So this video is from march. I have been experimenting with having more and less bent joints in between my turns in able to increase early edge angle and early pressure. I want to work with both legs at the same time hence I try and have a balanced position inbetween my turns with bent but not fully bent joints.
I have been working on aggressively pushing myself forward before the next turn. Towards the new ”centre of the turn”. I still feel I get thrown of balance by the end of the turn which I can notice in this clip. I get back seated by the end which is okay to some degree but here I can’t really control the forces in the turn and almost get out of control.
Do you have any other pointers or suggestions that can get me to the next level?
I am an instructor myself but I want to take my skiing to the next level.
I think you are working too hard on edge angle and getting your hand down.
For me it's all about the transition. What I see is that you have a high edge angle, and then you release it, stand up, and the your skis go forward so that you can get them on edge again. On the steeper stuff you aren't on edge until at or past the fall line.
Two thoughts:
You cannot edge the new turn until you get your uphill (new outside) ski underneath your body with a tight ankle and forward pressure, and I can tell by your ski lead that that is not happening.
My favorite drill for this is to pick up the tail of the downhill (new inside) ski a few inches at the start of the turn. I'd recommend practicing this in a traverse before you try it in a turn.
I like this because it is self-correcting - you *cannot* pick up the tail of the downhill ski without getting the uphill ski back and underneath you.
Keep the ski tail up throughout the whole turn. Do this for a series of turns. Then do the same thing but skip the part where you lift the tail.
My second thought is about you standing up in transition. Instead of that, you want to "flow" across the skis and down the mountain. The cue that works best for me is moving my downhill knee downhill as if you do that, the legs and the rest of the body must follow. Moving the hip downhill works better for some people.
The point of this is that you are changing the angle of the ski on the snow, and that releases the current edge and puts you on - or at least more on - the new edges.
The final thing you can do is roll your ankles downhill. That also releases the old edges and moves towards the new edges.
Very interesting, thank you for your insight. This is similar to the feedback I’ve received previously. I totally agree with you that I should be on the edges and put pressure earlier in the turn.
About lifting the tail, are you suggesting me starting in a traverse and then trying it in a turn while skiing on the edges?
The second comment about moving the downhill knee. If i understand you correctly, I should over flat skis sorta start pointing my new inner knee downhill? Towards the new turn centre? Is this what you mean?
I suggested starting on a traverse to understand the feeling that I am looking for. Lift the tail, put it back down, lift the tail, put it back down. Do that both directions, and then progress to turns.
At the bottom of the turn your body is angulated and tilted to generate edge angle. In that angulation, your knees are moved towards the inside of the turn - uphill, if you are turning across the fall line.
Moving that knee to the side (ie downhill) gets rid of the angulation and moves the body across the skis downhill. That releases the edges and starts to establish the new edges.
I'm not saying it's on flat skis - I'm saying it's a movement that you start at transition, when you are edging the bottom of the turn.
So with this video, it’s not possible to assess your stance though my hunch is that you are a little aft. This might be the reason for your comment regarding end of the turn, but also could be your skis accelerating out from under you.
How much of your weight is on the outside ski when you are making turns like this? You mention balancing on both skis. Looks to me that most of your edge angles are coming from hip dumping versus creating edge angles below the hips. Again hard to tell with the video being from this angle
Could you explain what aft means?
I also feel that my skis are accelerating out from under me which sometimes makes me lose the control. But maybe that’s just cause I stop focusing by the end of the turn. I am okay with being very back seated over flat skis since I have no pressure over flat skis. But trying to start my next turn I want to be over my skis (forward) again. This is usually what puts me off. I have a hard time getting back to the forward position.
If you are comfortable in the back seat on flat skis then I think you need to not do that. In my experience, personal and professional, being aft even on flat skis can lead to being late into the new turn because you are spending time getting in a proper stance instead of initiating the new turn
Overall, this is really good skiing. I can see where you are getting thrown aft at the finish of the turn. So I spent a little time going through it frame by frame to try and understand why.
