For many of us, this year’s winter ski or snowboard holiday has been and gone, and hopefully it was a blast of snow fun from beginning to end! Whether we spent it progressing from blues to reds, seeking off-piste powder, speed skiing the slopes or landing tricks in the park, most of us will be left hungry for more!
With thoughts of what we hope to achieve on next year’s winter break in the forefront of our minds, an opportunity to get a head start on next year’s snow goals will come as music to our ears! Not only are UK real-snow indoor centres offering us the chance to keep all the skills we’ve achieved this trip at the ready, they also provide the perfect location for progression all year round. This means that next snow season, we’ll be showing off some new moves from day one of our winter holidays.
So, if you were left wishing you’d taken that black run in your stride, landed your first 180 with more style or kept up with the rest of your group this season, here are just five of the many things you can head to your indoor snow centre to learn.
Speed
Keeping up with or getting ahead of the rest of the group isn’t always easy. Believe it or not, indoor slopes offer all you need to practise speed skiing or snowboarding. There are two key factors coming into play when looking to slide more quickly on snow: technique and its application, and confidence, and there’s plenty of room to build upon both at an indoor slope. For example, the 160m Main Slope at The Snow Centre in Hemel Hempstead offers coaching on technique or Summer Lift Pass offers that can provide regular on-snow sessions to help build confidence and keep it!
Confidence
It’s alleged that most sports are 80% mental and 20% physical, and for those of us that lack in confidence on the slopes, this often rings true! The reality is that many of us forget how good our skiing or snowboard skills are from one year to the next. Regular sessions on an indoor slope can keep those skills flowing all year round, so we won’t forget how good we are!
Landing tricks
Whether it’s jibbing a few tricks on the piste or landing something in the park, freestyle coaching at UK indoor snow centres up and down the country provides the perfect opportunity to master freestyle tricks. Copying a trick we’ve seen someone do whilst out on the mountain will never get us as far as understanding exactly how that trick is achieved. An indoor centre’s freestyle coach can explain the dynamics of a trick and make adjustments to technique to help us land it with style! Plus, most centres run regular park nights enabling you to practise any new moves!
Steeper slopes and varied terrain
Yes, maybe the gradient at your indoor slope isn’t quite that of the steepest black in France, but you can learn the technique needed and how to apply it, to muster the skill for the steepest of runs on most UK indoor slopes. And the same goes for varied terrain; from moguls to narrow icy pistes, all require the application of the appropriate technique, something The Snow Centre’s instructors know all about.
Carving and style
We’ve all caught a glimpse of the skier or snowboarder carving, racing or spinning tricks down the slopes and thought about how we could achieve their level of skill. Whether it’s learning a technique like carving and making it look good or just sliding with more charisma, these are skills that can be learnt indoors in a lesson or coaching session, or with some practice time on an indoor slope.
These are just five of the many skills you can pick up at an indoor slope this summer. There’s no better time for us to become masters of our own on-snow goals than on the quieter UK slopes offering great summer prices. Next season we might just find ourselves at the top of our game indoors and out!
