Hello, I'm Morten Heckelman, and I would like to welcome you to the ski tips series of instructional
videos.
This is ski tips one, intended for beginners and early intermediate skiers wanting to learn
to make parallel turns.
During the next 80 minutes, I will be demonstrating and explaining all the necessary steps necessary
for making controlled parallel turns on intermediate ski runs, both on smooth slopes and on moguls.
By watching and studying this video at home, you should then make very fast progress during
your on-slope ski school lessons.
What is unique to the ski tip series is that not only will I be demonstrating all the necessary
movements to make correct turns, but I will also demonstrate all the common errors that
skiers make, which hopefully you then will be able to recognize and avoid making these
mistakes yourself.
So now here's a preview of the contents that we're going to cover.
I have ski tips on how to carry the skis correctly, the proper way of putting on skis and of holding
your ski poles, how to sidestep up a hill and climbing using the herringbone, the basic
schist position for beginners, how to get up from a fall.
We'll work on the basic wedge position and also we'll have ski tips that will be for
the wedge turns and the traverse.
We'll also learn how to turn our skis around when you're facing one direction to face the
other direction using a kick turn.
Also how to side slide and skate and how to make a correct turn to the mountain or an
uphill Christie.
How to ride ski lifts covering many of the different types of ski lifts that you'll find
on the mountains.
The right way of planting the ski poles, how to do an emergency stop leading to the stem
turn, the tuck position, the value of sunglasses and sun cream and a parallel turn.
And then we'll apply the parallel turn on various conditions such as ice and hard snow
and learn how to ski the moguls going over moguls and around moguls and then put it all
together to have a nice free fun ski run down a mogul field.
The object of the video is to enable you to make nice link control turns on an easy intermediate
ski run and being able to do that in total confidence.
You'll notice that when you're skiing one skis with a very relaxed upper body and we
keep the body pretty much facing down the fall line.
Fall line being that part of the slope that's the steepest part and the way a snowball would
roll if it were rolling or not surprisingly the way you would fall if you fell.
And all the skiing is done with the lower part of the body using the edges of the skis
to carve turns.
Okay putting on your skis, a lot of people try putting their skis on and jamming it in
and wanting to know why they don't go in.
Actually helps to have the boots closed as well.
What you want to do first is open up the binding and push down on it so that the binding, the
back binding is a step in binding it should be up everything nice and clean.
You then stand across your skis, you want to put your lower ski on first, you just put
your toe in and then snap down on the heel.
You then use that for support, get a good grip, put the other foot which is the uphill
ski you put the toe in first and then when you're all ready just snap the heel in.
One of the things you don't want to do which I see a lot of people do is kicking the ski
and jamming it in trying to do that.
What you do is get yourself in trouble if you don't make life easy.
Very gently put your toe in, see where your tail, the backs of your heels are, they should
be resting right comfortably on a little ledge and you just snap down and you're in.
To get out there's usually different bindings have different arrangements sometimes you
have to pull up on it sometimes you press down on it.
This particular binding has a little hole in the back where if you stick your ski pole
in and twist up you just release very easily from the ski.
So toe in, snap and voila you're in, ready to start skiing.
So the correct way to carry your skis is to have them resting comfortably on your shoulder
with the tips of the skis toward the front and the backs of the skis resting backward
and you hold your ski poles at your side vertically and use them as a crutch so that when you're
walking you have an extra support.
And if your skis are balanced on your shoulders it shouldn't be an inconvenience and you can
actually turn around and not hit anyone and then you can just walk on very comfortably
as far as you want.
This mountain in the distance is the Mont Blanc and at 15,782 feet or 4,810 meters is
the highest mountain in Europe.
Now let's see some incorrect ways of carrying skis and you often see little children carrying
the skis like this.
This is called cradling the skis or hauling the skis like they were some logs and it's
not a very nice way to carry the skis in fact it's quite awkward.
Another incorrect way would be to have the skis on your shoulder with the tails toward
the front and the tips facing backward and this is not being very kind to your skis.
Most people don't realize it but by arranging the straps correctly you actually can have
a right ski pole and a left ski pole.
The difference is the way the overlap lays so that when you put your hand through the
strap which I'll demonstrate in just a minute but when you put your hand through the strap
it rests very comfortably around the wrist.
So the right ski strap overlaps to the right and the left ski strap overlaps to the left.
Now when we put our hand through the strap the way to hold the ski pole is as follows.
The hand comes up from the bottom and then you hold down on the strap and the grip so
that the loop goes around your wrist and then if you let go of the ski pole it dangles from
the wrist and should the ski pole get caught it can slip right off quite easily.
Many ski poles have emergency clips that release when you get caught and I consider that to
be a very very good idea and would actually prefer that every ski pole that has this sort
of strap grip arrangement has an emergency release type of grip.
Something with many people when they're holding their ski poles is that particularly beginners
is they hold it very daintily like it was going to bite them and they ski holding it
with one finger like this very loose or another fault that I often see is holding it down
here with two fingers or one finger on here and the rest of the fingers down like this
and then planning the poles with very loose movements.
In fact the correct way to hold your ski pole is once your hand has come up through the
strap you have four indentations which are for your four fingers and you put one in each
in one in each groove and then just hold it firmly and many of the modern ski poles have
a little ledge here where you can rest the side of your hand and then your ski poles
are on firmly and you're ready to ski and plant your poles as you should.
The correct way to sidestep is to have everything that's uphill slightly in front of their downhill
counterparts.
So you have your ski, your foot, your knee, your hip and your shoulder that are uphill
in front of their downhill sides and then you roll the ankles and the knees toward the
hill so that the skis are on their edges and you take a step, you plant the edge and then
you bring the other foot right alongside it and you end up in another traverse position
that's just one step higher than the traverse position that you had and then you just take
steps up the hill and you can climb as far as you want and you can get up to the top
of the hill very safe and very sound.
