A Nord in Switzerland

by Steven Hindman

Winter 2003 

A report on Interski 2003

Winter 2003

The cross-country workshops at Interski in Switzerland were located on a secret Crans-Montana bus line, far from the tele workshop meeting site. Canada, Italy, Finland, Germany, the U.S. and Switzerland presented. Notably absent from the remote yet strangely urbane Interski Nordic Center were Norway and Sweden, as well as France, Spain, and all of Eastern Europe, Asia, and those folks from down under.

Swiss Track

Technical discrepancies were few from workshop to workshop, but presentation and teaching styles, as well as topics, varied greatly. The Swiss presented first, last, and in between. They set the tone on the tracks much as they did on the slopes with their integrated approach that emphasizes learning instead of teaching. Much has already been reported on the Swiss Way in The Professional Skier, and their approach has greatly influenced many of our current educational materials.

The Swiss system is slightly different from ours. What we would call skills are linked more directly to movements of the body and less to the tool, and more individual elements of skiing are defined. They share the same core beliefs, however, by recognizing the importance of learning through experience and the organic and practical nature of technique.

On snow, the Swiss walked their talk, leading the group to explore the snow, their equipment, the terrain, and the range of possible body movements. Then they allowed us to experiment with different combinations and to experience the results. Movements, activities, games and terrain were employed to help guide us to discover effective ways to combine these separate realities. Later in the week they set up an extensive nordic terrain park. Split into international teams, the pre-race strategies of each team, concocted in broken English and punctuated with hand gestures, lead to a wild, chaotic, and delightful relay race at the end of the session.

Between workshops, we retired to a farmhouse with an attached barn that overlooked the small park that was groomed perfectly just for us. The farmhouse was in fact an elegant restaurant. Downstairs, you could watch through plate glass as the donkey and goat idled in their manger while you dined on fine cuisine. We filed into the more pedestrian upper floor where the proprietor served us coffee and pastries. Upon entering each day, he greeted us in casual attire, but he collected the final bills in coat and tails, ready for the lunch crowd.

Italian Track

During the first day’s coffee break, the Italians distributed their manual, an oversize book of 262 pages, including French, German, and English translations. This is a manual rich in technical detail and illustrations for every phase of a student’s development.

The Italian approach classifies the student as Bronze (novice skier), Silver (independent skier), Gold (complete skier), or Blue (fully developed skier). Specific goals, activities, and outcomes are then detailed for each type of student. Although the book’s translated pages touch only lightly on teaching, the much larger section in Italian appears to include suggested exercises and activities after each technical description. The Italian section concludes with 17 pages describing on-snow games, complete with detailed illustrations, and 25 pages that cover biomechanics.

The English section of the manual describes each “movement” (what we would call a reference maneuver) at each level in classic, skate, and downhill for track. Each movement is first described globally, then in detail. Included are instructions to help create a proper learning environment for beginners as well as suggestions for adapting the movement (reference maneuver) to suit the terrain and the individual’s ability and experience. Skills such as balance and edging are mentioned only as elements of specific techniques.

On the snow, an Italian fresh off the Nordic World Cup led the workshop. He was a pleasure to watch and ski with, but he wasn’t a ski teacher. After watching him and the other team members ski, and then reviewing the pictures and excellent stick figure illustrations in the manual, it seems as if what the Italians consider to be effective technique is similar to our own ideals. However, technical discussions with Italian team members did not initially confirm this, possibly due to language barriers. By eliciting help from a group of French Canadian participants, we did manage to communicate with the Italians via the French language.

Things became clearer when we began to understand that their answer to a technical question always depends on the level of student we wished to discuss. Do you ski on one ski while classic? Not if you are a Bronze skier, but yes, most of the time if you are a Silver skier, and always if you are a Gold skier. Do you rotate to face the glide ski while skating? Yes, if you are a Bronze skater, but not until you are a Gold skater do you focus on facing the direction of travel.

The overwhelming quantity of technical analysis contained in their manual comes from this focus on the needs and desires of students at each level. However, this maneuver-based approach seems to perpetuate the natural tendency of inexperienced instructors to teach by describing outcomes as opposed to communicating core concepts and creating learning experiences.

Italian Telemark

Although I did not attend an Italian Telemark workshop, a telemark manual was included in the materials they distributed. Included with the manual were two videos and a CD of the techno music that accompanied their alpine demos, composed and performed by one of their own demo team members. This manual was as extensive as the cross-country manual, but very different in tone.

The Italians, and many other countries, date the rebirth of telemark skiing on the ‘right’ side of the Atlantic to the U.S. Nordic Demo Team presentation at Siesto, Italy in 1987. Several pages of the Italian manual are devoted to a discussion of how the decentralized and unregulated character of both U.S. ski instruction and U.S. geography was responsible for the rebirth of this alternative to established skiing conventions.

“Skiing on the knees”, as the Italians call it, is seen as a means of self-expression, and the authors are very careful not to restrict this creative impulse as they present a telemark teaching methodology. Experimenting, experiencing, and improvising are continually emphasized as not just a way to learn, but as a way to ski. This attitude and approach by telemark skiers and telemark ski instructors is promoted as a way to reinvigorate the rest of the snowsports culture.

Modern and Traditional telemark technique is given equal time, partly because the manual goes to great length to avoid defining a right or wrong way to “kneel on the skis”. The breadth of technique variations described also acknowledges the widely differing equipment used when skiing on gentler terrain and soft snow versus steeper terrain and harder snow. Versatility, adaptability, practicality, individuality, and fun — sounds like tele all over the world to me.

