Excercise to learn to turn the inner ski

A snowHead

@Tubaski, Thank you. I'm lifting my ski to get it unstuck. That probably doesn't help my stance...

I tried to ski on gentle slopes with turns as you mentioned, but either I'm doing it wrong there as well, or I loose it when I go on a steeper one (the video was shot on a red I think).

BTW, the guy taking the video is a private ski instructor (5 days, 4 hours a day). He has given us some exercises and tips, and I do them all, but at the end I don't feel like I've got the intuition of what is right. I'm basically fishing for that magical exercise that will make my brain click. I don't mind crashing, as long as I come out with a feeling of what is right.

A snowHead

@ittayd, FWIW. My suggestion would be:

- Lighten the tail of the ski. Never lift the tip off the snow at the start of a turn. a) Because it puts weight back and b) You need weight on your tips, so they bite and pull you into the turn.

- Keep both feet sucked back under your bum, to stop them getting out in front (it keeps you your ankles flexed and gets your tips to bite).

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

@ittayd, ok, so perhaps the video isn't representative of your skiing as a whole. But you are lifting the front of your ski, and it is the back of it that is getting stuck, correct? I'm guessing that you are not deliberatey trying to lift only the front and that you are unable to lift the back of the ski? That will be because your balance is too far back - that's at the root of the problem.
Even if you are able to lift the back of the ski, be aware that is at best an excercise to improve your balance and at worst another bad habit waiting to creep in. If you have to rely on lifting the ski to make the turn then you haven't addressed the fundamental issue.
You can try, on a smooth shallow slope, making round turns, lifting just the tail of the inside ski at the end of the turn - keep the shovel in contact with the snow. As you get better at it lift the back of the ski progressively earlier until you can hold it up throughout the turn. This is just a drill, not a way to ski permanently(!). The idea is to get balanced in the front of the boots over the outside ski. Alternate the drill with periods of practice skiing with both skis on the snow (but keeping that good balance you just practiced) - so that you don't develop a bad habit.
If you can't sucessfully do that on a shallow slope after some practice then your basic posture probably isn't working for you, and that's where you should focus your attention. Challenge yourself to ski better rather than ski steeper, that will come.

I really would ditch the rucksack, or at least try practicing without it.

Perhaps you should try a different instructor? Sometimes just having a different person explain things another way is what it takes for that lightbulb moment to click on.

You need to Login to know who's really who.

@Tubaski, Totally agree, which is why I used the word "Lighten" rather than Lift. It's almost a thought, rather than a specific action. The skis don't leave the ground (unless doing a drill).

Back in the 80s Lady F was taught to Lift the downhill ski to get round the turn....and it was a habit that was very hard to break, especially as she had a high Q Angle, resulting in an A Frame. It was alignment that made the biggest difference in her case.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

@Old Fartbag, Smile

FWIW I didn't see your post until after I had posted - was writing mine in between doing other things, namely working Toofy Grin

So I wasn't in any way seeking to disagree with you.

I also was poorly taught that without being told it was only a drill, and it developed into a habit I've had to unlearn (and sometimes it still creeps back in if I'm honest) - so I try to be careful to never offer it as advice without that qualifier!

You'll need to Register first of course.

1.You're backseat driving, first step is to get out of the backseat.
One of my nicknames when I started skiing was Danish as in Danish bacon (lean back).
A big Ahh moment for me was the flat back truck analogy (from Ott Gangl on Epicski).
If you stand on a flat back truck and it accerates from a standstill what happens if all you do is stand upright and press into the floor with you feet?
You are thrown back. In a ski turn the skis accelerate and the same thing happens over and over again with each turn.
So what would you do on the truck to stop this?
Standing like a goal keeper ready to catch a penalty kick, tightening your core and keeping forward with each accerleration.
When we walk on a flat surface we lean forward into every step, try walking without learning forward.
Your mind is naturally programed to lean back away from a slope and dig your heels in.
In skiing someone switched the the controls around, leaning back will make you go faster because it puts weight on the back of the skis.
Unfortunately this is like trying to turn a motorcycle while accerlerating and doing a wheelie, you need to get the front wheel down to get the steering to work.
This is not a jerky forward push movement but an anticipated controlled forward pressure in sync with the length of each turn.
If done right a very light and constant pressure by your shins on the tongues of your ski boots will occur.
It's like putting slight forward pressure on the handle bars of a motorcycle to keep the front wheel coming off the tarmac while accerlerating to prevent a wheelie.
Actively go with the flow don't just stand there and get taken for a ride.