Now some of the incorrect ways of sidestepping is to be stepping with your skis flat.
This is the most common error that people make.
If you step on the ski flat it just of course is going to slide right back down again.
Another mistake is to step on the downhill edge rather than stepping on the uphill edge.
And of course if you do that the skis just slide back down once you put your weight on
it and the very common error that I always see is people leaning against the backs of
the boots and when you do you lose control of the fronts of your skis and they just slip
away or bending forward from the waist.
Everyone does this at some point in the learning process and another error is facing the direction
that you're climbing.
When the slope gets quite steep it's actually an even easier way or probably the easiest
way of climbing is as you're climbing up the hill to be taking a step forward and this
is called diagonal sidestepping up the hill and it's pretty much identical to climbing
straight up only each time we climb we take a slight step forward using the ankles and
the knees rolling the knees and ankles toward the hill so that you get a good grip with
the edges.
The correct way to climb in the herringbone is to be very certain that you're using the
inside edges of your skis meaning that the knees are rolled in toward each other so you
have a good grip leaning up against the fronts of the boots not leaning backward the upper
body nice and vertical and relaxed and stepping so that the two fronts of the skis are pointed
outward and the backs of the skis are quite close together and we actually step one ski
over the other transferring our weight from ski edge to ski edge so that we have a perfect
control as we're climbing constantly balanced over either one ski edge or the other.
If you climb with your skis flat they will slide out usually resulting in a fall.
Shussing down the fall line is what beginners will be doing the first time they come down
the hill and what we'll see now is the correct basic position when you're shussing you'll
notice that the tracks are about hip distance apart and are quite parallel let's see that
from the side the correct position is such that you should have your shins leaning against
the fronts of the boots and you do that by leaning your knees forward you want to keep
your back pretty relaxed and upright your hands held in front of you as though you were
carrying a tray and your ski poles pointed backward and you want to keep your body very
well balanced over both skis and if we see that from the back view now you'll see that
the body is very nicely centered over both skis and let's see some of the falls that
beginners make now let's see that again with some freeze frames and this is the fault of
again that we saw before leaning forward from the waist and here we have the poles pointed
in all types of different crazy directions this is what I call the gorilla position is
having the skis as you can see much too far apart or skiing with your legs just too straight
you always want to have a bend in the knees and this is what happens if you're have your
weight unevenly balanced over both skis here's the hands that are at your side you always
want to hold them in front of you it helps on the balance and this is the most common
error that beginners make and that's sitting on the backs of the boots and here one more
time let's see a correct position a nice correct position on the schuss when you fall in the
first thing you know you have to get up and if you're going to keep your skis on what
you do is you collect yourself find out where your skis are if they're like this you sort
yourself out put both skis parallel and then move around so that your skis are below you
then take your ski poles off tuck the skis underneath your body so that you're nice and
compact place your ski poles in the snow close to your chest right across your thigh with
one hand on the top the other hand on the bottom and a trick to getting up is to be
leaning forward with your chest the whole time if you sit back which I'll demonstrate
in a minute it becomes very hard to get up so the correct way you lean forward with your
chest pull down with this hand push with this hand either on the snow or on the ski pole
leaning forward the whole time and we roll right up now incorrectly when you're forward
if you even if you have your ski poles correct and here if you're leaning back like this
as you're trying to get up it becomes very very difficult you need extremely strong leg
muscle very hard in that case if you're not doing it correctly if you're over 40 if you're
over 30 if you're over 20 if you're feeling particularly lazy if you're heavy whatever
the reason you're having lots of trouble getting up the best thing is take your skis off stand
up collect yourself place your skis in the snow parallel to each other clear off the
snow put your downhill ski on first and then the uphill ski next place your ski poles on
and you're all ready to start again once you get the hang of getting up correctly it's
very easy the trick is to be leaning forward the whole time having your skis below you
there's actually easier on a steep slope than it is trying to get up on the flat because
on a steep slope as you roll forward you have gravity helping to pull you up I think once
you practice it a few times and get the hang of it you'll have no trouble getting up and
I can assure you that everybody falls and everybody gets up the main ski tip for the
snow plow or wedge is to always be against the fronts of the boots and not against the
backs of the boots now let's see what that looks like again with a freeze frame so let's
go up and come down again and here's the basic position the upper body should be upright
and relaxed you're up against the fronts of your boots your hands held in front of you
and your ski poles are pointed backwards these skis should be wider in the back and closer
together in the front now you notice the end position has the knees in the ankles rolled
in my skis are on their edges the skis are fairly close in the front wide in the back
my body is balanced over the middle of the skis my hands are in front and my chest is
quite relaxed and upright now you have to be careful when you're doing this the wedge
that you don't cross your skis like that that's quite a common error and it could be leading
to a nasty fall and one thing that you must never do and I see many beginners doing this
it's extremely dangerous it's trying to stop with the ski poles by sticking them between
the skis like this and what very very often happens and usually will happen is you then
run into them and can jab yourself in all sorts of nasty places so you never want to
use your ski poles for stopping perhaps out here occasionally but really should stop with
your feet certainly never between the skis and then you've got the wedge now let's look
at some of the basic errors now here is the case of leaning back against the backs of
the boots so the ski tip is push your knees forward so you're always against the fronts
of the boots to have control and here's a case where you're having the body bend forward
at the waist and you want to keep your body always upright and relaxed and this of course
is what happens if you have your skis flat and you're not using the edges the skis just
run off and they control you rather than you controlling them now let's apply the wedge
to do some wedge turns and let's just look at it and see how you make a right turn and
a left turn the ski tip here is that when you're ready to turn you lower the hips put
all the weight over the ski that's opposite the direction that you want to turn and you
just press down and turn the foot and let's see that again now with some freeze frames
so if you're turning left you lean out over the right foot turn the foot and lower the
