A first trip ‘round the world, part 44

I’ve always been interested in ski teaching technique. Perhaps this is due to the fact I was self-taught as a kid, and didn’t benefit of any guidance until I began working in a ski-school and attend the training programs at ENSA in Chamonix. 

This lack of early education must have been behind my curiosity and my interest in the matter. The French Ski School at Mt. Buller was totally focused on teaching the French technique, especially since from the beginning, its lead instructors from Maurice Jaun to Alexis Saudan or Gérard Bouvier, were all member of the ENSA faculty. 

Next door, at the Austrian ski school, things were different and maybe less orthodox than the true Austrian skiing technique. Yet, because we were neighbors, they were too hard to ignore and I must say that their mere presence perked up my interest in knowing more about their teaching method. 

So, I’d like to first spend a few moment explaining the Austrian approach to ski instruction. It developed after World War II, when Professor Stefan Kruckenhauser took over the leadership of the Ski Home (the Austrian ENSA) at St. Christoph, just over St. Anton. Starting in 1955, he became the evangelist for his "Wedel" technique and spread it all over the world. 

In 1956 the "Austrian Ski Curriculum" was published and that book proved to be a bestseller translated into many languages. Let’s say that he was the equivalent to the French tandem Paul Gignoux – Emile Allais, except that their “Ski Français” that came out in 1937 was to my knowledge never translated and hence, the widespread notoriety of the Austrian technique can be traced to the effort made to translating an essential technique. 

To simplify, “Wedel” was sacrificing appearance for efficiency, which wasn’t far or different from the French’s obsessive: “Christiana léger”. That curriculum was in force until 1970, but Kruckenhauser and his instructors did their best to observe the confluence of racing technique and an ever changing technology to draw their own solutions and evolve their method. 

All these technical developments and especially the "Wellen Technique" (which could have meant “riding the waves”) had just appeared following the 1968 Aspen Interski, when we arrived at Mt. Buller in the newly published "Austrian Ski Curriculum". It was published by the Austrian Professional Ski Instructors’ Association.

At about the same time, Georges Joubert “Teach yourself to ski” was published and validated the new wide-track approach proclaimed by Kruckenhauser, “the Pope of skiing”. Joubert was smart enough to get it translated into English, by Curt Chase, at the time the Aspen ski school director and was able to get his views out of France. 

In Austria, Kruckenhauser's own son-in-law, Franz Hoppichler who began managing the Federal Sport Home at Obergurgl in 1959, would take over the leadership of the Federal Sports Home at St. Christoph in 1972.  

In a nutshell, that new direction was born from observing Killy and his effective, if not iconoclast skiing form and began a departure from the Austrian dogmatic philosophy of “perfect-looking style obsession” and “reverse-shoulder”, into wide-stance and a more utilitarian way of skiing. This was also a defensive response to the growing popularity of the French ski technique. There was of course a questionable “down-unweighting” element, but, I guess, no one is ever perfect! 

One thing that was notable though, was Kruckenhauser advocating to keep beginners on short skis until they understand the basic element of the sport and have decided that this game can really be fun after all—something nice in 1.50-meter skis for ladies and 1.70 for men. This latter part was a very good idea, and I still can’t understand that the French way of teaching never addressed the excessive length of skis as a tyrannical hindrance to learning. I remember that at the French Ski School, all male instructors were always on 207 cm skis!

The Austrian ski school at Mt. Buller was let by Walter Frois, from Wolfurt in Voralberg, home of Doppelmayr ropeways. The Australian season over, he’d return to Alpine Meadows, California where he also ran the ski school there and worked with Mike Porter. According to Mike, Walter worked at Zürs up until 2-3 years ago. He now lives in Daalas a small hamlet at the base of the Sonnenkopf ski resort. 

At Mt. Buller, his team included Austrian, of course, but also Swiss like Pierre Pfister, from Glion sur Montreux, René Zeller and some Americans like Mike Porter from Vail, and the whole group was teaching a mixture of Austro-Swiss-American technique to their students, including down-unweighting along with “wide-track” turns. 

Absent modern ski sidecuts (we’re still in 1971) down-unweighting didn’t quite work with novices because that new theory required a significant amount of speed beginner skiers were totally incapable of. The old French method using down-and-up un-weighting was still much more appropriate and adapted to teaching new skiers…