2. Riding the edges
Edge, pressure, steering.
The above three things can be used to change your direction (as well as trees, others skiers, and ski racks although these are less effective and not always available).
You are using pressure to press the ski but as you are in the back seat your turning ability is matching that of a drag car or a bike doing a wheelie so you are compensating by steering/twisting with your feet.
The sequence that best works for me is edge, pressure and then a smidgen of steering as required.
Find the flatest slope you can, roll the feet and get an edge in the snow. Once you have the edge in a grove put on the pressure gradually do not twist the feet. The ski has an hourglass shape, if you are centered on the ski it will bend under your feet. The waist of the ski will move towards the outside of the turn.
You can turn a bike by leaning left and right while hardly turning the handle bars. You steering your feet is like over turning of the handle bars and skiding the front wheel, instead lean the bike left and right to make more gradual turns with no skid. As you would roll/tip the bike left and right underneath you gradually roll/tip the skis.
Once you get the hang of this on super flat terrain go a little bit steeper until you start to steer and skid again then go flater and work up to steeper terrain. In the long run this will help you to ski the slope in smooth carves rather than scrape down it in zip zags.
The turns will probably be very large to start with, as you improve they will reduce.
If we are doing a right turn with the transition at 12 o clock the edging should start as soon as possible i.e. at 1 o clcock not 3 or 4 o clock.
Likewise start to roll the edges back over at around 4 o clock not all of a sudden at 5:30.
Inside the boot your shins should be pressing at around 8:30 for a right hand turn (6 being down the slope).

http://youtube.com/v/1VOu33DLXrw

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

@kitenski, (not in the order I did them, just my recollection)
* Lift the uphill ski while traversing
* Lift the inside ski tail while turning
* Touch the outside knee
* Put the poles in the grooves of the front binding, join them together and lean forward
* Balance the poles on the palms (facing down) and don't drop them
* One pole behind the back, held with the elbows and another in front held with the hands
* Hold the poles behind the head
* Bottle of water underneath arm pits
* Hold the poles with both hands, when starting the turn lift above the head and while the turn lower them down so they end up parallel to the downhill ski
* J turns
* Hold the poles pointing up and during the turn touch the outside pole to the ground
* Poles behind the kneed, grab in between the legs with both hands (I couldn't master that one - my quads would hurt and I couldn't finish turns, even on a blue slope)

Except for the last one, I could do all of them, Skiing in the tracks of the instructor. I think this is part of my frustration, that with all of the above, I still don't feel I got the intuitive feel of how to stand. The instructor kept commenting on how I look down on my ski tips, even though I felt like I look forward. He put a scarf on my googles so that I could see only through the bottom half and I skied a few runs like that.

@ittayd, too many drills. You’ll never get out of the initiation phase of you do all that lot. Pick a couple one work on those.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

@ittayd, if you've done your skiing for this year, my advice would be try to forget all about it till next season and empty the mind of excess ski technique baggage (unless you can get to a dome over the summer). Then book a holiday with a good instruction outfit, eg the Inside Out guys, who'll help you build your skill set alongside some other like-minded folk.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

snow reports

@Old Fartbag, wait for it... Laughing

http://youtube.com/v/X1VgcxE9Lpw

You know it makes sense.

@ALQ,

It's all in the Delta Angle.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Stance needs to be centered as someone else said. All of the turning drills will be off until that's sorted.

Everything else is over complication at this point Smile

different instructor probably your best best, your current one doesn't seem to be able to communicate to you what needs to be fixed.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

I struggled with this on my recent trip - I was still taking lessons every day - until near the end of the week when a light came on. I found that I was switching my weight too fiercely and trying to hurry out of the fall line to complete the turn. A heartbeat's worth of equal weight on both skis and allowing oneself to track through the fall line without rushing made all the difference. The crucial part technically is probably the weight distribution and posture but the psychological enabler was the conscious acceptance of the fall line.

Help!!

Excercise to learn to turn the inner ski

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