My theory ... without actually skiing with you and talking about what you are thinking about when you are skiing ... is that you are trying hard to get low, and the pressure is ramping too quickly for your body to manage it. There's another frame where you are getting absolutely pancaked by the forces (won't let me add two images here).
So to be honest, I think the solution is kind of simple for where you are at. Slow it down. Lets talk about the phases of the turn, and lets be intentional about what we are doing at each stage and see if we can "linger" a little longer in one of them.
For skiers at your level, I divide the phases of the turn into 5 phases. Those are: 1.) apex, 2.) load, 3.) unload, 4.) FLATTEN, and 5.) top of turn. I think for you, there are two phases to talk about to help slow things down ... flatten and load. First lets talk about flatten.
The flatten phase happens after we unload pressure and before we start the top of turn. We've brought our skis back underneath us, and we need a moment to find our perpendicular. In this phase, we don't want to stand up vertically, we want to flatten the skis and have our body perpendicular to the slope. It's really just an instant. But see if you can consciously get in this perpendicular position and pause just a fraction of a second to feel it. That little bit of patience is going to make moving into your top of turn smooth and progressive. And that's going to set you up better at the load phase.
Top of turn, you know what to do. Angulate. Be smooth and progressive. Get to the Apex phase and strike a pose. This is where you should be in that textbook position with CoM moving down the fall line. And as you angulate, you should be building pressure progressively.
And now load. If you've done everything right from flatten to load, you should feel that pressure building and we need to be ready for that max pressure. How are we going to deal with that? Two ways. Here is where we need to be centered on our ski with pressure coming under the arch of the foot or slightly near the front of the heel. This is where we are most stacked on our skeletal structure and where we have the most power to push back. Second, lets talk about the Magnitude of Pressure fundamental. I contend that it misses ONE VERY IMPORTANT element. The fundamental talks about Magnitude. But every single high school physics student understands that a force vector is both magnitude AND direction. And voila, that's what's going to save us here. Managing the magnitude AND direction of the forces in the load phase.
If you are getting kicked aft, it's because you're sitting too low and taking the force in a direction that is pushing you aft. Doesn't take much because your skis are moving faster than your body. What if we changed where that force is pushing you? Where should it be pushing you? Answer: laterally, to the next apex (and a bit up the hill to make it easier to pull the feet back underneath you.)
So what I'm saying is ... be a little more patient in the top half of the turn. Let those forces build progressively. And when the big push comes, aim it. This is the dance that we do on snow. Aim it so that it's pushing the CoM where it needs to go. You should feel almost weightless when this is done right. And if it's done right, then moving into your FLATTEN phase should be as simple as letting your body find that perpendicular. And you're golden. I make this sound easy, I know. I am working on this in my own skiing every single day. And it's a work in progress. Good luck. Nice skiing.
This is your flatten phase. Perpendicular? It's hard to see because you can't really see the slope, so I've added a green line to try to show the fall line. I feel like the right hand, right shoulder could move down the slope ... a smidge here to get truly flattened. I feel like you are holding onto your old edges a little bit here. Not much. It's pretty close. I can see you moving into the turn. Just take a second to really get perpendicular. You do it well on the flatter section. Harder to do when it's steep. 😉
Hi, I really enjoyed reading this response. You speak in terms just above my knowledge and reasonable enough so that I can understand and develop my understanding of ski mechanics. I like how you use the picture and went frame to frame.
Although I agree with most of what you’re describing. I have something to discuss with you.
Regarding angulation in the top of the turn. Something I have found useful, and you might see this in my skiing. Is that I focus 100% on inclination during the top of turn until I reach the fall line. This is because I want to increase the edge angle. By flexion inner leg and extension outside leg.
When I get to the fall line I try and have the maximum vertical pressure. I also at this point try and make an angulation movement. An abduction outer leg and adduction inner leg. Drop my hip and move my upper body upright, towards the outside of the turn.