On snow activities in Crans-Montana began at the base of the “demo slope”, a 1000-foot long, 40-degree slope covered in manmade snow. On one side was the Swiss winter home of 007 star Roger Moore. On the opposite side, a platter pull lift ascended through dips, rocks, and bare patches on a sloping side hill. At the top, a short access road lead up to our little Nordic center beside the upscale restaurant that sat in the shadow of a high rise. Riding the lift with skinny skis was challenging but doable. Skiing back down the after the alpine skiers spent the morning scraping all the manmade snow into meter high piles was epic.

Uniforms of various countries went pin wheeling, sliding and even occasionally skiing down the demo slope between the hummocks of cold sugar. One especially effective approach was to turn into the fencing along the side of the slope with each turn, using the panels for speed control. The only scare came from one skier’s choice to walk. After barely surviving a long, careening “swim” on his back, belly and side, the walker put his skis back on and picked his way to the bottom. Fortunately, a never empty vat of “grog” (hot wine) was there to greet the intrepid Nords after yet another legendary edgeless descent. A quick note on food in the demo tent — pizza with chocolate and cherries, or spirals of anchovies, does not taste any better than it sounds. Stick to the basics.

Finnish Track

The Finns had two things to promote at Interski: their Passport to Cross-Country Skiing for kids and Nordic Fitness skiing. The Passport is a small, 100-page booklet detailing 70 tasks to perform. Completed tasks earn the skier a stamp on that task’s respective page. Lots of hopping, obstacle courses, one-ski tasks, and jumping are pictured to help develop balance and other skills. Activities lead kids into just about every way you can imagine to stride or skate up hills and then back down.

Ronald McDonald is pictured on the inside front cover—wearing a bicycle helmet while skating—and other ads from sponsors are sprinkled throughout the booklet. The back page offers what appears to be a larger manual, video, and CD with additional information available for 34 Euro (about 40 US dollars).

Nordic fitness skiing is aimed at the other end of the demographic spectrum: the older skier. Walking with poles is apparently a popular form of exercise throughout Scandinavia, but many older “fitness walkers” do not switch to skiing when the snow falls. To reach these folks without scaring them off, Nordic Fitness skiing is basically a low-intensity activity that employs a combination of equipment, educational material, and specific workout programs. Poles are stout enough to support your body weight for different exercises and stretches, and come with interchangeable baskets and tips. Skis are short, typically less than 160 cm, waxless for classic, and shaped for stability and ease of use. Snowshoes are also included in the Nordic Fitness offering. Wax is “Dope,” a wipe-on glider marketed by a major of sponsor of the Finnish Instructor Association.

The Finns, backed by Exel (a Finnish pole manufacturer with a new line of Nordic Fitness skis) teamed up with the Germans to present Nordic Fitness to the group. Classic, skate, and snowshoe groups went out, with an emphasis on learning by doing. Although international nordic team members instantly pushed the limits of the equipment, the educational materials and explanations by the leaders seemed to focus on marketing the products to fitness walkers, rather than concentrating on turning them into skiers.

Europe and Scandinavia are struggling to attract kids and others to Nordic skiing. Although this was mentioned in passing four years ago at the last Interski in Norway, the Swiss, Italians, Germans, and Finns focused in Crans-Montana on programs designed to broaden the appeal of cross-country skiing. The Swiss team distributed a glossy piece on how to design a cross-country “fun park” and conduct games and skier-cross events supported by corporate sponsorship.

The Norwegian Ski Federation is in such disarray that the few Norwegian instructors attending Interski had paid their own way. Instructor wages in Norway cannot compete with what’s available in the booming oil and technology industries over the last decade while computers, the internet, and video games occupy more and more of the time and attention of Norwegian youth. As a result, Norwegian ski schools are being forced to import instructors to fill their rosters.

The creation of the Passport and the newly minted sport of nordic fitness skiing are among Finland’s most visible efforts to appeal to two specific populations whose involvement in cross-country skiing has dwindled. Some older skiers consider cross-country skiing a lot of work, while it is perhaps a tad boring for a younger generation fixated on anything “extreme.” Of the two groups, the Finns are probably more interested in putting the younger generation on skis. For generations, skiing in Scandinavia has been as much a part of childhood as riding a bike has been part of growing up in America. Although bike culture is in decline with American kids, the sport of cycling has never been a part of our national identity. In Nordic countries such as Finland where skiing is a part of the national identity, this is a disturbing trend that many would like to see reversed.

Aside from these two “products,” the Finns shared no other teaching methodology. Like the Italians and Canadians, their on-snow clinics consisted of detailed, maneuver-based teaching that elicited either silence or controversy.

No one can match the Finns when it comes to sincerity and heart, however. In the spring of 2001, I skied with Juksu, the president of their instructor association, at IMSIA in Whistler, BC. That friendship deepened quickly in Switzerland and Juksu insisted I ride back to town in the Dope van instead of braving the alpine demo slope again. I grabbed as much Dope as I could when I got out.

The track and hill skiing in Switzerland was spectacular, but it was plain to see that the vast majority of the public where there mainly to be out of the city, on vacation, and to enjoy the mountains, good food, good friends, and to spend time with their family. They truly had passion for the entire mountain experience, and were creating memorable experiences that would last a lifetime. It was not about the ski, and Interski was not about the technique. It’s the total experience that counts, and the Switzerland experience was superb.