Some will say they are idiots.
Letter to Irwin responding to his e-mail.
Hi Irwin,
Interesting topic, here are some thoughts.
I look at the situation and challenges of learning how skiing works, from this point of view. What I find lacking when people can't figure out movement or order of movements that creates skiing, is based in the lack of the following understandings:
Self awareness of movement
Visual interpretation of movements
Recognition of forces acting on the body, on the slope
Recognition of forces acting through the body
Simple mechanics of skis
Feel and understanding of balance.
Body movement: isolating one movement, while creating with another
Finding these things lacking, I don't feel is caused by being an idiot. I'd rather say, it's just not part of the gifts inherently possessed by humans. However, there are exceptions, and those exceptions are reserved for gifted humans in these disciplines. Some are born with and have an inherently complete knowledge of every category I listed above. Obviously helped by some basic education, but after that, it comes to them easily and develops through further investigation and experimentation.
Most skiers and ski educators don't have this gift, even those high on the instruction food chain in national organizations.
The rest of us have to learn, either by rote memory, repetition, or step by step duplication. Most people don't immediately translate even correct, effective movement information, into their bodies. And even if they do, restructuring and delivering these movements for others to learn is a elusive skill on higher level.
This becomes obvious when you watch hundreds of instructors trying to produce highly effective movement lessons for the masses, that they can't interpret. It's just not happening! Only 1 out of 10 instructors naturally and inherently grasp "to us that know" a logical progression. We all know how difficult it is to produce logical, easy to achieve step by step, movement progressions that achieve an effective ski turn.
If this were not the case, you wouldn't have convoluted ski systems all over the alpine skiing world that actually harm human movement learning, rather then helping. The examples I draw on to be able to express these comments come from observation of traditional ski instruction. We know this by observing results from thousands of instructors in the world, that buy into totally ineffective movements for skiers. If the theories you describe about idiots were the case, it would mean idiots dominate the ski teaching landscape. Is it legit to call almost 99% of ski instructors idiots, or would it be preferable to categorize them as less gifted or uninterested?
From a survival, practical and physiological point of view, if you don't have the observation skills or you are limited in the rest of the abilities I listed above; you have to invent other methods by which you can interpret the sport, based on limitations you possess. An analogy might be, if you didn't understand how to make rubber for bike tires, you might end up with wooden rims. Sure they work and you can ride on wooden tires, but is it the best way? Yes, it's the best way, "for you", if you don't know rubber. Your solution for a wheel to work with materials at hand is solely based on your understanding of what is available to you.
One conclusion could be, sure idiots all, except for a few gifted and interested. However, I would rather take the road that tells me; everyone can learn from the gifted if they are motivated to learn. Then you would be able to say, idiots are the ones that don't want to investigate and learn from the best performers. That is, if those performers have figured out how to convey movements, to achieve the best performances.
Fun topic,
HH