hip and if you do that the skis will just turn to the left and on the right turn it's
just the opposite notice that you have the part of the body should be facing down the
foreline and having the weight very nicely over the middle of the foot and let's see
one final turn now let's see some of the common errors the most common error is people trying
to pull themselves around with the shoulders and here it is again trying to just pull yourself
around leaning in the direction of the turn and taking the weight then off what we call
the outside ski which is the controlling ski and here again is that classic problem of
bending forward at the waist and upsetting your balance over your skis this is what happens
if your ski is flat and not on the edge of the ski the ski just slips as you're trying
to turn it and here's the case of leaning against the backs of the boots and just losing
the control of the skis and this of course is if your legs are too straight
the easiest way to turn around when you're on a slope to change direction when you're
facing one way and you want to face the other way is to do what's called a kick turn the
kick turn is one of the safest maneuvers to do on skis to turn around when it's done correctly
and probably one of the most difficult and one of the most dangerous maneuvers actually
have done incorrectly and here's a few of the ways that it's done incorrectly having
the ski poles out in front of course doesn't work when you when you're going to do the
kick turn of course of course you jam them all up most many many people that even know
how to do the kick turn will swing this downhill ski up and place it in the snow in one movement
and usually go sliding off and then have to recover another common fault is to be doing
the kick turn leaning back down the hill doing a kick turn using the uphill ski to swing
around if you fall of course you're going to fall right down the hill head first and
you have to put an awful lot of strain on the arm to get around so that's certainly
not one of the ways that you want to do it another common fault even for those people
that do it reasonably well is to bring this pole around too soon and inevitably what they
do is they jam the ski up on the pole and then have a problem trying to educate themselves
just two more quick problems when you place the foot down if you put it down flat it slides
away and then you have to slide to recover and yet the last fault that I'll explain right
now is to be leaning back the whole time with your legs straight while you're trying to
bring this foot around it's very very very very difficult so the correct way to do a
kick turn is as follows we take our two ski poles and put them behind us up the hill so
that you're leaning on them we make sure the ski is absolutely perfectly secure across
the hill so there's no chance of it sliding backwards or sliding forward we then have
this ski free and we're leaning on the ski poles what we do is we swing this foot up
swing it up placing the tail as far forward as possible to the ski close to the ski with
the legs straight we're leaning on the poles and then we leave the tail in place and we
just lower the front of the ski and it's very important now that you are on the edge of
the ski so it's not flat the knee is bent and you're leaning down the hill from your
waist if you're in this position you can stay here as long as you feel you that you want
to you can do anything you want you in perfectly good balance it's very simple then to bring
the other ski around lastly followed by the ski pole so just very briefly in the other
direction ski sticks ski poles behind you swing the tail up bring it around bend the
knee on the edge lean out and you've done a kick turn safely so let's see some ski tips
now on the traverse the way one assumes a good traverse position is by having all parts
that are uphill slightly in front of their downhill counterpart and you should have then
the uphill ski in front of the downhill ski and the uphill foot in front of the downhill
foot your uphill knee should be in front of the downhill knee the uphill side of the hip
in front of the downhill side of the hip the uphill shoulder in front of the downhill shoulder
and you should be leaning against the front of the boots in fact this is the most essential
part for control is that you're constantly leaning against the front of the boots so
that you have a space between your calf muscles and the backs of the boots you should lower
your hips and you want to keep your skis a bit apart you don't want to have them too
close together unless you're going to ski with your weight evenly on both feet and a
you have to be a very very good skier and b it's very very limiting so it's much easier
and much more comfortable to have a wider platform and skew your feet apart the two
monoskiers that you saw come by a little while ago their feet of course were locked together
and they ski with their weight on both feet and if you have your weight on both feet and
your skis close together it's actually skiing very much like the monoskiers I find you're
much better off having a space of say three to five inches between the skis you should
be against the fronts of the boots your back nice and relaxed your head centered in your
arms you should be as though you're carrying a tray with your ski poles pointed backwards
and then what you do is you just roll your knees toward the hill so that the skis get
on their edges you should lower the hips then so almost all your weight is carried over
the middle of your downhill foot you want to have all your weight over the middle of
the downhill foot and in fact if you're in a good traverse position you should be able
to lift the tail of the uphill ski without actually changing the position and then I'll
come across in a traverse and you'll see I have a very relaxed upper body with the head
centered and you can lift the tail of your ski it's a good little exercise and now here's
a couple of very good exercises that'll help you get into a good traverse position one
exercise is to actually hold your ski poles with your palms down and have them facing
down the foreline so that it forces your chest to actually have to face down the foreline
because that's the way you always want to have your chest when you're traversing the
amount that your chest faces down the foreline depends on how steep the slope is if it's
not a very steep slope we have our chest slightly down the foreline if it's very very steep
then our chest is facing down the foreline this little exercise is very useful to determine
in fact that your chest is facing down the foreline and you just hold it out like this
and you make a small track another very good exercise is to actually bend down while you're
traversing and touch right under the boot where the boot meets the ski leaning and touching
under the downhill boot now to help make that a lot easier what you want to do is you just
want to roll the knee out of the way if you roll it out of the way it makes it really
easy to reach down and touch under the downhill boot and it automatically will put you at
the same time on the edges of the skis so while you're traversing nicely you just push
the knee out of the way roll down and touch one two three and stand up and you can just
continue on in a nice reverse position at the end you don't want to have your poles
pointed to the sky and you don't want your arms at your side as many people do because
then you have to lift the arm each time you just hold the tray with your hands in front
of you so that your hand is ready to plant the pole which is what we're going to do when
we make the turn all we do is cock the wrist lower the hips to initiate a turn so you're
ready learning that by having your hands in front of you with the poles pointed backward
as you traverse and voila now let's look at some of the common errors one of the main
