We are going to develop ski learning articles according to the following skiers’ characteristics based on neuroscience, psychology and biomechanics.
Postural control | Beginners – Intermediates | Advanced – Experts |
| Use a top-down process from head to feet | Employ a bottom-up process from feet to head | |
| Adopt an upright trunk control | Assume a forward inclined trunk control | |
| Use reactive postural adjustments | Utilize proactive postural adjustments | |
| Due to postural immaturity, they fail to assimilate the centripetal posture yet | Assume a permanent centripetal posture | |
| Balance | Keep it through constant muscle contractions | Control it using specific muscle contractions |
| Use their trunk to balance | Use their feet to balance | |
| Postural oscillations | Strive at controlling them | Take advantage of them |
| Imbalance | Reject it | Accept it |
| Suffer backward imbalance | Take advantage of forward imbalance | |
| Rebalancing | Use trunk and arms to compensate feet and legs imbalances | The trunk tends to remain stable while their feet and legs adapt |
| Compensatory balance adjustments | Hips balance strategy is primarily used | Ankles, hips, suspension, and sidestep balance strategies are indistinctively applied |
| Spatiality | Spatiality is constrained due to the restricted technical performance | Act with ease in the surrounding space |
| Visual orientation to the proximal zone limits their spatiality | The efficient use of their entire visual field consents an extended spatiality | |
| Effort | Tense spinal extensor muscles | Activate abdominal flexor muscles |
| Suffer effort excesses | Take advantage of the produced effort | |
| Create it from their trunk downwards | Generate it from their feet upwards | |
| Use greater general effort | Perform maneuvers with minimum energy | |
| Utilizing excessive muscle strain tends to replace proper technique | Exhibit efficiency graduating muscular effort | |
| Breathing | Tend to breathe alterations because of diaphragm blocking | Optimal breathing helps to release downward tension |
| Motion speed | Have the predisposition to slow down at each direction change | Usually keep a constant speed |
Visual perception of motion | Tend to turn without a clear visual scene | Look distinctly before changing direction |
| Must learn to visually anticipate | Apply visual anticipation constantly | |
| Use more visual fixation time on lower relevance signals | Employ fewer visual fixations of longer duration towards contiguous areas further down the slope | |
| Focus mainly on the proximal zone | Inspect mostly the distant zone | |
| Tend to focus their gaze on smaller areas | Exploit wider angles of visual search | |
| Not knowing precisely where or what to look for, explore the entire visual field with foveal vision | Apply peripheral vision for visual field limits and foveal vision for path control | |
| Pay frequent visual attention to their skis | Dedicate visual attention to trajectory selection | |
| Visual fixation time is longer due to the novelty of the environment | Require less visual fixation time while processing terrain conditions | |
| Are prone to orient gaze towards the ground optic flow | Tend to orient gaze towards the focus of expansion | |
| Risk perception | Orient their eyes to proximal areas restricting potential hazards detection | Direct gaze further forward to identify potential risks |
| Fixate vision to dangerous situations generating the ‘target fixation’ phenomenon | Aim gaze towards contiguous spaces to avoid hazardous situations | |
| Tend to ski in a conservative way | Are prone to take calculated risks | |
Direction change | Use “Z” type turns | Ski through “S” shaped curves |
| Visually determine direction changes in relation to their trunk’s transverse axis | Establish turning by taking their skis longitudinal axis as a reference | |
| Pretend to quickly turn without taking into consideration the direction change point | Consider the reference of the angle and the distance between skis’ actual orientation and the next turn ending | |
| Utilize the tails for skidded turns | Employ the tails for controlled skidded turns and the tips for carved turns |
