Last Updated29 February 2024

Real World Teaching Children covers the differences between what happens in the real world versus the ideal world. Dive further into how to adapt the pathway to suit children, discover how to keep everyone safe on lifts and with the right equipment.

Real vs Ideal

Children acquire skills for skiing through what they are taught and how it is taught. As stated previously, understanding the stages of a child’s psychomotor development provides a basis for setting realistic goals for each stage.

It is important to remember that children have not had the same opportunity to develop movement skills as adults. As well as learning the skills to ski or snowboard young children are also developing skills to perform all activities, e.g. walking on a slippery surface. Adults are able to learn and develop movements more precisely and accurately. As children have less strength and coordination, they may not be able to utilise the same movements with the same refinement and may substitute other movements in their place.

This does not mean that children are incapable of effective, efficient movements but rather it may take more time, practice and repetition. Real movements for children may involve larger muscle groups and more gross movement patterns. These will gradually come closer to ideal movements as the children grow older, bigger and become more experienced. An important part of the goal setting procedure is to identify real movements and plan the lesson to help the skiers come closer to ideal movements.

Real movements – the movements you observe happening and the effect they’re having on the performance of the ski/snow interaction.

Ideal movements – movements that would be optimal for a given task.

Fore/Aft Movement

Ideal

Joints flex evenly together
Pelvis is centred over feet

Real

Knee and hip flex more, ankle movements are not as co-ordinated and large muscle groups develop first
Pelvis is behind feet in order to move centre of gravity over the middle of the skis. Head is proportionally bigger, centre of gravity is higher

Rotational Movement

Ideal

Legs turn under the body as skis move through an arc
Both skis steer progressively through the turn
Upper body provides a stable unit for the legs to turn under

Real

The whole body moves as a unit, smaller muscles of the lower legs are less developed than the main core muscles
Pelvis drives through turn, steering the outside leg
Upper body provides the main turning force or is not disciplined enough to be stable

Lateral Movement

Ideal

Lateral movements of the feet, legs and hips engage and release edges
Legs move together with the same movements, same edges are engaged
Balance is directed over the outside ski
Separation occurs between upper and lower body

Real

Edges are engaged by the whole body moving inside or by outside leg bracing to use skeletal strength
Stance tends to be wide to help balance, inside edges tend to be engaged
Weight stays on both skis because of width of stance and tendency of body to move as a unit
Upper body moves as a unit and is braced to make use of skeletal strength

Vertical Movement

Ideal

Even flexion and extension of all joints allows skis to flow over terrain
Movement is continual and consistent
Muscular tension is used to control pressure

Real

Knee and hip flex dominates, ski tends to bounce (overly stiff boots)
Lack of coordination and disproportionate muscular development means movements are gross and inconsistent