Looking for ways to teach the basic ski skills before the snow falls this winter? Look no further!
Dry Land Training for kids
Dry lands are a fun way to get your kid on skis before there is snow — keeping the stoke high and tricking your kids into getting a jump on ski lessons.
Activities to teach basic ski skills
The purpose is to develop familiarity with gear and terms, and comfort with basic ski skills
- Check your kid’s gear: waterproof gloves, helmet, goggles, boots (with snow pants outside the boot), and skis.
- Start with boots on, walk forward, backward, side to side, and jump
- Teach Athletic Stance– shoulders over knees, hands in front
- Try some races back and forth between cones using walking, running, hopping, and side stepping
- Help your child learn to put on one ski (toe in, and then heel)
- Skate on 1 ski in a figure eight design along the snow (around 2 cones)
- Put on both skis
- Practice side steps, in both directions
- Draw pictures or follow patterns by walking in skis
- Practice making a star by turning in a circle, opening the tails of the skis (Pizza Skis), and then opening the tips of the skis (Duck Skis)
- Introduce the student to 4 positions, Work on shifting between these
- Athletic Stance
- French Fries – straight and parallel skis
- Pizza – Skis with tips close and backs splayed widely
- Duck – Skis with tips splayed widely and tails close
- Finally, find a small hill with a long run out, and work on gliding down the hill
- Make sure your child is looking up while skiing, and ideally gliding in their athletic stance
These activities will help tremendously with preparing your child with the basic ski skills before your first ski lessons on a hill, and provide a lot of fun to do on carpet or wet grass then there is no snow.
Tips for teaching basic ski skills
- Don’t forget to wrap up with some hot chocolate. These first experiences in ski training and drills for kids are exhausting, and providing some positive reinforcement goes a LONG way.
- Think about adding a couple friends to this if you really want to get the positive reinforcement going.
- Don’t push too hard on this phase. Better to do this twice over 2 hours with happy kids than to get this done once but with unhappy kids.
- Take some pictures and enjoy!
- Looking for more ideas? Here are some fun ones: http://www.sierradescents.com/2012/03/skiing-with-kids-dry-land-training.html
Looking for kids ski gear?
We’ve got several posts on the best kids gear to get:
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