Brenda wrote:Don't have the time right now to view them all, but I'm curious about the differences. Care to point out some of the more interesting?
Caveat: I'm not an instructor, so you'll want some salt with this.
That out of the way, I should note that each group approached the workshop a little differently. The American and Swiss work shops focused primarily on explaining the national understanding of the turn and philosophy of instruction [cue argument], whereas the Germans and Norwegians went more for the straight up 'this is how we teach telemark' approach.
I found German approach the most unusual/interesting, perhaps because I wasn't expecting much in the way of innovation. Rather than taking an explicitly technical approach to positioning and movements, they adopt what might be called a 'play-based' approach, with emphasis on fun exercises/activities meant to instill certain body positions and patterns of movement.
The Norwegians did some of this as well, but their approach to instruction (and also the turn) seemed somewhat more traditional.
The Swiss workshop is the most technical of the four in terms of deconstructing aspects of the telemark turn under different dynamic conditions (complete with manual). Their overall philosophy seems similar to the USA (PSIA) approach, but I found the American presentation did a better job describing the 'Forest' since it spent less time on the 'trees'.
I'm interested to hear what the instructors in the room have to say once they've had a look at these videos.
The US workshop