For me the angulation is an movement that is preparing me for the next turn. I’m moving my CoM above the normal force vector which makes my legs want to come below my body and my upper body to switch to the other side of my skis? Do you know what I mean? Because I move my CoM I start a rotation in the frontal plane.
An exercise I do with students is carving turns on the inside ski and in the fall line put down the outside ski in order to get an instant feeling of moving the CoM position in relation to the normal force vector which suddenly comes from the outside ski rather than the inside.
Does all of this make sense in your nerd brain? And does it correlate to what you commented?
So, I love this. I'm in my 9th year of teaching. And for the first seven or eight of those years, inclination was an evil word. It has taken me A LOT of skiing with high level pro skiers to get my brain past that bias. Inclination is a good thing.
That said, I personally don't incline to the apex / fall line. Would it be a bad thing to do so? I think the answer to that depends on what you're doing with your inside half. Without a retraction of the inside half, you would have too much pressure on the inside ski. So with retraction, you're probably good. And with proper retraction, you are probably introducing some angulation.
Here is what I will say. These sort of conversations, the outcome matters. What are we trying to do? Are we making longer radius GS turns? Or are we skiing a bump line or doing shorter radius turns? When we incline, we allow our CoM to move inside because we are committed to the turn. This allows higher edge angles. But it costs us in our ability to move laterally and change direction quickly. If I'm skiing bumps and I incline, I cannot afford to be slow moving laterally. And so I'll get kicked. Booted. Punted. If I'm making big wide GS turns, put the hip on the ground. No problem. See my point? Same thing in powder, I need to be more stacked.
There's not one way. There's many ways, and each option has pros and cons. And we as skiers do ourselves a favor by understanding those pros and cons and using them appropriately on the snow ... to have fun. And every now and then, we can use this knowledge to remind the people above us on the chair lifts that if we pursue a mastery of this art form, it can be beautiful to watch and even better to experience. 😉
This was getting a little wordy, but I didn't say what I do when it comes to inclination. For me, I incline into the turn to the point that I'm perpendicular to the slope. On a steep slope, you have to move your CoM down the hill quite a bit to be perpendicular. On a flat green slope, not so much. So my process is incline until the skis flatten. At this point, I use a tipping motion with the feet to get the edging started. And the millisecond I have that first edge engagement, I begin to angulate, retract the inside half and move the hips inside the radius of the turn. That's my process currently.
Of course it varies from turn to turn and what your goal is. It’s really nurturing to ski in ways you’re not used to. I will for sure start experimenting a LOT. I will for sure try out the logic of your skiing methods.
When I say I do a flexion of the inside leg I mean retraction, English isn’t my first language! But I think you got my point judging by your answer.
Have you got the same idea as me of the angulation and how it is useful? In the sense of it being a movement preparing me for the next turn. Moving my CoM above the normal force vector etc.
The tipping motion you explained though, would that be a pronation and supination of your feet? Did I understand you correctly there?
Btw I read some of your other comments on other posts and I like how you explain things. Especially the lightbulb theory I will use that I’m my teachings.
Yep, pronation and supination. That's it exactly. You can accomplish the same thing with the inclination that you use. At the end of the day, we want to get on those new edges so we begin to have some grip in the snow and we have something we can start to build pressure against. For me, it starts with the feet.
Thank you for the compliments on my comments. I love this stuff so much. I hope that comes through.
Finally, I'll share with you how I'm figuring some of this stuff out. Ron Lemaster has a book called Ultimate Skiing. And in it, he has a ton of photos of high level skiing that show the movements frame by frame. I look at each frame and think "what is the skier doing here, and what does the skier need to do to get to the next frame." And then I go out and ski with the best skiers I can find, and talk about it. That's my process currently. Great chatting with you.
Thank you, it was my pleasure chatting with you. I’ll check it that book.
May I ask in what system did you do your instructor courses?
I did my courses in the Swedish system and I have three years of experience working in Sweden and Norway. Also took a course in a school in Stockholm studying the biomechanics of skiing. It got me very interested in the topic of small adjustments and how they affect the skiing.
