Difference with rock
As already indicated, the movement techniques related to ice are completely similar to the first progressions that are performed on rock. The main movement patterns refer to: • the Cross Progression • the Fundamental Progression • the Triangle Progression The first difference concerns the use of the balanced position, an exclusive or almost exclusive prerogative of rock. The reasons are very obvious: balancing on rock is achieved thanks to the friction that is generated between the rubber of the lateral band of the shoe on the rough rock.
But on ice? The slippery element certainly does not favor any friction with the boot, indeed, balancing on ice can turn into something potentially dangerous. Real teaching also aims to transmit the safest movement patterns in order to minimize the risk of a fall. Teaching an unsuitable and potentially dangerous technique is a serious mistake.
There is a lot of talk about safety, but often in mostly intellectual and not very concrete terms. The most important safety is that relating to a safe movement, which should be taught first. Often mistakes come from an unopened mentality of those who teach, as well as from errors in understanding the techniques of the MC. In the early 90s, when balancing on rock was born, initially some perplexity arose. Some wondered: why use this new position rather than placing both feet at slightly different heights (fifth position)? When you do not know a technique, to understand and use it you have to experience its effectiveness, after having freed yourself from those involuntary automatisms that lead to constantly using disadvantageous movements and positions, as happens with the fifth position. But now that the advantages of balancing on rock are known, why propose this position with other automatisms on ice, a terrain not suitable for balancing? Crampons have front points, not lateral ones, and it is much easier and safer to plant them on the ice tip-first, so as to have an additional support point and avoid the fifth position. Another difference concerns the lateral progression that can be achieved on rock because, on this terrain, it is possible to place the foot in support on the side, so as to assume a lateral position with respect to the wall. The feet in tip-first, as when the front points of the crampons are placed, bring the body to a frontal position, favoring the approach of the pelvis to the wall. All this does not mean that you can never use a sort of balance, perhaps leaving a leg in the void as happens more easily in dry-tooling, or place the body obliquely to the wall, or even use the heel in support, but these are exceptions and variations that on ice certainly do not fall within the standard cases. The technique serves first of all to favor the correct motor execution in the progressions that are used most. On the other hand, even on rock, once you have learned all the fundamental techniques, it is easy to mix these techniques to give rise to all the infinite variations and possibilities of movement. But the most difficult phase for learning, which allows you to make the best movement your own, consists in working thoroughly on the correct and most important patterns, in order to automate them in a conscious way. It then becomes easy and practically obvious to make the necessary variations. A good teacher should first understand what he teaches.
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