Latest ed tool: Slalom development DVD

Based on a new USSA educational DVD, slalom development was a main topic at the “Excellence 2008: An Elite Conference for USSA Clubs” last week.
    The slalom development DVD comes out this fall, and is the newest educational DVD that will offer video of the world’s top racers, provide analysis and offer a bigger video screen, that will enable coaches to better illustrate correct movement to their athletes.  
    “What we’re trying to do is observe what happens at the World Cup and drive that in to the education level, down the pipeline,” said USSA Alpine Director Jesse Hunt.
PARK CITY, Utah — Based on a new USSA educational DVD, slalom development was a main topic at the “Excellence 2008: An Elite Conference for USSA Clubs” last week.
    The slalom development DVD comes out this fall, and is the newest educational DVD that will offer video of the world’s top racers, provide analysis and offer a bigger video screen, that will enable coaches to better illustrate correct movement to their athletes.  
    “What we’re trying to do is observe what happens at the World Cup and drive that in to the education level, down the pipeline,” said USSA Alpine Director Jesse Hunt.
    In his hour-long presentation last Wednesday, Hunt described the general themes of what USSA is currently seeing at the junior slalom level, and then he played parts of the new DVD to illustrate the point.
    Before getting to mechanics, USSA’s main obstacle has been trying to cope with athletes more worried about how his or her boot feels instead of their technique. “Companies are looking at our top athletes to develop equipment … a lot of our training situations get turned into testing situations. That’s one of our biggest challenges,” Hunt said. The other two themes Hunt mentioned were biomechanics — athletes overemphasizing hip movements and not enough attention on knees and ankles — and the balance between training environment and technical feedback. Currently, there is more focus on conditions as opposed to teaching athletes where to put pressure on the ski relative to fall line.
    Specifically, the DVD gets back to the grassroots of the sport and offers solutions to biomechanics. The topics are: balance and stance; rhythm and timing relative to fall line; carving; calm upper body; and line choice that makes the aforementioned achievable.
    Hunt said that teaching proper turn initiation could alleviate the issues USSA staff are  seeing in its young racers. “Where we need the most work is in initiation,” he said. For example, USSA has noticed that athletes don’t know proper use of steering and edging skills for carving because they are generally sliding too much because of poor initiation.
    Hunt said that these problem areas could be identified in freeskiing where there are no variables such as gate running to interfere with coaches’ critique. For example, if an athlete is having problems with rhythm because he or she is late to put pressure on the skis, identify and correct the issue outside of the gates first. “Again, you don’t need to do it in the gates. You do this freeskiing,” Hunt said.
    Another misconception coaches have, he said, was slowing down the skills and drills in order for the athlete to master it. “If you’re building skills and say, ‘It’s OK to go slow,’ it’s not OK, because if you’re building skills you should go faster,” he said.
    Hunt and the USSA staff have provided much more analysis on the new DVD that can be purchased through www.ussa.org this fall.