Bump Skiing 101 - An introduction to skiing moguls

I had a 3 hour lesson the other day with a strong intermediate skier who wanted to improve his bump skiing.  By his own self assessment his mogul skiing wasn't very good!  We'd had a few inches of fresh snow at the mountain, so the conditions were perfect for an intro to bumps lesson.  After a quick warm up lap to check he could make a parallel turn on blue terrain, we dove right in.  I'll lead you through my progression, and give some explanation why.  I might have taken a different approach depending on the profile of the student.

Up & Over Ski Drill: Making 'C' turners out of 'Z' turners

The Up & Over drill was probably the biggest 'ah-ha' moment I've had on skis.  I think for most people it is difficult to understand and conceptualize.  Let's think about this in everyday skier terms.  Next time you ride the lift over a steep trail, count the number of skiers you see pushing their heels around at the top of the turn, with a heavy edge-set at the end of the turn to control speed.  This is usually accompanied by bracing against the outside leg/ski.  The stereotypical 'Z' turner (turn shape looks like the letter 'Z').

At this point, if you're not a contemporary ski coach, you're probably saying "what's wrong with that as long as they're having fun?!"  Well, you'd be right, but it is not a smooth or efficient way to slide down the mountain, especially when considering the technology in modern ski equipment.  Modern skis are parabolic in shape, so they naturally want to turn in an arc or the shape of the letter 'C'.  Why are we fighting that?  More so, how do we make 'C' shaped turns instead of 'Z' shaped turns?