I’m going to start this article with a great big obvious statement:
Skiing is a dynamic sport
I
can already see your eyes glaze over with boredom. We all know this, at least at
a conceptual level. Yet how many of us stiffen up when we ski, trying to get
into the “right position” so we can “make” our skis turn. We try to
consciously do too many things at once, and end up with something that falls
short of our expectations. Throw some plastic poles in front of us and it only
gets worse. I’m surprised more of us don’t end up in the B netting, but when
you ski rigid you can only go so fast.
The key is to use just enough muscle tension to get the job done while remaining
loose enough to react to changing conditions. Functional tension, if you will.
You aren’t going to get there focusing on 10 things at once. You’ll just end
up sequentially locking down contrived poses while you struggle to “fix”
whatever else is on your laundry list of technical errors. Instead, focus
on one (or two, if you’re really good) key points each run and hammer those
points home before you move on to other pressing matters.
Unlike a lot of coaches, I tend to teach top-down instead of ground up. While
obviously what happens where the skis meet the snow is the real goal, what
happens between your ears directly impacts how you drive your skis. So, in my
backwards fashion, here are a few focal points you can use to tune up your
skiing:
Head and eyes: We’ve all heard coaches and instructors tell
us to look ahead, but often I see skiers with their heads down, looking up with
only their eyes. That severely limits their peripheral vision, their ability to
quickly change focus, and creates unnecessary tension in the neck. Instead, lift
your chin and allow your eyes to stay in a more neutral and
relaxed position. I’ll often pick a fixed object (or series of fixed objects)
down the slope and keep my eyes on them as I make sweeping turns down the hill.
I allow my peripheral vision and memory to take care of the terrain ahead of me,
since once it’s underfoot it’s already too late to react to.
Eyes are critical to developing a go-there attitude. Have you ever noticed that
if you look to the side of the road while driving, your car will often drift
that direction? The body wants to go where the eyes are pointing, and if your
eyes are looking down at the snow right in front of you, that’s about as far
as your body feels like it needs to go. It may even decide that it’s in the
way, and move backwards so your view of your ski tips won’t be obstructed. Focus
forward and your body will want to move forward.
Shoulders and Arms: Another common bit of instruction is to get
your arms up. Up is relative, and what you often get is stiff,
“Frankenstein” arms, which lock up the upper body and prevent it from
enhancing balance. Instead, I like to imagine I’m standing in a swimming pool
and then I allow my arms to naturally “float” up in front of me. Ideally, my
elbows will have an easy, natural bend, and if my chin is up my hands are
clearly visible in the bottom of my goggle lenses.
My mantra is “keep your elbows in front of your bellybutton”.
First off, saying bellybutton is just fun. Try it. It makes me giggle. Secondly,
focusing on moving your elbows forward naturally moves your hands forwards
without reaching and locking the elbows. You just have more flexibility to
react.
As we move into the top of the turn and our skis start to move out from under
our body, we usually start to incline towards the inside and move more weight
onto our inside ski. Generally this develops into what is commonly referred to
as a “banked turn”, and on a firm course will usually result in your skis
sliding sideways (sometimes taking you with them). To counteract that, level
your shoulders to redistribute weight to the outside ski as
you flow into the apex of the turn. You will find that you can adjust the weight
distribution between the skis by making this simple lateral move, and with
experience you can adjust for speed and varying snow conditions. Some people
find lifting and extending the inside hand helps to level the shoulders. Keep
them loose, keep them level.
Hips: It’s all in the hips. One of my favorite USSA Juniors
coaches spends a lot of time working with his athletes on hip position, and for
good reason. You can’t effectively bend the front of your skis if your hips
are behind your heelpieces. As Lolly Moss used to say to me, “keep
your bellybutton in front of your boots”. As I get older and my
waistline expands, this gets easier and easier, but the advice still is valid.
Move your hips forward and into the turn and I’m at least 63% sure your skis
will follow.
Knees: I use a lot less outside knee angulation than I did
years ago, although sometimes I still cheat a bit from time to time. It isn’t
the strongest way to stack your bones, but sometimes I feel the need. However, driving
the inside knee forward and into the turn (sounds like a
common theme, doesn’t it?) is a focal point that works for many people trying
to break the “A frame” stance and develop a more active role for the inside
ski. Don’t get me wrong, the outside ski is still the dominant stance ski, but
having the inside tracking neatly alongside it makes for a smoother turn
transition and gives you another edge to fall back on if the outside ski loses
grip. You paid for four edges, so you might as well use them.
Ankles and toes: If you’re forward, you will feel pressure on
the tongues of your boots. To get this pressure, some people like to flex
the ankles or lift the toes into the top of the
boots. Either way, make sure your hips are forward. Hips to
the rear + flexed ankles = sitting down.
Finally, a great focal point to keep the hips forward and pressure on the front
of your boots is to pull the inside foot back.
If your inside ski tip is too far ahead of your outside ski tip, your hips will
naturally move back, you will lose pressure on the boot tongues, your weight
will be primarily on the inside ski, and your outside ski will track off on
it’s own path. You decide where the skis should go, so pull that foot back and
get back in the driver’s seat.
There’s no perfect way to ski, and no hard and fast rules about what works and
what doesn’t. Bode is a prime example of this. What might be right for you may
not be right for some. It takes different strokes… Wait… That was a bad
‘80s flashback. What I’m trying to say is that there are certain
fundamentals that will help you ski cleaner and with less effort, which will
lead to faster times on the race course. Once these fundamentals are fully
integrated into your skiing, you can experiment with technical and tactical
tweaks to squeeze the extra tenths out of the course that often mean the
difference between a medal and a “better luck next time”.
Ski fast and have fun.