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overheard at Chill Factore
 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead

"If you start to slip just lean into the hill."

A guy teaching a woman I'm guessing was his girlfriend. They had been on the lower slope for an hour or so and this was her first run from the top. She was obviously scared.

I resisted the urge to tell her he was talking rubbish and she needed some proper lessons. I remember being told on several occasions to lean down the mountain. And I've felt the benefit of doing so when I've wobbled. But I'm a theorist and I'm trying to figure out why this is the case. Is it to get the weight on the downhill ski? I seem to be struggling with that recently.
snow conditions
snow conditions
 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person

janeed, I would have thought his advice is, sort of, right if you are side slipping or slowly traversing. Leaning into the hill (or more accurately moving your knees into the hill) should help your uphill edges to bite and stop the skis sliding laterally down the slope. However, I am a rubbish skier and some of our resident instructors will no doubt put as both straight. As for the physics of why you lean down the mountain, which you obviously do, I will leave that to them as well. I suspect leaning downhill keeps your weight where it should be (pretty much above your foot) and avoids the temptation for it to move back where you would be unable to exert pressure on anything but the tails and the ski is then unable to bend and curve as intended.
snow report
snow report
 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Leaning in to the hill or not (inclination, angulation, banking, etc) should be done for a purpose, mainly about how you are balanced laterally on your skis. The difficulty with simply saying "lean in to the hill" or "lean down the hill" is that it doesn't really explain what you are trying to achieve, and can often result in a fixed body position regardless of the speeds and forces that are being generated as you ski through the turn. Sometimes you need to be mostly balanced on the outside ski, other times you might want to be more two-footed. Occasionally you might need to recover from getting stuck on the inside ski. Your body management will need to change to achieve balance in these different situations, as well as coping with the change in forces that you get during the turn. Perhaps best to focus on being balanced in whatever way you want rather than trying to create a fixed body position.
latest report
latest report
 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.

I always thought you should achieve angulation from moving the hips in to the hill (not knees which should follow) and that this should make your upper body 'lean down the mountain'. Simply leaning to the hill does not help you at all
snow conditions
snow conditions
 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

dan100, to me it's just a confusing phrase. This is angulation:



But where in the turn will the upper body be 'leaning down the hill' and where in the turn will it be 'leaning up the hill'? Angulation helps you be balanced on the outside ski and is very important some of the time. But if you want to be balanced more evenly across both skis, which you might choose to be when in deep snow, for example, you don't want to be excessively angulated. So you are less likely to be 'leaning down the hill' at the end of the turn than if you were well balanced on the outside ski. For example:



It's all very complicated if you look at it from the top down (i.e., where should my body be located), and all much simpler if you think about it from the skis up (i.e., how should I be balanced on my skis).
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ski holidays
 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.

foxtrotzulu, leaning your knees into the hill (and your upper body down it) to make the edges bite makes sense to me. However, rob@rar, what you said rings very true to me. I'm someone who has to have an idea of why I'm being asked to do something, or at least know the feeling I'm trying to achieve by doing it. Otherwise it all feels too like the instructions of the Hokey Cokey Puzzled I know on a good day I've just felt it coming together right, without thinking it though.

I guess a lot of it is to do with speed. At my snail pace I need to be in a different postion than a racer would be on the same hill. If I ever ski like that photo I'll be very happy.
snow report
snow report



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