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Your trainers will continue to introduce new concepts and help refine your skills, but real progress comes from the time, practice, and ownership you invest in making those skills your own.
Nordic Teaching Hub
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How to start that lesson
- classic
- skate
- 6-12 year olds
- teens
- adults
- seniors
- adaptive
- first timers
- beginners
- intermediate
- advanced
Notes on how to get a lesson started
Remember that the beginning of the lesson is your time to spread the stoke! Consider this an outline of the big stuff, add/expand on other things that work for you.
It starts with the welcome and introductions, form a circle (take those cool instructor sunglasses off so students can see you making eye contact); have each person introduce themselves, ask them to mention where they're from, and what they like best about winter, favorite season, what they had for breakfast, or something you prefer.
From there more stoke, share what your big picture plan will be for the lesson, just a sketch; can mention that you’ll get more specific as we go along, but ask if that sounds good? Get some initial “buy-in”. This is also the beginning of building trust.
Assess those students, ask how they’re feeling about the lesson, any previous ski experience, and what other sports/activities they like to do, and any goals they have for the lesson; ask clarifying questions but keep it light and fun. Do a scan of gear, make sure they have what they need. I like to also consider hats, gloves, sunglasses, heavy backpacks. Also ask how they are feeling about the lesson, any apprehensions or concerns? This is also a good time to talk about safety and how you are not going to ask them to go anywhere crazy or risky, that it’s about building skills and staying in control. Build trust.
Then you can do a quick overview of ski equipment, discuss the various attributes of classic or skate gear
Then get them moving, those initial off ski drills can initially help then you can assess how they move and the range of ability. All this helps you form how the lesson should progress.
Depending on weather conditions do a hands/feet check, or “how are you feeling” check: periodically you can ask students to just signal thumbs up is OK, sideways is so-so, thumbs down is cold or feeling tired. This works great for kids and adults,
Keep them moving and have fun with lesson…create the experiences for learning!
Observation is key to assess understanding of what you're teaching, but so are verbal check-ins with students.
Kai Bjerkness
Check-ins with students
- classic
- skate
- 6-12 year olds
- teens
- adults
- seniors
- adaptive
- first timers
- beginners
- intermediate
- advanced
All
All
Effective and easy check-ins with students
This was covered in the previous post, but I wanted to further underline the issue since I've found it so effective. In many cases if you ask a group how they are doing (are they warm/cold, have energy, etc.) you won't get much feedback, many just don't feel comfortable speaking up. A strategy around this is to use the hand signal approach instead. During the initial part of the lesson, you can introduce the hand signals you'd like used for your periodic check-ins about being warm/cold, have energy: ask students to just signal thumbs up for OK, sideways for so-so, thumbs down for not too well. This works great for kids and adults. Test it after introducing it by asking how everyone is doing, you should see all thumbs up!
In this case just check-in and see if they use the hand signals.
Kai Bjerkness
Unicorn Skiing
- classic
- skate
- 6-12 year olds
- teens
- adults
- seniors
- first timers
- beginners
- advanced
flat, slight incline
any, with modifications
Athletic Body Position, Body Movements, Glide
For personal skiing development, or teaching: On flat boots, or skis, practice shifting your weight forward and backwards (fore and aft) on your feet. Notice how more weight in your heels versus the ball of your foot feels. In your athletic body position, shift your weight forward towards the balls of your feet just before your toes start to grip. If your spine is neutral and in line with your shin angle, your forehead is the first thing to go down the trail like a unicorn. This will maximize glide and help with continuous forward motion as your center of mass is over your base of support and you're looking ahead down the trails--what a majestic unicorn.
If the forehead is the first part of the body down the trail. The glide period is longer and requires less intense push off. There is a unicorn prop in the Nordic Center for this activity.
Tulie Budiselich (or anyone who's taken her clinic)
