Skiing

Since I was very young skiing has been something that I have enjoyed very much. I was one of those kids that would blast down the hill aiming for every single bump that I could find. The pleasure that I found in skiing as a kid has still never worn off. Today one of my favourite things to do is carving doan a run as fast as I can getting air wherever possible. Since I have been doing this for many years I am now a fiarly competent skier.

Skiing at Packenhem for me has been a love hate skill. The runs are short but I make the best of them by trying new skills like butters and unatural rotations. The conditions this week were also relatively mild but there was enough snow on the hill to make it not a problem. The terain park at pakenham has some decent features although many of them are poorly built and maintained. For example the bottom table launches riders forty feet on to a very flat tranny. To make a jump this size safer and more enjoyable the landing should be much steeper. Likewise a few of the boxes look as if the park maintinance staff built them out of plywood. All complaints aside the terrain park could be much worse and it does have enough features that one could spend many hours in it honing their skills.

My biggest issue with Pakenham is probobly it's runs and how few of them there are. Packenham has two "black diamonds" which gives an expet class very little terrain to work with. These runs are well taken care of but the lack of variety makes skiing quite repetitive. They also have many flat spots that snag all of your speed which is very undesireable on such short runs. I could complain for hours about this however nothing can actually be done about it. Packenham has made the best of their terrain but the geography of where it is situated certainly limits it. It just makes me upset that the politics involved with ODA limits its students to terrain like this when there are other much better hills near by.

Personaly I am not entirely sold on the ski school at Packenham. From my experience in the first two days it featured alot of mindless drills that had not been associated with any purpose. It seemed as if our instructor was simply using the shot gun theory and hoping one drill would help us out. Our instructor himself was a very competent skier and truly did associate the good of himself with the good of his group which is very admirable. But that being said I realy think that the way our lessons were planned should be re-thought. I feel that the ski instructors could learn alot from the snowboard instructors. My exerience with the snowboard school was nothing shy of fantastic. They easily identified our faults and quickly assigned soltutions for them. They gave us a drill to practice and alot of time to do so.

For me the way the ski lessons were ran over the last two weeks somewhat sucked the fun out of skiing. This is a shamefull thing considering how enjoyable skiing really is. I find this even more upsetting when considering that this is many students' first exposure to skiing and it could be associated as a unpleasant hobbby. Stopping skiers after every turn on every run is ridiculous. I do see the value in dong it once in a while to work on certain techniques, but when every run is the same ting over and over it is a little ridiculous. Ski instructors should try assigning a drill for a run and then giving a run or two to put those principles into practice. During this practice time they can give students feedback on how well they are doing.

The majority of ODA students are active learners and learn best by simply putting something into practice. This makes stopping four times per run to talk about drills questionable in its significance.. The instructors at Packenham are all very well trained and capeable of gearing their lessons more towards ODA students. During the lunch period I heard many of my friends say that they really were not enjoying skiing. Every one of them did not have a probloem with the task of skiing;; they simply hated they way it was being taught. This is very easy to fix, the instructors should talk to their pupils and alter their styles of teaching. I find that modern teen skiers are very similar to snowboarders. Ski instructors could learn much from the Pakenham snowboard school. My snowboarding skills by the end of the six day course had improved beyond my expectations. I am certain that if this teaching style is so effective for snowboarding that it would also work for skiers. Not only would it work but it would make skiing much more enjoyable and make it a life lasting passion for many students.