problems I always see people doing when they're traversing is having the wrong shoulder and
the wrong hip forward and they're facing up the hill and for some reason they think it's
best to be leaning up the hill and so they lean in the wrong direction and let's see
that again with a freeze frame and instead of facing down the hill the incorrect way
is to have the wrong shoulder forward face up the hill and the wrong hip forward and
the wrong ski forward ski tip is always keep the upper body facing down the floor line
and have everything that's uphill in front of everything that's downhill another common
error is leaning on the uphill ski if you lean on the uphill ski it's very very hard
to maintain control of both skis and still again we have that nasty little problem that
we always see and that's bending forward from the waist which completely upsets the balance
on the skis and normally in fact when you do this the skis will just spread apart and
you fall side sliding is a it's an exercise that teaches you how to move in your ankles
and knees and it teaches the nuance of movement either slip the skis or grab the edges so
that you have good control and then you can carve the turn it's also an extremely useful
maneuver if you're going to become an advanced skier or an intermediate skier because you're
eventually going to end up being on a slope that's just too steep for you to make turns
on where you feel good and any slope that's too steep you can always side slip down in
confidence once you learn how to correctly do it and therefore learning side sliding
i think is as essential as learning how to write your name it's got to be that easy and
then you apply it when you need it as an exercise i think it's one of the better exercises and
one that everyone should learn at some point to become a better skier so i'll show you
a couple of the common errors that people make when they're side sliding and then we'll
show you how it's done correctly one of the biggest errors that people make is leaning
like we were doing in the traverse leaning on the uphill ski and throwing the hip down
the hill so the standard error of side sliding is leaning up the hill throwing the hip out
and of course i can ski under control but most of the time people will just go plowing
and slip and of course if you get too far over you're just right on your bottom so you
want to be careful to not be leaning on the uphill ski when you're side sliding but be
in that same correct traverse position that we did for the traverse with the weight on
the downhill ski and all you have to do if you'll just watch my legs is roll the knees
and ankles down the hill and if you're in a good position where you're leaning down
the hill with the weight on the downhill foot if you roll the knees and ankles down the
hill the skis will start to slide and you control the speed by pressing down right under
the instep you actually can lift the tail of the uphill ski while you're doing it to
show that your weight is actually right over the downhill ski and you just roll your knees
back into stop a couple of good exercises to help you get in a good traverse position
on side sliding is to plant your two ski poles in the snow close to your skis lean down the
hill and then push with your arms bringing them as far as your hips and stop and then
bring your ski poles back again facing down the foreline release the edges slightly by
rolling the ankles just slightly down the hill very slightly and then push with your
ski poles and then you're in very good control one of the problems that i see one of the
faults they see is putting the ski pole in the snow downhill and then when you're sliding
just sliding into it and getting into all types of problems and possibly damaging the
wrist and you want to be sure to keep this downhill ski pole either out of the snow or
behind you and then you just push with the uphill ski pole and and then you'll have good
control another nice little exercise is without ski poles is to sort of do a little twist
dance with just the ankles and what you do is you just flatten the ankles out and every
time the skis slide you just roll the ankles and knees back in and get a good grip and
then you're learning how to roll the ankles and knees down the hill to stop the ski sliding
and how to roll them back up to stop them so let's do a nice side slide and go straight
down the hill and one could also move forward at the same time as your side sliding so you
get a diagonal side slide and we'll show you that next so just a final good side slide
down the hill in very good control there's no need to go fast and you stop when you want
to now to do a diagonal side slide it's a very very useful maneuver which you can apply
all the time especially if you're in a narrow ski run that has lots and lots of people you
can always do a diagonal side slide and what you want to do when you're doing a diagonal
side slide is you want to side slip while you're going forward so it's a combination
of traversing and side slipping only you're traversing with the skis slightly flattened
that's probably the easiest way of fooling yourself to do it so the tip here is think
about traversing the slope only don't have your knees and ankles rolled so much to the
hill have the ski slightly flattened not totally flat or you'll fall over just somewhat flattened
so that your skis will slide as you're traversing and keep your head and eyes pointed to some
object the entire time while you're traversing and try to reach that object but because your
skis are slightly flattened as you're heading toward that object you'll be slipping down
so you have a good traverse position you start to traverse and your skis are slipping at
the same time that you're traversing and then you have very very good control as you go
across the slope now the tip for skating is to be setting the edge of the ski and pushing
off that edge and then leaning out over the gliding ski so here the edge set now push
and lean out over the gliding ski like that and now let's look at some of the common faults
and errors that people make when they're skating well let's see that again here it is this
is what happens if you don't set the edge of the ski and you see the skis flat and then
when you push on that your body's caught between your skis and it usually results in a fall
what we're working on now is a turn parallel turn to the hill parallel turn to the mountain
it's also known as an uphill Christie it actually is one of the most essential parts of the
turn because it's the ending of every turn we end a turn by turning the skis to the hill
and if you learn to do this correctly it's just a question of then learning how to do
a down up down motion to combine one ending with another because the turn is nothing more
than a turn to the hill the next turn is a turn to the hill and all we do is we combine
one turn with the next with a down up movement with a weight transfer so if you learn to
turn to the hill and learn to turn to the hill correctly then you're in good control
at the end of the turn and the end of the turn is actually the most important part of
the turn because that's where you either gain or lose control and as you well know in most
cases it's lose control so to do the turn to the hill what you want to do I'll just
not put my ski poles on here for a moment I'll just hold them what we want to do is
you want to push the knees to the mountain you just roll the knees over and what we're
going to then do is lower the hips so we push the knees to the hill and there's a little
ditty that I like people to sing and my voice is not Mr. Caruso's but nor Elvis Presley's
but very simply just a little ditty it goes like this we steer our skis by pressing our
knees we steer our skis by pressing our knees so if you want your skis to go uphill we press
the knees uphill by rolling or pressing the knees up the hill we put the skis on their