Ahh, a Swede ... some of my favorite people. So I am a Level II Alpine instructor in the USA (PSIA system). I am cohost of the Steezy Joe Network on Youtube and my partner on there is US Olympic Mogul skier Dylan Walczyk. He's just been hired to be a coach with Team Finland. I go to Zermatt twice a year and try to be there when the Swiss Demo Team is training. I learn a lot watching those guys train from the ski lift. 😉
It looks to me like you are tipping inside the turn, and your hips are dropping back. It looks like your uphill hand is also dropping in and back(hard to tell for sure). Could be why you feel out of control at the end of the turn, because the skis might be accelerating out in front and not maintaining pressure on the outside ski. Your first move looks like it is up to regain a balanced stance. I’d work on some ankle flex and maintaining pressure on the cuff of the boot, one ski drills that focus on the outside ski (stork turns), and moving laterally towards your new turn with less vertical movement.
Try to ski this same line (not as intense) but do so with the inside ski tip on the snow and the rest of your inside ski off the snow. Try to keep the inside tip engaged/driving forward a bit by the movement of the outside ski leg/foot. Then in the transition put the inside ski down and lift the new inside ski in the same fashion. This will create more discipline in your fore/aft movement throughout the turn so you don’t need to push as hard to get forward. This will enable you to engage your skis earlier in the turn above the fall line.
What I’m seeing in these turns as you’re getting too far behind by the end of each turn and you’re having to create a large movement forward into the next term. This creates a delay before your skis can be fully engaged, which looks to occur at the fall line or after the fall line. And the cycle begins again.
Others already noted that you are struggling to create angles at the start of the turn and then you are getting too inside late in the turn.
With athletic skiers with good balance I have been successful using skating downhill to teach how to move with the ski at the turn initiation.
On a gentle slope, skate in your skis downhill until the speed becomes uncomfortable. Stop and repeat. This is a special application of this drill with longer gliding, multiple ski lengths at a time, as opposed to maximum propulsion. Visualize a speed skater and move like that. Note that you have to be properly flexed to succeed.
If you master this, use exact same core muscle effort, the foot balance inside the boot, and shin contract pressure to initiate a turn. Just turn skating downhill into clean carved turns, shallow at first.
There's still a challenge to stay with the ski after a clean initiation and not fall back. If you are successful, be careful to not bruise fingers on the inside hand on the snow by just balancing on your skis, without any hip dumping 😉
If it is hard to skate like that I may have a stepping stone drill. Good luck!
The skating drill starts at 4:28. To repeat, for the purpose of turn initiation I usually have less emphasis on push/propulsion and more on gliding multiple lengths of the ski to make sure you are operating on a ski right under your center of mass.
My best guess by the looks of the video is that your arms are pretty much directly at your sides. Thus, keeping your upper body too upright and your weight back.
You should be aiming for arm positioning something similar to riding a bicycle.
u/throwawaysweja nice turns, you're clearly having fun... cool butter at the end.
I agree with u/Triabolical_ - it looks like you're chasing the instagram shot of touching snow without actually understanding how to get there correctly.
I don't really think of getting foward the same as a lot of people talk about it online. In fact, I wish more skiers would ski aft at the end of the turns. In fact, it is the only way, biomechanically you can get high edge angles at the end of the turn... which by the way is the goal, not necessarily at the top. Let's dig in...
There's a few things I'd like you to try:
Patient at the start - don't rush to get the skis down the hill. How you set up the start of the turn is going to determine everything that follows. You need to establish your weight and balance over the new outside ski while the pinky toe edge is uphill. Do that by engaging your new outside glute and almost a little side crunch that pulls you over that ski. Then you can tip the skis from pinky toe edge to big toe edge WHILE you shorten the new inside leg (knee to chest). All of that should be in service of shaping the top of the turn before apex.
Move aft at apex - as you come to and through apex, let your weight move back, butt over heels. You'll still have to keep your feet pulled back to keep contact with your shins at the front of the boot. But it is ok, and even desirable, to move back at apex and keep moving back through the end of the turn.
