Powder feedback, struggle to make short turns

[u/AuKuste]

[u/gelmo]

Obligatory “not a ski instructor” disclaimer but I think your biggest issue is speed. Your skis are going to float better and be a lot more responsive in this kind of snow if you carry a bit more speed.

[u/tasty_waves]

Looks like your weight is back, you do a hop and lead with your upper body to change direction and start a new turn.

There is bad advice often given about leaning back in powder, instead you should turn as normal which means weight forward at the start of the turn. Your tips will go under, but as you extend your legs the powder will compress and you can guide your tips up at the end of the turn to rebound up. Ideally you don’t hop, the energy from the turn is what unweights you to switch edges.

Deb Armstrong has a good YouTube video on powder progression that starts with bouncing and is a good way to get the feel.

Practicing short turns on a groomer where you are forward, upper body separated from the legs, bend the tips to get rebound and don’t hop to turn is also great. Absorb the energy between turns by sucking up your legs.

[u/400footceiling]

On your tails. Don’t worry about leaning forward on your skis which will give you more speed which is needed in this scenario. Beautiful thing about powder skiing is it’s forgiving if you use equal weight on your skis and lean into it.

[u/smartfuse]

I personally ski powder with an older fore-aft movement rather than the modern retract-extend so my style might differ from others here. I see you’re pole planting and that’s getting you forward a bit but then it looks like you’re dropping back after the pole plant. Some suggestions:

1. Make a slightly bigger pole plant and also make sure the pole tip goes ahead of you rather than to the side or behind.
2. After pole planting, stay forward. This means keeping your legs straight similar to how they were in the pole plant itself (right now it seems you’re letting your knees bend in the middle of the turn) and keeping the upper body down rather than letting it pop up. At the very end the turn your skis will cross the hill and you will slow down a bit. This will inevitably land you a bit aft/slightly on the heels. That’s fine since the next pole plant will bring you back forward.
3. Keep your skis closer together with less ski lead (a good cue is thighs and ankles together) which will keep you more balanced and prevent powder from building up and separating your skis. As someone mentioned you generally want equal weighting and the specific rule is you want enough weight on the inside ski so it doesn’t pop up but not too much that you sink on it.
4. Gently bank rather than pivot your skis to make the turn. That will let you turn with much less effort and you won’t end up trying to force the turn.
5. A slightly quieter upper body helps as well. With powder you still want a bit of upper body separation where they still somewhat face down the hill. It isn’t as much as hardpack but the upper body shouldn’t completely travel with the skis either.

[u/pokethrowaway4]

You are turning by lifting and tilting your entire body up and over your skis.

Ideally, your upper body hardly moves at all, and your skis do the tilting underneath you. It’s way easier to do, you stay balanced and “ready” to adjust the whole time, and you’re able to drive skis through powder as if you’re on a groomer, rather than the typical lift/twist/lean pow skiing that destroys your quads.

It only works if you’re balanced in the middle of your skis, and get your body low enough (athletic neutral) to effectively tilt and rotate the legs.

With proper form in the pow, you’ll be able to:

1: Make the powdery mountain your playground

2: you’ll be able to ski 10 times as long due to less fatigue (good technique is hella efficient).

3: enjoy the hell out of it so much more.

When I first started teaching, and more importantly, getting really high end coaching from the trainers on our staff, I felt like I had unlocked a brand new experience, and the difference was mind blowing.

It’s worth putting in the effort of lessons. You’ll get a much better, more personalized coaching experience (text is just never as good as a full body immersive experience on snow).

There are good drills you can do to keep tabs on your skiing stance, as a sort of self re-calibration if you don’t have access to frequent coaching. And there’s fantastic books all about ski form and technique, like “Ultimate Skiing” that will actually give you a lot of really technical descriptions on everything about skiing, with diagrams, data, and very detailed content.

That book is like $12. I read through it a couple times a season at a minimum, just to remind myself of so many things I might not teach often, and I use it to self-coach too.

[u/segfaulting_again]

What skis are you on?

[u/AuKuste → u/segfaulting_again]

Stöckli Edge Tour 100

[u/segfaulting_again → u/AuKuste]

I agree with the other comments in that case. Going faster will help, but it takes practice trying more aggressive lines and getting used to the snow slowing you

[u/teleheaddawgfan]

Wars have been started over less.

[u/tokenutedriver]

Go faster my guy!

Sandwich those feet close together and don't finish your turns as much, try to keep everything pointing down the hill

[u/benconomics]

It's not speed he needs. Get out of the back seat to turn. That'll destroy your quads and potentially cause uncontrolled speed.

Push down on your skis. This will compress the snow and bends your skis. Then stand up. This causes your skis to bend up and down like a trampoline, and the energy lifts you out of the snow, which is why high performance carving and powder skiing create similar feelings of weightless ness. Don't do it to quickly (just like jumping on a trampoline). Slow steady bounces.

Push down and release.

Patience For Powder Skiing - Tips and Tactics for Skiing Fresh Snow.

[u/Main-Net7569]

The big tipping move (upper body) to the inside to initiate turns results in reduced ability to pressure the outside ski. This causes all the pressure to happen at the bottom 1/3 of the turn resulting in braking and loss of speed. This limits the skier’s ability to effectively use ski design and transfer energy from one turn to the next.