edges once you've done that once you've done that you want to press down underneath the
instep of the downhill foot right here and if you would imagine that you had a lemon
and you have this lemon underneath your foot and started to squash it and we'll just take
off my ski now we'll take this lemon and we'll just put it down here and if you would just
when you're ready to turn if you just lower the hips as though you're going to squash
the lemon so that you've got steady constant pressure see if I can get my skis on here
so we're standing in a good traverse position you push the knees toward the hill and now
you want to lower your hips and try to squash that lemon squash the lemon and it makes the
skis turn lower the hips and gently squash the lemon it's not a radical movement downwards
like that because that's called down and waiting and that forces the skis to turn too radically
and your backs break away it's just a movement of rolling over and squashing the lemon I've
flattened the lemon it's not totally squashed but it's flat and that's what you want to
do is just a steady squeezing of the lemon so let's see what the traverse looks like
when you're turning uphill you notice that the end position is such that the knees are
rolled toward the mountain and the upper part of the body should be facing downhill and
let's see that again there's a good traverse position and now we're getting ready to lower
the hips push the knees toward the hill lower the hips and continue pressing down on the
instep of the downhill foot and ending up in a good traverse position facing downhill
and now let's see a number of the common errors that people make here's a case of pulling
yourself around trying to turn by pulling the shoulders in the direction of the turn
and another very common error is leaning on the uphill ski and that usually results in
a fall let's see it correctly one more time traverse push the knees toward the hill lower
the hips and then in good control facing the upper body down the foreline and now we'll
learn how to ride the various lifts here's a pommel lift you wait for the lights to turn
green you keep your ski poles you take them off the hand keeping the hand away from the
bar and then you reach and take the bar with the button on it and just put it between your
legs now the ski tip here is to keep your skis a comfortable distance apart and make
sure you're leaning against the fronts of the boots and then you just let the lift pull
you up now here's a chairlift you're in a ready position you come out you take your
ski poles off you turn around you put your hand down ready to guide the chair beneath
you and when you're seated you reach up and you close the bar now if you want to do an
incorrect way let's watch this
now most modern resorts have tramways the french call it telephoriques and this takes
huge numbers of people up the mountain you squeeze in you carry your skis with you but
it's a very effortless way to get up the mountain this particular lift takes about 45 people
a lot of the more modern resorts also have gondolas and this is my favorite lift because
you sit down and your skis are actually transported up the hill in carriers on the outside of
the gondolas and most gondolas have either room for four or six people this particular
one is a six person lift and you protect it from the elements and it's just a very easy
way to get up the mountain and very comfortable now here is the most efficient way this is
a funicular that takes 280 people and it shoots you up 3,000 feet in four minutes
not only should you have sunglasses on at all times but from the beginning of the season
right until the end of the season every day you should put on sun tan cream and especially
in the springtime when the sun is so hot in the springtime in fact you should put on as
high a protective factor as you can and reapply it about two or three times a day making sure
that you cover your nose your cheeks your chin forehead ears very important that you
get the ears and the backs of the ears this is where I see people forgetting and getting
absolutely red and then swelling up and of course then it interferes with their skiing
because they can't ski very comfortably when you have to go out wearing a face mask on
a very hot day to protect yourself from getting too sunburned and once you've got once you've
got the cream circulated all over your face you mustn't forget your lips and for the lips
have very very good lip salve that you should constantly be applying or else the lips get
very chapped extremely quickly in the springtime and so you just put on some lip salve on the
lips I like actually putting a drop on my nose as well it keeps it lubricated and to
get a little older not a bad thing to do is put it underneath the eyes especially the
women keep the face looking young well what we're going to do now is practice the correct
way of planting the ski pole many many many people that I see skiing are planning the
ski pole with all sorts of unnecessary movements and every time one makes an unnecessary movement
it throws the balance off throws your back and it takes your nice balance position away
in fact it's very simple to plant the ski pole what we do is plant the ski pole not
with our wrist not with our elbow not with our shoulder but without hips so you don't
want to be using the wrist you don't want to be using the elbow nor the shoulder in
fact you want to lock the wrist lock the elbow unlock the shoulder so no longer can the wrist
elbow or shoulder move once you brought your ski pole vertical then if it's all locked
since the hip bones connected to the shoulder bone and the shoulder bones connected to the
elbow bone and the elbow bones connected to the wrist when we lower our hips the ski pole
goes in all by itself so there's the flexion movement and then when we do an extension
movement the ski pole comes out of the snow so it's down up and what we'll do now is show
you a number of the common fall scenarios that people make when they're coming across
the hill as they're traversing just briefly a number of the common areas that I'm going
to demonstrate will be to keep the hands at the sides and then lifting them or skiing
with a much too loose wrist holding the ski poles just too loose so that licking them
in the snow another common mistake I see many people make is jabbing the ski pole by bending
the wrist back and what that can do is it can stretch these tendons and cause a tremendous
injury to the wrist you want to keep the wrist in a straight line with the arm up through
the shoulder so that we plant the ski pole with the wrist straight and we hold our fingers
in the grips you have four grooves and four fingers and you just hold it nice and firmly
like you would a tennis racket for a golf club and down and now we'll demonstrate a
number of the common areas okay here's one of the most common areas and that's when you
lift the arm to plant the ski pole and just jab it in the snow and let's see it again
lifting the arm and jabbing it in the snow it's not very good here's the case where you
lift the elbow and plant a pole of the elbow and just not using the hips at all you notice
the hips are just still just using the elbow or using the uphill ski pole rather than the
downhill ski pole now this is what happens when you have your poles skewed you want to
keep always the poles right straight back point it backwards or just having your wrist
too loose and flicking the wrist you don't want to flick the wrist in the snow and now
we see the case of turning the wrist out rather than keeping the wrist in a straight line
so always keep your wrist in a straight line for the stem turn you start in a good traverse
position you open the uphill ski into a wedge do a down up around the ski pole motion and
transfer the weight to the new downhill ski and let's see that in slow motion traverse
