To pole or not to pole

Had a really nice couple-students the last couple of weeks. They said
they were one time Heavenly group lesson skiers and they didn't really
learn anything, and they wanted to learn skiing. Determined they were,
they showed up with brand new skiing outfits, clothes, boots, skis,
even to the new detachable wrist strap for their fancy poles. Yeah
right, I thought.

I gave them, a young couple, four lessons (2 each week): 1) to ride the
chair-lifts, 2) snowplow--wedge turn, 3) christie turn, 4) parallel
turn.

In the first lesson, I needed to know how much they did know, so I
asked them to show me how to stop, they barely made it. For too much
work to walk up the hill to practice that, I suggested we rode the
chair up, the lady wouldn't go because she has never ridden one. I
persuaded and took them up, they both fell on unload. Nevertheless, I
showed them how to control the speed and how to stop and a little bit
of turns, and they learned how to ski down the bunny hill. For the
first day, they were happy, so they scheduled a lesson the next day.

The second day they showed up dragging, because the fatigues
accumulated the day before. I took them to "higher" lift for I thought
that a longer run may give them better chance to pick up the rhythms of
skiing. But the idea of "higher" spooked the lady, she frozen on the
unload; I was holding her arm and thinking about supporting her as she
get out the chair, but she didn't get down the chair, and the chair
wrenched my wrist, yike. Anyway, they learned wedge turn and snowplow
skiing that day. They were happy and wanted other lesson, I told they
to go practice first.

A week later, they called me up wanted to go for the "blue" runs. When
I checked them out, they can snowplow quite fluently on the greens but
still catch the edge on the inside ski quite a bit. I didn't take them
to the blues but showed them the christie turn instead. They learned
christie turn that day, and scheduled the fourth lesson the next day.

In the fourth lesson I was going to teach them parallel turn, so I
showed them how to use poles to support their christie turn first. They
couldn't catch up the timing and did poorly in coordination. So I asked
them to give up the poles. The lady tried first and found it easier so
she persuaded her boyfriend to do the same. And at the end of the
lesson they both did parallel turn without using poles, though the man
still carrying the poles for his security crutch. I took them to the
top of Heavenly and they came down the Ridge (blue) like a seasoned
skier.

Come to think about it, in four lessons/days of skiing, they have
learned/accomplished more than what I did in four years on my own. To
pole or not to pole, is now the question.

Have funs,
IS