The women of Aspen Divas are excited to have been hosting the Annual Aspen World Synchro Championships since 2003.
If you want to join us, here are some ideas on how to get a team started.
Creating a Team
You'll want to start of by finding members for your team. Teams can be either 6 or 8 person with one alternate. All disciplines are welcome: Skiing/Snowboarding/Telemark/Adaptive/Kids. Women's, Men's, & Mixed teams.
Equipment
It's not necessary for everyone to be on the same Ski or Board, but helpful if they are at least similar dimensions and turn radius. Most ski teams use a slalom-type ski.
Training
Begin by training in pairs
One person in front of the other. Have the pairs start turning in the same direction in-sync. The lead person needs to pick a fall line and try and stick to it as well as stick to a consistent turn size and speed down the hill. It's easiest to start with Short turns.
The 2nd person needs to try and match the leader's turn shape, rhythm, speed down the hill keeping the same distance between
them. Spacing should leave enough room for another skier to fit between you for safety sake.
Once you have several pairs able to do this, switch the pairs around, switch leaders and start to notice who is better at leading.
The leader should be very consistent, and the followers will express which leaders are easiest to follow and keep the fall line.
Then try the pairs in op-sync, meaning they turn in opposite directions. The leader turns right first and 2nd skier turns left first.
2nd skier tries to match the leader's turn shape, rhythm, speed down the hill keeping the same distance between them, while staying in op-sync with the leader.
Continue with this slowly increasing the numbers in the groups, 3 people in sync, 3 people op-sync (1st and 3rd turn right, 2nd turn left.) Then groups of 4 and so on always keeping safety first.
Syncing Tips
- Pole touch - leader should be consistent with timing of both swing and touch.
- Edge change - watch the skis.
- Body - watch the body movements, try and hide behind the leader if you are sync with them.
Then try "Pops"
This is when the rhythm of the turns remains the same as the leader, and with an extra hit to the edges, you change lanes or fall
lines. A figure can be designed where all members do this together or only certain members Pop to change the shape of the figure.
In this example, you have 8 skiers forming 2 vertical lines op sync. (fig 1) All the x's are turning one way and the o's the other.
Skiers one and 3 (x's) of the lines turning right while skiers 2 and 4 (o's) are turning left. When everyone pops, the effect is to separate the two lines into 3 lines (fig 2) center line with 4 people and the two outside lines of 2 people. When you do a 2nd pop, the separation is 4 lines of 2 or boxes. (fig 3)
fig 1 fig 2 fig 3
o o o o o o
x x x x x x
o o o o o o
x x x x x x
Practice Starting
This is one example of how to start. The skiers stand facing down the slope in a wedge. Use the poles in front of you positioned in a manner which will hold you on the slope once your skis are together. Have the back person direct the lineup to make sure all are in position. Have someone further back in the line (not necessarily last) with a loud voice do the call:
"Pole Cue" - team members raise the pole for the direction they are going to turn, this way you can correct anyone who has the
wrong direction before you leave.
"Ready" - Team focuses
"Right ski" - All team members move their right ski to center on the word 'ski'
"Left ski" - All team members move their left ski to center on the word 'ski'
"Push two" - All members push hard with both poles
"Push one" - All members push hard with both poles for a second time
"And" - The lead skier raises their right pole high up and on the drop of that pole, everyone turns out of the fall line.
By saying push two before one, everyone knows how many pushes there will be. Some steeper slopes will only require one push
or only a release. Some flatter slopes will require more pushes.
Practice Stopping
There are 4 different ways of stopping while you train. Be extra careful to make sure all know which method you are using before starting.
When it comes to competition, your stops have to be precise without sliding forward or backwards, hold the stop so that you
don't receive a deduction from the judges.
School Figure
The contest has one mandatory figure, the school figure. You could start off by training this figure, before designing your own.
Designing your own Figures
We hope we have sparked your interest and we look forward to hearing from you soon. We especially look forward to welcoming new teams to join the returning teams, National and International.
BY KELLY BEAIRSTO
If you want to join us, here are some ideas on how to get a team started.
Creating a Team
You'll want to start of by finding members for your team. Teams can be either 6 or 8 person with one alternate. All disciplines are welcome: Skiing/Snowboarding/Telemark/Adaptive/Kids. Women's, Men's, & Mixed teams.