open the outside ski plan the pole up and around the ski pole and transfer your weight
again to the new downhill ski ending in a good traverse position let's see that one
more time down up around the pole and finishing good control and now let's look at some of
the common errors that people make when they do the stem let's see that again with some
freeze frames yep here it is rising the arm at the plant the ski pole and here is a case
of doing down and waiting or sinking down while you're doing the stem turning as you
going down and this is one that I always see lifting the inside ski to turn around and
thinking that's the only way you're going to get that ski around since it's dragging
behind there it is again lifting that inside ski and whipping it around to make sure it
gets around and throwing the shoulder trying to get around and pulling yourself around
by throwing the shoulders around now here's a case of throwing the heels and what happens
if you throw your heels around is the skis just keep slipping after the turn and let's
see a proper stem one more time so you're in a good traverse you open the skis into
a wedge down up around the pole finish the turn in a good traverse position now the hockey
stop is an emergency stop used to stop very quickly and let's see what that looks like
you want to stop with the skis completely across the foreline your knees and ankles
and roll toward the hill in the upper part of your body facing out toward the foreline
and let's see that again in slow motion when you're ready to turn you turn your feet you
start lowering your hips and you keep the upper part of your body facing down the foreline
so that you're very very well balanced over that downhill ski with all your weight over
the middle of the foot and now let's see some incorrect ways this is what happens if you
lean on the uphill ski and trying to pull yourself around normally you would fall and
here's a case of throwing the shoulders trying to spin around and if there were a cliff at
the end you'd probably go off so let's see the correct way one more time and voila you've
stopped in a good position now the tuck position is very important if you want to go fast and
the tuck position is such that you should be balanced over your skis and the tip here
is make sure you're leaning against the fronts of the boots and your ski poles pointed back
and your head up now here's an error and the error is keeping your back upright and now
you're against the backs of the boots and the most common errors that you always see
kids doing is having the ski poles pointed to the sky so keep your ski poles pointed
back lean against the fronts of the boots and you should have no problem with the tuck
position now the object of the video of these ski tips as I pointed out is to be able to
make nice link control parallel turns and hopefully after all these ski tips now you
should be at a point where you have the capability of doing that let's watch a few of these parallel
turns there's flexion extension movements down up around the pole the upper part of
the body is upright and relaxed you're facing down the hill your head is centered you notice
it doesn't move and the hands always held in front of the body as you go from side to
side with the upper part of the body facing right down the foreline
now here's a turn that leads to the parallel turn and let's see that again in slow motion
so you start out in a good traverse position it's down up around the pole the skis are
parallel and you finish in very good control in a nice traverse position if you take a
look at the skis you'll see that when you put them together there's actually a space
between the skis and that's called the ski camber when you press the skis together they
rebound back if you let go they just rebound back we're going to make use of that feature
of the ski to help make the turn easier you'll notice too that a ski is wider at the shovel
and it's narrowest at the waist and it's wide again at the tail this is called the ski side
cut making use of this curve that you'll have wide narrow and wide again and the ski camber
we will then use the edges of the skis to carve a turn and skiing will become very easy
so we'll just put the skis back on and we'll put our ski poles back on and now we'll assume
a good traverse position a good traverse position is such that everything that's uphill is slightly
in front of everything that's downhill so we start with our ski being in front of our
downhill ski the uphill side of our foot in front of the downhill side of the foot the
uphill knee in front of the downhill knee the uphill hip in front of the downhill hip
this is very important the uphill side of the hip in front of the downhill side of the
hip and the uphill shoulder in front of the downhill shoulder you lean against the front
of the boots you roll your knees and ankles toward the hill your back should be upright
natural and relaxed your head centered and your arms as though you're carrying your tray
with your ski poles pointed backward. You lower your hips then so that almost all
your weight is carried over the middle of your downhill foot which is right
here, the middle of your downhill foot and your ski should be somewhere two to six
inches apart. I like a distance of about three inches myself. We're then in a good
reverse position. When you're ready to make the parallel turn the only movement
that you make to start is a movement of the wrist. Our hands are held in front of
us. You cock the wrist and bring your ski pole vertical. At that point you leave it
vertical and we're going to plant the pole not with our elbow, not with the
wrist, not with the shoulder. We're going to plant the ski pole without hips. Ski
pole is vertical and we're going to do a flexion movement. If you lock your wrist,
elbow, shoulder, then when you lower the hips your pole automatically gets planted.
So down movement, that's the flexion and then we're going to do an extension
movement up and around the pole. We're going to dive up and around the pole in
this direction midway between your ski pole and the front of your ski. So it's a
down movement. It's an up forward movement up around the pole. You can feel
your heels lifting and your boots slightly and you should be dropping your
skis down the hill or the skis actually go down the hill with the tips leading
and the backs of the skis following. So it's down, flexion, up, extension and once
your skis have started to turn we then sink back down finishing the turn
correctly flexing our hips, rolling our knees and ankles toward the hill and
keeping our body facing down the foreline. Okay now what we're going to do
is demonstrate a couple of correct parallel turns exaggerating our down up
down movement and once you're able to do this correctly exaggerating the down up
down movement finishing each turn in perfect control you should be able to
then ski modifying the down up down movement until you have just a trace or
nuance of movement. But every skier especially when they are good still
uses a trace of down up down movement and anytime you get in difficult snow
conditions you want to go back and exaggerate the down up down movement.
Okay so we'll move on now to demonstrating a number of the falls and
see how many of these falls you can recognize of your own. Let's first see
some demonstrations of some correct parallel turns. You should start in a
good reverse position and you have your weight on the downhill ski when you're
ready to turn you bring your downhill pole vertical and it's up around the
downhill pole and you want to finish by transferring your weight onto the new
downhill ski. You should have your shins against the fronts of the boots, roll the
knees and ankles to the hill and you upper part of the body facing down the
foreline and you should end up in good control.