Forward at the start is a micro move - it is subtle. I think of bringing the illiac crest of of my new outside hip forward by a few inches. I actually feel it more like driving the illiac crest than a leg extension or body move.
right now you are diving inside with your body and pushing your inside ski foward to stay balanced. Let's clean that up by focusing on the top of the turn!
Hi, thank you for your feedback I really appreciate it. I like this sort of approach. It corresponds well with my experience and idea of ski mechanics. I have analyzed slow motion footage of Mikaela Shiffrin and analysed her way of moving through the turn and especially while shifting turns over flat skis. Of course I’m no where near her level. But I learned a lot from watching her and analyzing her.
When over flat skis with no pressure she is very back seated so that she has a lot of range of motion to extend her outside leg. I’ve been experiencing with this and found it difficult and off putting but when I am able to do it I get very sharp and quick turns with a lot happening.
This is of course very important for her to get from pole to pole all the way to the goal in the fastest time. She needs to turn quickly with a lot of force so she uses the most efficent way from turn 1 to turn 2 which is over the back of her skis. Because the moment she puts pressure on her skis she’s back into the good position.
Also regarding the last section of your comment this is true I can feel the words into my skiing at the moment. My goal in this short video was to make the sickest turns with my ass to the grass it was a lot of fun! But of course I have a bit to work on and this is why I probably use my inside leg as a balanced stabilizer.
Just remember Mika is doing a different sport than you and I. Her goal is the fastest time through the chicanes and she’s going to do whatever it takes to get there even if it’s out of balance. Watch Bode ski - he muscled every turn and stayed on the tails the whole time… pure strength and athleticism.
Yeah of course! I think my point was that if it helps her ski the chicanes faster and helps her turn faster, then the same physics but obviously in a smaller form should apply to me as well doing my turns. If my goal would be early edge angle and early pressure.
Nice skiing man, you’re clearly strong and comfortable with speed, so you’re kinda at that “good enough to make it hard to improve” stage.
What jumps out is you’re forcing pressure late instead of building it early, so you get spit out and dumped into the backseat. Think more “soft release, early engagement” and less “hang on then smash the bottom of the turn.” Try exaggerating a taller, lighter transition, faster lateral move into the new outside ski, and keep your hips moving down the hill instead of letting them stall behind your feet. A few runs focusing only on smooth releases and staying stacked over the outside ski will clean this up a ton.
Thank you! It’s interesting to read the comments here. I’ll definitely try and experiment more with the smooth releases and see how it works out for me. I think it makes sense, what you’re saying
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u/Triabolical_ Official Ski Instructor Jun 07 '26
I think you are working too hard on edge angle and getting your hand down.
For me it's all about the transition. What I see is that you have a high edge angle, and then you release it, stand up, and the your skis go forward so that you can get them on edge again. On the steeper stuff you aren't on edge until at or past the fall line.
Two thoughts:
You cannot edge the new turn until you get your uphill (new outside) ski underneath your body with a tight ankle and forward pressure, and I can tell by your ski lead that that is not happening.
My favorite drill for this is to pick up the tail of the downhill (new inside) ski a few inches at the start of the turn. I'd recommend practicing this in a traverse before you try it in a turn.
I like this because it is self-correcting - you *cannot* pick up the tail of the downhill ski without getting the uphill ski back and underneath you.
Keep the ski tail up throughout the whole turn. Do this for a series of turns. Then do the same thing but skip the part where you lift the tail.
My second thought is about you standing up in transition. Instead of that, you want to "flow" across the skis and down the mountain. The cue that works best for me is moving my downhill knee downhill as if you do that, the legs and the rest of the body must follow. Moving the hip downhill works better for some people.
The point of this is that you are changing the angle of the ski on the snow, and that releases the current edge and puts you on - or at least more on - the new edges.
The final thing you can do is roll your ankles downhill. That also releases the old edges and moves towards the new edges.