Get a Better Feel for what Your Skis Can Do

By Dan Lacroix, CSIA Level IV, CSCF Level III

Have you ever wondered why the new “Shaped” skis help your skiing? The simple answer is that they have more sidecut to them and therefore when you tip them over on their edges, they’ll have a tendency to “GRIP” the snow and deflect you across the hill more than your old skis would. Without getting into the physics of it, I’ll tell you how to experiment with the skis to get a good feel of what they can do.

First of all, you should try these experiments on very easy, flat terrain, while skiing fairly fast. I mean really flat, the kind of slope that you would just “tuck” on. I call these Roller Blade Turns. Basically, imagine that you had some roller blades on and you were on a nice flat surface. You would NOT have your legs tight together would you? You would just do some slight curves left and right with a natural athletic stance. Do your wheels skid or do they track? Of course they just track and you really just move both legs laterally at the same time and pace. Well…try this with skis on. The idea is not to have the skis “pivot,” rather you just want to feel that the skis are being tipped over laterally at the same time and pace. Each ski is a mirror image of each other. It will feel exactly like you have a pair of roller blades on. The tails will NOT wash or slide out. You will be making 2 parallel pencil lines in the snow with your edges.

Now again, this will take some practice because you will have the tendency to want to twist or pivot the skis. Try and resist this and feel as though you are slicing the snow and not scrapping the snow. The key here is to experiment with these feelings and then try and bring them back into your regular skiing. Remember that the type of slope you are on will dictate the types of turns you need to do. For example, on a steeper slope you will have a tendency to make short round turns. As the terrain flattens out a bit you’ll naturally make some slightly larger turns. The goal is to try and feel the skis “GRIP” the snow similar to what you felt while doing the Roller Blade turns. At first this will happen towards the end of each turn, but as you get better, your “GRIP” will engage earlier in the turn.

Remember, if you want to get better at a sport you need to try and play with ideas that will feel weird at first, but in the long run will make you a better skier. You will also enjoy those shaped skis much more too. Take care.

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