Now here are the errors that most people make. See how many of these you can
identify of your own.
Let's see this with some freeze frames. Now here's the case of throwing the
shoulders around and trying to get your skis around. Throwing the shoulders,
throwing the upper body and you end up facing uphill. Now here's the case of
down and waiting which experts can do but it's difficult to do if you're not
an expert because it's very hard to control the skis at the end of the turn.
And here we have the fault that we've seen throughout all the different
stages of lifting the arm and jamming the pole in and here's the case of a
loose wrist and thinking that if you flick your wrist somehow the skis are
going to turn. The problem of leaning against the backs of the boots and losing
control of the fronts of the skis and here is making a turn with stiff legs
that everyone has seen at some point or other. You must have your knees against
the fronts of the boots and your knees flexed at all times. And then even good
parallel skis or learning parallel skis have that fault of leaning forward from
the waist. You want to keep your back upright and relaxed so that you weights
over both skis. And here is the guy that wants to be sure that his skis turn
parallel and so he watches them and he may come in for some nasty surprises
when he finishes his turn. And here's the error of leaning back and a lot of this
is due to people being shy or timid and they lean back up the hill. And here you
have the case of throwing the heels around to ensure that the skis come
around. So you throw the heels or start the turn by throwing the hips around and
there's the heels and there again are the hips. You want to make a turn with a
flexion movement down up down and this last error is the arm forward and having
the wrong shoulder forward. So let's have some fun now and apply the parallel
turn on some nice snow and on a lovely day and see what it all should look
like.
The difference in skiing on the ice is that you have to use the edges of your
skis much much more. You have to be leaning a lot more on the downhill ski
and you have to be a bit lower. So the modification from skiing on a normal ski
run to skiing on ice is as follows. On the ski run a nice traverse position is
like this. The body is upright and quite relaxed. The hands are about hip level
and the skis are about three to five inches apart. What you want to do when
you ski on the ice is actually get a wider platform. Spread your skis a bit
wider. Roll your knees and ankles toward the hill so that you have much more
edging and you have to lean from the waist down the foreline so that all your
weight or essentially all your weight is carried over the downhill foot and you
want to have the weight moving slightly toward the ball of the foot rather than
the middle of the foot so you get an excellent control on that ice. So we
lower the hips so that you get your weight down. Roll the knee the ankles and
the knees toward the hill then slightly from the weights so that you're leaning
over the downhill ski and we hold our hands lower than we would for the piste.
So there's the modification for the ice. I now have my weight on that downhill
ski and I'm in good control on the ice and if you do that you'll find you'll
have a lot more control. Some of the problems that people do when they hit
the ice is they get scared which is a normal reaction for beginners and they
lean back. As soon as they do and they put their weight on the uphill ski the
downhill ski slips away and they're over and that's a standard standard problem
for people skiing ice is being afraid leaning up the hill and instantly they
do what they're trying to avoid which is falling. The other thing that you have to
be very careful you don't do is leaning back which is another problem that
beginners tend to do on the ice they get scared and lean back. Lean forward, fronts
be very much against the fronts of the boots, be on the edges and be leaning
down and ice will become if not joyful at least not menacing. So let's see what
we should be doing on the ice. It's very important when skiing on the ice that
you have very sharp edges. If you don't have sharp edges your skis are just
going to slip away when you press down on them so you should have your edges
sharpened and let's see what the position looks like in slow motion.
You'll notice the upper part of the body is leaning forward the entire time
leaning out over the downhill ski or the controlling ski and the hands are held
low the lower part of the body the legs are rolled more toward the mountain the
skis are quite far apart and the body is very very very well balanced so that you
have a very good control over that downhill ski. Now when you're skiing you
want to make sure that you don't ride the edges too long on the ice because if
you do the skis will tend to slide away so it's a quick dynamic movement not
abrupt but dynamic so that you push off one edge land on the other edge very
briefly you push off that edge land on the other edge and keeping the body in a
dynamic position facing down the full line the whole time.
지금
Moguls are formed by skiers who are turning their skis in exactly the same place.
And as one skier tends to follow another skier's rhythm, you dig out the snow each time and
you end up having a depression which causes a mogul to be formed.
So anywhere you ski, as soon as you get off the beginner slopes, you're going to find moguls.
And what we're going to do now is work on lots of the different techniques of skiing moguls.
And demonstrate a number of the different errors that people make and show you how to correct them.
Okay, there are basically two ways you can deal with moguls.
You can either go over the mogul or around the mogul.
You can't go through them, or lots of people try.
There's a number of ways of going around the moguls, and there are a number of ways of going over the moguls.
But there's a basic way of doing both, and that's what we'll work on right now.
The basic way of turning your skis on top of the mogul would be to turn the skis just when you're at the summit of the mogul,
as I am now, so that only the feet are on top of the mogul, the front of the ski is in the air,
and the back of the ski is in the air.
So what we want to do then is when we approach the mogul, we do our flexion in this trowel,
or this trough here, before the mogul, planting the ski pole near the summit of the mogul,
rising up as the mogul rises up, allowing the mogul to help give us a lift,
turning our skis right near the summit and finishing the turn on the back of the mogul,
and completing the turn the way one always completes turns by pushing the knees and rolling the ankles and lowering the hips
so that the skis are on their edges.
The easiest way of skiing moguls, if you're skiing slowly, is to go down and up over the mogul and turn in the valley behind it.
That's pretty much the intermediate way of skiing moguls.
The better way when you get to be a little better skier and are skiing a little fast would be to go around the mogul rather than over the summit,
and we'll work on that next.
Going over the mogul is very useful because the tops of the mogul being round helps make a parallel turn a lot easier,
assuming that you have your skis reasonably together so that they're not going on opposite sides of the mogul if you're doing a big stem.
Okay, we'll demonstrate now the basic turn going over a mogul, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about the turn around the mogul.
