we had learnt before heading back to our accommodation. We were all amazed at how exhausting we felt simply changing one or two things in our technique so a good night sleep was in order.
The next day the sun was shining and the snow perfect. The initial focus of day two was to get video footage of us skiing ready for analysis the following day. Mich was also able to give us all individual feedback on the things we personally needed to work on. For me it was keeping my knees apart. Having learnt to ski back in the 80's this was proving to be harder than you can imagine. We had a fantastic day with Mich coming up with innovative ways to get us to change some of those lifelong habits. One such technique had us turning our poles into "tit bazookas" in an attempt to keep our shoulders facing down the slope.
The third day began with the video analysis in the Alpine Cafe, quite a daunting experience. Although we had all got to know each other pretty well in our first two days it was still somewhat nerve racking having everyone watch your skiing on the big screen TV while Mich and the team analysed your technique. Now if you had asked me what I thought I skied like it was nothing like I saw on the TV. By the time Mich had videoed me the second time I could have sworn that you could have driven a truck between my thighs (so to speak), however, the video showed otherwise, I was still skiing with my knees tightly together. After a thorough analysis we hit the slopes again, now even more clearer about what we needed to work on.
That night we met at the Snow Centre for a technical session where they explained the technical advances in skis, boots and boards and what to look for in a female specific board or ski. It definitely pays to know what you are looking for when you are buying female specific skis as not all retail staff are created equal. When looking for new skis many staff have tried to sell me super stiff skis based on my skiing ability, however they have never taken into consideration my weight. No matter how well I ski, at only 54kg I cannot make the ski bend as well as someone of the same ability who weighs a lot more than me.
On the final day everything seemed to come together and I could not believe how well I was able to ski. I have always been a competent skier but now I felt in total control and was able to apply all the things I had learnt. We skied all over the mountain and also got to demo the latest gear from Salomon. I could not believe how far skis had come, even in the last few years. I fell in love with the Salomon Topaz ski and am happy to say I am now a proud owner of a new pair. This year I am planning on joining the Salomon Ladies week again, this time I'll take my snowboard.