Team
‘Beweg dich Schlau!’ with Felix Neureuther
Move Smart!" concept
Kids on Snow and ‘Beweg dich schlau! mit Felix Neureuther’ is a new exercise concept that we – the Schweitzer team – have been integrating into our ski instructor training as a professional ski school since the 2017/18 winter season, implementing it with conviction and enthusiasm in our entire course programme. It is a unique training programme to promote mental and physical performance. Participants often find it great fun to exert themselves physically while solving mental and/or movement tasks. The children particularly enjoy being ‘outdoors’, experiencing surprises and constantly mastering new situations. They enjoy moving and quickly make great progress. But the adults also find the special task a great challenge and often rise above themselves. You overcome your fear, seemingly impossible things are accomplished, and even increased in difficulty with repetition of the exercise. Almost unnoticed, rapid learning success occurs.
Felix Neureuther: ‘Beweg dich schlau!’ is not intended as a guide to a better life, but as a way to help motivate children and young people to get moving and develop their brains at the same time. It’s all about making exercise fun and enjoyable. Because: You live and learn forever. The only rule is: A rolling stone gathers no moss.
‘We are proud to be able to integrate ‘Beweg dich schlau!’ from Felix Neureuther into our children’s courses from the coming winter season,’ says Wolfgang Pohl, President of the DSLV. ‘Our long-standing kids on snow concept is thus significantly enriched.’
Norbert Haslach, Director of the Snow Sports Schools at the DSLV, adds: ‘The topic of children’s ski lessons plays the biggest role in most DSLV professional ski schools. The DSLV snow sports philosophy offers an ideal framework for experience-oriented children’s ski lessons. By adding Felix Neureuther’s ‘Move smart!’ initiative to the concept, we are highlighting the importance of exercise, especially for children, and are thus fully in line with Felix Neureuther’s philosophy. Skiing is the first sport to integrate the initiative into its teaching concept.’
Movement promotes learning
The wide range of movements involved in skiing activates mental processes. These so-called executive functions – working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility – are constantly stimulated by new environmental conditions. Varying speeds when skiing, different types of terrain and varying snow conditions provide ideal learning conditions without the need to create an artificial environment. ‘Here we see a particular strength in skiing: the external conditions and movements sometimes change very quickly, so there is no need to create an artificial environment that would offer comparable training effects. Integrating Felix Neureuther’s ‘Move smart! Ski fit and clever’ into our children’s ski courses is therefore a logical step,’ emphasises Haslach.
Coordination skills – equivalent of the central nervous system
In addition to the executive functions, the children’s coordination skills are the focus of the learning concept. A particularly lasting learning effect occurs when movements have to be consciously controlled – the brain then learns the fastest. The combination of thinking and moving promotes learning processes and can be integrated into ski courses in a variety of ways. Orientation skills, a sense of balance and responsiveness are just a few examples of the memory processes that are promoted.
Child-friendly implementation with lots of fun in snow sports
The concrete implementation of Felix Neureuther’s ‘Move smart!’ initiative in the children’s ski courses at the DSLV professional ski schools is subject to strict guidelines from the DSLV. For several years now, the ‘kids on snow’ seal of quality from the DSLV has guaranteed that the DSLV children’s course concept is implemented in the DSLV professional ski schools. With the new integration of the ‘Beweg dich schlau!’ programme from Felix Neureuther, professional ski instructors are incorporating numerous new exercises that promote cognitive processes. A popular form of practice is the game ‘remote control’: two skiers descend the slope one behind the other, with the rear skier controlling the movements of the skier in front of him by command. Depending on the level of learning, instructions are given for cornering, for example, but also for more unusual movements such as ‘hand to shoulder’ or ‘make body small’. Spontaneous reactions to the instructions of the person behind you train cognitive processes.
Felix Neureuther on ‘Move Smart!’
Exercises for the ‘Move Smart!’ programme
The ‘Beweg dich Schlau!’ concept with Felix Neureuther is not just for winter sports. Click here to go to the ‘Beweg dich Schlau!’ concept website.