Okay, let's see that in slow motion.
So it's down in the hollow before the mogul, up over the top of the mogul, and then finishing the turn in a good traverse position on the edges.
A good way to deal with moguls when they're particularly very big is to go around the mogul, and then it doesn't matter how big the mogul is.
It doesn't matter if there's something growing out of the mogul.
It doesn't matter if it's made of ice, if there's a boulder, a tree, or a tower, because we go around it.
You go around it, you're actually skiing on the smooth part of the slope, and we can bank our turn up the front wall of the next mogul,
which will help us slow down and keep us in control.
So what we do is we actually plant our ski pole before you get to the mogul.
You aim for a point above the mogul, plant your ski pole on the front plank, and just make a nice large radius turn around the mogul.
So the only part of you that's touching the mogul is your ski pole, and it's only touching the front plank of the mogul.
We then make a big wide turn around the mogul, skiing in the valley, and banking the turn up the front slope of the neighboring mogul.
So let's see what it looks like.
And let's see that in slow motion.
So it's a good traverse position, ski pole ready to be planted down, planted on front flank of the mogul, up around the mogul,
banking the turn on neighboring mogul, and finishing the turn in good control.
A good way to practice the parallel turn and how to learn to keep your skis constantly pressing down on the moguls
is to find a little ridge, a little small mogul, where you could stand on the summit so that the front of your ski and the back of your ski is in the air.
And the only part of you that is touching the mogul are your feet.
If you stand on top of the mogul like this, and then plant your ski pole down the foreline and slightly back
so that you have to anticipate the turn with your upper body, you can learn how to do a foot swivel.
Now foot swiveling is a very nice way of turning your skis when you're skiing slowly.
And very often all of the ski instructors when they're skiing and they seem to ski so easily
are actually doing that over the very slight changes in terrain.
Every time there's a slight little mogul they just foot swivel off the top and it keeps you skiing very smoothly.
So the foot swivel, what you're going to do is plant your ski pole down the foreline, you're going to use the pull of gravity.
We stay low, sitting down, and we're going to drop our both of our tips down the hill and turn around the ski pole
just by twisting or swiveling the feet.
So we're in a good position, we're facing down the foreline, and now we just keep our feet in place
and we swivel right around and you're ready for the next turn.
Now let's have a look at all the many common errors committed and the corrections.
Let's see if you can spot the error before it comes up on the screen.
So here's a case of hanging onto that pole too long, holding onto it too long, and what it does as you finish the turn
is it pulls your shoulder back and then you end up being on the uphill ski and usually losing control.
Now let's see how to do that correctly.
Notice that you push your hand back forward after the turn so that your hands are back in front of you and then your body's in a good position.
Now here's a case of reaching too far forward to plant your ski pole and of course you're then bending from the waist.
And let's see that correctly.
And now let's see it in slow motion. So you plant your pole right at your side.
It's just where your hand is. You plant your pole, lower your hips, and then up around, push your hand back forward to recover it.
And again, plant your pole right at your side and then up and around the ski pole to finish the turn.
I'm sure you've seen this. This is a case of throwing the shoulders around and swinging the arms.
And what it does is it spins your body around and you face up the hill when you should of course be facing down the hill.
There's an error that everyone has seen at some point and it's leaning on the backs of the boots as you come out of the turn.
And what that does of course is it just leaves you leaning back while your skis go shooting off.
Now here's the correct way. Notice how the shins are pushed forward and your shins are against the fronts of the boots.
There's a standard error. Skiing with stiff legs and not doing any flexion, extension, flexion or absorption at the end of the turn.
So let's see what that looks like correctly performed. There it is.
The flexion before the turn, plant the pole up around the mogul and flex again after the turn.
Now this takes a trained eye to see but it's a case of throwing the heels around to bring the backs of the skis around.
And what that does is it overturns the skis and the backs of your skis go shooting off down the hill.
Yep, there's that same error again. I'm sure you recognize it by now.
Raising the arm and then jabbing the pole into the snow.
Of course you want to keep your hands always at your sides and plant the poles with the hips.
You see a lot of old time people skiing this way and they should really become modern and keep their hands in front.
It's dropping the arms back before the turn, winding up and then flinging that arm into the turn.
And then you end up having the wrong arm forward and the wrong shoulder forward.
This is what happens if you have your skis too flat.
As you come out of the turn the skis go sliding off and you go sliding with them.
Now there's a demonstration that's correct. Notice how you're against the front of the boots and using the edges.
And here's again that guy who wants to be sure that his skis are turning parallel so he watches the skis.
Let's see that in slow motion. Watching the ski tips, keeping your head down instead of keeping your head up and watching where you're skiing.
You always want to be looking two or three moguls ahead.
Now this is a case of having too violent an up thrust.
And good skiers can do it if they want to jump and know what they're doing.
But most of the time when you land, you land coming down too hard and land up against the backs of the boots and very much out of control.
So let's see that again correctly down, up, down and finish in very good control for the upper part of your body facing down the foreline.
And now let's have a bit of fun applying everything we've just learned to ski over moguls and around moguls.
You'll notice the upper part of the body is facing right down the foreline. The hands are in front.
The skis are under the body and it all is very controlled.
And I can assure you that that ski is having a very good time.
And now we have the final run home.
I hope you've enjoyed these ski tips and that they will prove to be useful to help you achieve the ability to make relaxed large radius parallel turns on intermediate runs in very good control.
The next video to follow ski tips to pick up from skiing the moguls and offer ski tips on the advanced skiing maneuvers such as bedeling available and steep skiing.
So I hope you continue to enjoy yourself and I hope that I'll run into you one day on the mountains.
All the ski tips that have been demonstrated and many more, including advanced skiing maneuvers and powder skiing can be found in either the Hamelin guide to skiing sold in the UK or the new guide to skiing in the US and Australia and can be obtained at your local bookstore.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.