How might a day of practice look?
Choose one turn type and focus on going through the fundamentals. For example you work on Long Turns and your athletic stance by learning about the swords drill and practising this drill for 3 runs. You then work on the early edging drill for 3 runs before then trying to put the feelings you get from both drills into your free skiing feeling far more solid and on your edges.
Athletic stance using swords drill
Early edging focus using early edging drill
Free ski focused on feelings from exercises
Turn Types
You want to work on three general types of turns. Long turns, short turns and mogul turns. Practicing these individual turn types is necessary as they have slightly different skills blends and timing. Once you master these you will be able to ski challenging terrain far easier as its a matter of mixing these turns types.
Long Turns - What to work on
Understanding how a ski works
Athletic Stance drills
Early edging drills
Balance against the outside ski drills
Progressive inclination drills to manage turn forces
Upper body discipline drills
Different types of transitions: Retraction/Extension
Short Turns - What to work on
The physics of steering skis
Athletic stance drills
Turning with the lower body
Upper body discipline drills
Fore and aft balance and moving the feet
Finishing with a strong edge set/platform
Pole planting
Mogul Turns - What to work on
Pivot slips in moguls to control speed
Pole planting
Line control
Collision control through absorption
Speed control through absorption and high line
Flow and going faster
Turn Performances
Turn performances describe the interaction between the ski and the snow.
Is the ski skidding sideways?
Is the tail washing out?
Is the ski slicing the snow like a knife?
Is it a blend? E.g. Steered into carved
You need to understand the different performances to help you choose when is the best time to use them. Your goal is to FEEL these turn types through your feet and develop this skill like a musician develops their ear for music. A fascinating experiment performed by John Shedden, former Director of Coaching for Snowsport England, found the following. That beginner skiers compared to advanced skiers were overwhelmed with information coming from all the senses. Kinaesthetic, audio and visual. And that advanced skiers had learnt to filter this information and look for specific sensations, sights and sounds. To prove this he partially anaesthetised the skin of beginners and advanced skiers feet and lower limbs. He found that it made little difference to the beginners skiing, but that advanced skiers struggled as they lost their feedback loop.
Another interesting experiment where binding mount location was studied to see the effect on skiers balance tested the difference between a World Cup ski racer and a provincial level ski racer. The data captured using pressure sensors under the feet of both skiers showed the elite skiers foot pressures were almost exactly the same regardless of where the binding was placed. The less skilled skier had much bigger variation in their balance depending on where the binding was positioned. So the better you get the more you feel and adjust to ensure the ski performance is working for you.
In a nutshell…..develop your skills at feeling turn performance.
Skidding
The ski is sliding sideways on the snow with little control or desire by the skier. It’s important to differentiate skidding and steering as both really are the same. The main difference is steering is controlled, skidding is not. Often there are several causes of skidding:
The skiers balance is not centred. Usually too far forward.
The skier lacks enough edge angle to oppose the turn forces
The skis are not tuned well enough especially when snow is icier.
There is a boot alignment issue
When solving skidding issues go through this list.
The track left in the snow is very washed out often over 30cm wide through much of the turn. You can look at your tracks to find out. Skidding feels unstable to the skier. All sorts of issues show up like:
Upper body rotation
Arms in funny places
Leaning on the inside ski
A frame between the legs
Skier looks stiff
Your skis travel more sideways and not in the direction the tips are pointed
Think about how you look and feel when you unsuspectedly slip on a surface. You tense up and try everything to stay on your feet.
This turn performance creates a lot of friction which will slow the skier down. This can be good for control but stops flow and conservation of energy.
Steering
Deliberate controlled skidding of the ski to help turn. The skier manipulates their weight to achieve this by applying subtle forward pressure on the skis. Or by being unweighted so the skis are not firmly in the snow. The track left in the snow from the outside ski is between 10-30cm wide. This is produced via the tail taking a wider path than the tip through the turn. Steered turns feel fairly stable as the skier is predicting and wanting the skis to partially skid and their balance is tuned to moving with the slide. This would be similar to running and sliding on the tennis court. The slide is deliberate and you stay balanced on the sliding foot. The friction created by the steering helps control some speed.
In order to steer your skis well you need to listen to the sensations coming through your feet in great detail. Our feet are incredible at sensing but you must first focus on the feelings in order to develop this skill. Start paying attention to your ski tracks, the pressure through the soles of your feet and how much the skis skid or not and you will become a connoisseur of ski performance. Watch the videos coming up to learn how.
Why?
Allows you to make a shorter radius turn than carving
Gives control over turn size
Gives control over speed through friction
Versatility for all mountain skiing.
Pure Carving
Clean lines left in the snow by the skis tail following the ski tips path. The skier stands mostly centred on their feet and skis and can feel the skis create a solid platform to balance against. This turn has little friction, is fast and feels solid because the base of support is not moving sideways/skidding. The skier turns via the ski sidecut which allows the ski to bend into a curve. The ski bends more and more as the ski is tipped further on its side. Basically more edge angle equals a tighter turn. If you want to turn tighter, you need to be able to tip the skis over further.
There is a misconception that more edge angle equals more grip. This is not exactly true. The ski will grip if it is sharp and you balance your weight in the centre. The reason you work on building bigger edge angles is to make the skis turn you and deflect you from side to side. Pure carving is exhilarating because of the feelings of pressure from a turn. You are able to get more out of each run as you are not going straight down but carrying speed across the slope extending how much time you have fun for on each run!
Why?
Feels amazing and fun!
Gives control at higher speeds
Creates a solid platform for the skier
Dynamic and faster type of skiing
EXERCISE
Training yourself to feel for steering performance.
Turn Performances Visual
See what skidding, steering and pure carving looks like.
