Another ordinary day, stuck behind Windows ’98 and answering the odd phone call. Then a colleague made it worse, saying we had to go to Canterbury in Kent of all places to test a new ski simulator that was in the final stages of construction.

It made my day worse for one reason - Ski simulators are mostly rubbish. I must have tried every one built and the ‘best’ ever was the ‘Alpine Ski Racer’ at the local amusement arcade. It bears no resemblance to actually skiing of course but is good for a laugh.

Anyway off we went to Kent to test this new contraption. The only thing that was holding my interest at this stage was Designer Jonathan Showan’s comment, that a good friend of mine had tried the simulator and said after his test that he thought it was a very realistic and exciting product with masses of potential.

That friend was Mark Quinn, a very experienced skier and ski trainer. I wondered if he had made the remarks out of politeness, never did I imagine that his words were the understatement of the year.

As we drove up to the unit where the simulator was located, we were greeted by Jonathan who seemed overjoyed that we had made the effort to try the simulator.

Jonathan explained the ins and outs of Realli-Ski and who it was aimed at. It seemed that no matter what we asked him, all angles had been looked at, researched, checked for feasibility and put into the design programme to give the simulator the variety and realism it would need to be successful.

Jonathan skied first explaining his experiences with other simulators and how information gathered from skiers and instructors who had assisted in trials leading to Realli-Ski’s production. By this time I was dying to ski on the Simulator. The whole set up is very professional and watching Jonathan, a good skier in his own right, making all the movements a skier needs, traversing left and right at will, it was obvious the Simulator was working extremely well.

Simulators that I have tried fall into two categories. They are;

• Fitness

A machine designed to keep you “ski fit”. This type put the user into the shape of a skier but fails to do much else.

• Skiing

A machine that seems to be on the right track in that you wear skis and are on a moving surface. However, there the resemblance ends. They produce no real skiing feel and attempting to obtain an ‘edge’ is pointless. Consequently they are useless as a training medium and develop none of the skills needed to make a good skier.

Thus the result is that you have a machine that makes a half-hearted attempt to be something it’s clearly not, or a machine that only gives you the ability to ‘ski’ on the machine itself.

Not very productive I’m sure you’ll agree!
Finally I got the chance to ski on this superb feat of engineering. Once it is in motion you are given plenty of time to adjust your balance and ski angles and it really becomes very simple. I stood straight running as the specially designed Realli-Snow surface started to rotate underneath me and the rear of the machine started to lift.

Taking hold of the bar at the front to steady myself until I got used to the feel, I was amazed, even at that early stage how realistic the surface felt.

Within only thirty seconds or so, I felt comfortable enough to give the old faithful snowplough a bit of a bash and, SURPRISE! It really worked.

The interesting thing is however, that it genuinely feels as if you are sliding on snow.

The matting is soft but the grip is phenomenal. With this in mind I thought I would start to run through the basic skills to see how Realli-Ski reacted.

The British Association of Ski Instructors, (BASI), the governing body of all British Snow sport instructors, whom I owe the great pleasure of being qualified by, has set out a simple guideline that their instructors base all there training on.

It is called the ‘Central Theme’ and it looks something like this:

I ran through every skill in every way on Realli-Ski with the exception of powder and bumps, (Give them another year and I’m sure they’ll build it in!). No matter what I did the simulator responded brilliantly, if I did something wrong, you could feel it immediately; if I did something right it felt absolutely perfect.
I completed my ‘run’ and stepped down from the Simulator inspired by the sheer possibilities it could have as an aid to ski teaching.

But hold on! Not only that but after only fifteen minutes I could feel my skiing muscles, you know the ones I mean. It felt like I’d been skiing for at least an hour non stop. Could this be true? Has someone really created a Simulator that will not only keep you “ski fit” but also improve your technique?

My entire life has revolved around skiing and teaching skiing, so the possibilities for this Simulator made my head spin.

While I was taking a break Jonathan explained to me about the rest of the package that goes to make up the complete Realli-Ski experience. Yes, there is more…much more!
Connected to the simulator are an array of gadgets that come under two headings; Multimedia and Control Centre.

The Multimedia part has you facing a large plasma screen whilst on the machine. You can watch yourself skiing and your instructor points out where you could be better.
You can ‘follow’ an instructor down a run attempting to emulate the correct movements, again with this brilliant one-to-one Instructor Pupil relationship. Or how about MTV? You can in fact watch just about anything you want.

Choose one of the resorts and hear/watch the latest developments. Ski ‘Special’ or your favourite ski runs. Or you may like to select a ‘Resort Information’ fact file on the resort you may be visiting during the winter.

Jonathan is at present working on the GPS system and eventually you will be able to actually ski the runs that you did on your holiday or some terrifying ‘Black Run’ that your friend has told you about.

Some other observations:

The Control Panel:
This is the visible part of the ‘Nerve Centre’ of the Simulator. It works in tandem with the multimedia package, raising or lower the bed or speeding up the surface depending how you choose to ski. It is simple to operate once the basics are explained and allows plenty of time for the user to become acclimatized.

Safety & Economy:
Those two words do not normally go together – One all too often sacrificed at the expense of the other but in Realli-Ski’s case they perfectly compliment each other and for two main reasons. Firstly, the whole concept of the simulator is one of Pro-Active Safety, using the usual emergency stop button system on the control panel but backing this up with a dead weight switch in the safety harness and laser beams to prevent overshooting and any external interference.

The economy part of the package is easy to explain. Due to the ability to carry out one-to-one instruction throughout the whole lesson, the Instructor can immediately correct balance, posture, ski positioning et al. This facilitates a very rapid learning curve and a realistic work rate of 15 times that of training on a ski slope, dry or snow. This equates to 20 minutes on the simulator having the same value as 5 hours on a slope!

On a personal note:

I tried the double black diamond run on the simulator and at its conclusion my legs were ‘screaming’ enough, enough! This is a superb example of how the Realli-Ski Simulator relates to ski fitness. It is as close as you could possibly get to the real thing and is going to be a positive force in ski training and expansion of the sport generally.

I would like to conclude with a question to all holiday skiers;

How many times have you spent hundreds, maybe thousands of pounds on a skiing holiday, only to spend the first half of it suffering from bumps, bruises, aches and pains or worse?

Well your troubles are over. A few sessions on a Realli-Ski Simulator will ensure you arrive on the piste, toned up and raring to go. You could even amaze your friends with your new found skill and performance – Now there’s a thought
A comment on one of Realli-Ski’s publicity sheets reads;

‘You want more realism – Well – We could throw snowballs.’

I can only wholeheartedly agree with that observation.

Duncan Adamson – BASI 1 (British Association of Snowsports Instructors).