Replying to How to teach someone pole control in air?

So I visited friends in CT over last weekend; friends that have been skiing much longer than I have, but have not made any progression. I was teaching them a few things like how to ski switch and just basic tricks and one thing I couldn't get through to them was how to keep from swinging their ski poles and arms around like They're trying to Chop my head off. Any ski instructors or skiers know how to help fix this problem so they don't look like a bunch of gapers?