Skiis.

On that day we met at I – building to get our boots, Poles, shovels, Propes and skiis. We got some cross-country skiis. That type of ski is wider than classic skiis and shorter. So you can move better with the skiis and they can carry more weight. A special thing on that skii type is the steel edge. The steel edges allow you more control downhill. Also when you go uphill they will help you a lot. The poles lengh is a bit more than classic skii but lower then skating skiis.

The cross country shoes are like a good pair of hiking boots. Leather outside and some thick warm material inside. On the tip of the shoes are three holes. Your Binding will go into the holes and fix them on your shoes.

After we got our skiis, we went out for some skii action. For many people it was their first time ever on skiis. What a funny day Len shoed us the first basic technics on skiis. But most time of the day we spend on coordinativ games ore on balance games.

It’s good to start with kind of these games before you go out for a big skii tour. It could prevent you from falling down.

Short excourse, what is equilibrioception??

-the sense of balance, it contains different things.

• one sensor in the ear (vestibulär) tells you the direction of the force and the gravitation in a room.
• the visual sensor (eyes)
• sensors in your muscles and ligaments (muscle spindle and golgi), they tell you the lengh of your muscles and ligaments.

So it’s not all about your ear. Specialy the feedback system from your muscles are very important. Close your eyes and try to stand on one leg…you can’t use your eyes…and most of you will fall. But thats a way to train your feedbacksystem.

The stand on one skii is very hard for the small muscle fibres in your ankle and your hip.  Of course you also need your knee, so bent your knees but the knee should only be able to make extension/flexion and rotation. Your ankle can make plantar flex, ex supination, etc….The hip is full of adduktor and abduktor muscles that can help you to hold your balance. And last but not least, the core muscles.

So, back to the games:

We tried to use only one pole, ore no pole. We walked straight and up and down. In the end of the day we tryed our first small downhill slopes and uphill walks. The snow that day was not perfect but, who cares it was snow :D.

On that day noone of us used wax, cause only a few of us had some knowledge about waxing and preparing.