The Snow and Ice Method

The principles governing movement on snow and ice are in common with those relating to rock climbing. The differences concern essentially two aspects:

• Ice is generally a more uniform and regular element than rock and does not allow adhesion
• the tools used (crampons and ice axes) generally determine a frontal position to the wall with the feet pointing (front tips of the crampons)

These two elements logically restrict the range of all those movements that are instead possible on rock: the possibility of using the feet laterally on rock, with the internal and external edge of the shoe, determines different body positions and therefore a greater number of techniques and progressions. Classic slopes are ideal terrain for learning and fully understanding the crossed, simultaneous and non-simultaneous pattern, one of the starting points of the Method.

Knowing and mastering this motor pattern already allows you to experience first-hand the effectiveness and values ​​that are the basis of the Method. First of all, you understand the link that exists between technique and ability, between safety and speed of progression. Thanks to the knowledge of the correct techniques, thus improving coordination skills, you move better, you become more capable and therefore you can really appreciate and understand the activity you practice. Knowledge of the technique, with the consequent acquisition of skills, also allows general improvements for the human being: without correct work on movement it is very difficult to improve psycho-physical balance and the ability to understand in a balanced way all the aspects that concern climbing, from how you move on the vertical to how you behave in nature, from the criteria for opening routes to the bolting of the routes, including the values ​​that are the basis of the activity practiced and that are transmitted above all thanks to quality teaching.

The crossed movement pattern has also allowed us to understand in which position it is more convenient and safe to move the ice axe on slopes, both when climbing vertically and on traverses or diagonally. Before the birth of MC and basic techniques such as Crossed Progression (simultaneous and non-simultaneous), the amble movement was at least predominant, if not exactly the only one known and used. The amble recalls a more primitive motor pattern and, on steep and vertical terrain, is generally less safe and more tiring.

Thanks to the knowledge of the applications of the cross pattern, it was possible to develop the innovative  shoulder safety with cross pattern  in place of the less effective and more dangerous shoulder safety in amble, which is still the one normally used today. Furthermore, the cross pattern constitutes the basis for understanding the other movement patterns that concern the more advanced progressions, in particular the homologous movement pattern, relative to the Fundamental Progression, and above all the Triangle Progression.