Moving on snow provides sensations that we do not always perceive, do not identify or differentiate, then we cannot develop a proper skiing perception. While not paying attention to sensations, we cannot notice variances, slowing down or inhibiting motor responses and making them inefficient in relation to the economy of effort.
It is observed that even if we identify skiing sensations, we may not know how to interpret them. For this, we should reflect on which sensations we experience in specific moments of the technical gesture, and what reactions they cause in our bodies and skis to determine the conclusions.
Sensorial Adaptation
Sensorial adaptation is the response of the sensory systems that decrease in prolonged stimulation. Any stimulus that does not change it is located on the second plane of our consciousness unless it is painful or intense. On the opposite, any change in a stimulus will immediately attract our attention. For example, pupils adapt to light reflection on snow and with the sensation that, after the initial moments, we adapt when passing through deep snow from packed powder or from a groomed slope to an irregular one due to a change in snow friction.
Sensations are influenced by change, then, the role of the stimulus receptor is to report the body with external changes. By that, these sensorial organs can be called “change detectors” since they specialize in detecting new information or changing events. For example, while keeping constant pressure on a ski during a certain period of time, our feet’s touch receptors stop sending information to the nervous system to avoid overloading, reactivating when there is a pressure change that is again detected.
Sensorial Learning
Skiing is a world of sensations where searching and experiencing new impressions created by the same movement, or a different one, is an eternal goal because otherwise, it would be a limitation just complying to turn right and left.
Perceiving sensations is a fundamental method of learning how to ski. It is not enough just listening to instructions and imitating the instructor or coach’s demonstrations; it is essential that we evolve through our own sensorial consciousness guided by a proper professional that deals with sensorial experience.
Through sensations, we get to the bodily assimilation of technical concepts and definitions. It is essential that, from the very beginning, we sense our own skiing since we will not progress properly by having a sensorial deficiency. Paying attention to each one of the senses will allow perceiving the environment and our motions in it.
Due to sensorial learning, we improve our sensory skills; achieve a faster transmission of the senses to our brains; get an immediate motor response; promote the knowledge of the equipment and the environment through direct contact. This is done through the exercise of each sensorial mode while practicing the technical fundamentals or incorporating new ones.
To get to the development of our body sensitivity, self-observation capacity is required. The sensorial observation and the analysis of the situations that experience while sliding contribute to our development as skiers.
The phases that make up sensorial learning are:
- Reception phase, in which we receive sensations but do not interpret or give them a meaning.
- Discrimination phase, where we learn to discriminate differences between sensations, at the beginning in a rudimentary way which will then refine.
- Recognition phase, here we recognize what we are sensing because it is familiar and already experienced.
- Perception phase is the last stage that involves discrimination, recognition and sensation development. In this phase we give it a meaning, an application, and compare it with our current performing movements and actions.
According to these considerations, you can apply the following recommendations in your own skiing:
- Remember that moving on snow provides sensations that you do not always perceive, do not identify or differentiate.
- If you do not pay attention to your sensations, you cannot notice variances, slowing down or inhibiting your motor responses.
- Start focusing on simple stimulus that attract your attention, like changes in snow friction and how affects your body oscillations.
- To improve your skiing, focus on perceiving different sensations since it is a fundamental learning method.
