Ski Boot Drills for Children

Robin Shudak: Hi, I am Robin Shudak, an instructor at Sn Mountain. Today's lesson is how to teach your child to ski. Now that we have gotten our equipment and we are out on the snow, let's go over boot drills. So on to the lesson. To help demonstrate, we have here Cassidy (ph) and she is 11. She is going to help us out and as you can see she has on her helmet and her goggles and gloves or mittens. Mittens are fine too and her boots are all buckled up. How do they feel? Cassidy: Great.

Robin Shudak: You are ready to go? Cassidy: Yeah.

Robin Shudak: Alright, the first boot drill that we normally do is walking; just plain walking and you want to go heel, toe, heel, toe, okay, heel, toe, heel, toe, heel, toe. The next boot drill is called bowtie and what this is, is you are practicing pushing your heel and pushing the ball of your foot against the sides of the boot to make the move. Now, what you want to do is make sure that the midpoint of the boot isn't moving. So keep turning Cassidy. Good job. Keep turning, turn the ankle, push the ankle out, push the toes out, push the ankle out. Now the next part is you are going to turn your toe out. You are not going to move your ankle. Now the third part is you want to try to make a bowtie with your foot. Now you are going to move your ankle and your toe at the same time. So it's like an hourglass. The next one is called half-moon. Now with this one, you stand with your foot in back of you and you turn your foot around the other foot making your half-moon design. You want to keep your foot on the snow and what this does is make sure that you are using your hip to turn your body. This foot doesn't move. Boot drills are important because not only do they get your child comfortable in these big Frankenstein like things that are on their feet but they also teach them to turn their feet and turning is an essential movement in skiing.