Equipment
It's not necessary for everyone to be on the same Ski or Board, but helpful if they are at least similar dimensions and turn radius. Most ski teams use a slalom-type ski.
Training
Begin by training in pairs
One person in front of the other. Have the pairs start turning in the same direction in-sync. The lead person needs to pick a fall line and try and stick to it as well as stick to a consistent turn size and speed down the hill. It's easiest to start with Short turns.
The 2nd person needs to try and match the leader's turn shape, rhythm, speed down the hill keeping the same distance between
them. Spacing should leave enough room for another skier to fit between you for safety sake.
Once you have several pairs able to do this, switch the pairs around, switch leaders and start to notice who is better at leading.
The leader should be very consistent, and the followers will express which leaders are easiest to follow and keep the fall line.
Then try the pairs in op-sync, meaning they turn in opposite directions. The leader turns right first and 2nd skier turns left first.
2nd skier tries to match the leader's turn shape, rhythm, speed down the hill keeping the same distance between them, while staying in op-sync with the leader.
Continue with this slowly increasing the numbers in the groups, 3 people in sync, 3 people op-sync (1st and 3rd turn right, 2nd turn left.) Then groups of 4 and so on always keeping safety first.
Syncing Tips
- Pole touch - leader should be consistent with timing of both swing and touch.
- Edge change - watch the skis.
- Body - watch the body movements, try and hide behind the leader if you are sync with them.
Then try "Pops"
This is when the rhythm of the turns remains the same as the leader, and with an extra hit to the edges, you change lanes or fall
lines. A figure can be designed where all members do this together or only certain members Pop to change the shape of the figure.
In this example, you have 8 skiers forming 2 vertical lines op sync. (fig 1) All the x's are turning one way and the o's the other.
Skiers one and 3 (x's) of the lines turning right while skiers 2 and 4 (o's) are turning left. When everyone pops, the effect is to separate the two lines into 3 lines (fig 2) center line with 4 people and the two outside lines of 2 people. When you do a 2nd pop, the separation is 4 lines of 2 or boxes. (fig 3)
fig 1 fig 2 fig 3
o o o o o o
x x x x x x
o o o o o o
x x x x x x
Practice Starting
This is one example of how to start. The skiers stand facing down the slope in a wedge. Use the poles in front of you positioned in a manner which will hold you on the slope once your skis are together. Have the back person direct the lineup to make sure all are in position. Have someone further back in the line (not necessarily last) with a loud voice do the call:
"Pole Cue" - team members raise the pole for the direction they are going to turn, this way you can correct anyone who has the
wrong direction before you leave.
"Ready" - Team focuses
"Right ski" - All team members move their right ski to center on the word 'ski'
"Left ski" - All team members move their left ski to center on the word 'ski'
"Push two" - All members push hard with both poles
"Push one" - All members push hard with both poles for a second time
"And" - The lead skier raises their right pole high up and on the drop of that pole, everyone turns out of the fall line.
By saying push two before one, everyone knows how many pushes there will be. Some steeper slopes will only require one push
or only a release. Some flatter slopes will require more pushes.
Practice Stopping
There are 4 different ways of stopping while you train. Be extra careful to make sure all know which method you are using before starting.
- The lead skier can raise their pole to signal they are done and ski away from the group in a wider turn.
- You have a predetermined number of turns and everyone stops on that count. You can practice this with a walk through.
- The lead skier raises a pole high over head instead of planting it for the last turn.
- The team counts allowed the 3 turns "3,2,1" before stopping.
When it comes to competition, your stops have to be precise without sliding forward or backwards, hold the stop so that you
don't receive a deduction from the judges.
School Figure
The contest has one mandatory figure, the school figure. You could start off by training this figure, before designing your own.
Designing your own Figures
- Please refer to the rule book in downloads to see how the scoring works.
- Repeats are allowed, you can design 2 figures and repeat the one you are performing the best.
- Short radius turns are the easiest to sync, followed my medium radius turns. Long radius turns are the hardest to sync.
We hope we have sparked your interest and we look forward to hearing from you soon. We especially look forward to welcoming new teams to join the returning teams, National and International.
BY KELLY BEAIRSTO