Share this:

For the last couple weekends, I have been coaching in the children’s ski school program at Schweitzer.  These next few posts will be about some of the valuable lessons the students taught me.    

There is a fine line between pushing students hard for gains and pushing them over the fence 

The first day out of the chutes I was working with an intermediate group of 7 to 12 year olds in an all day lesson.  In the first part of the day, they were nailing everything I was teaching them.  We were having fun and skiing great.  Then, I made a huge coaching error.  Just before lunch, I was so excited about their development that I thought I could push them into an intermediate bump run.  They started the run beautifully, but by the bottom they were exhausted.  I had pushed them too hard and I knew it.  They were spent and I was unsure if they would be able to do much of anything in the afternoon.  They were definitely too tired to go into the bumps again.  Their attitude was worn down and with them so tired, they risked injury.  The first coaching responsibility that I was not going to error on was safety.  We went in for an extended lunch to see if a little extra juice, apples, chicken strips and cookies could re-energize them.     

I spent the second half of the lesson mixing drills and games with fun runs through the trails in the trees on intermediate and beginner terrain.  I think I recovered some of the gains we made in the morning, but they were all tired campers and it showed.  My goal was to let them have some fun in a safe environment and use a more subtle coaching technique to input learning where possible.  It seemed to work, but I could have increased their overall experience for the day if I would have opted for an easier run back to the lodge before lunch.  

A good coach knows how hard to push his students and when to back off.   In the resort environment, our first responsibility beyond keeping students safe is to make sure they have fun.  Learning comes after all that.  In other environments such as racing or instructor training, sometimes you can substitute learning for fun.  However, in either case, it is important for a coach to know just how far he can push a group before they hit a breaking point that will render them useless. 

Know your audience and know your own tendencies.  

This last weekend, I almost made the same mistake with a group of 4 to 6-year-old advanced skiers.  At the top of the run I noticed that they were showing signs of being tired.  I quickly lead them on a traversing trail through the trees to a groomed run.   We skied down with less effort ending with just some “free skiing” and then into lunch.  After lunch they executed turns lifting one ski, jump turn entries and hop turns exceptionally and were able to advance their skiing all throughout the lesson.   They ended the day a much happier group of kids.

Advertisement