Some suggestions for drills that you can use for DIY self-improvement
** CAUTION: Please try these out only if you are already skiing in good control on blue and black slopes, and are aiming to strengthen and broaden your skiing skills. Master the Starter version before you move on to the Advanced version. Ski safely. Its not a bad idea to try any new moves on familiar terrain until you get the hang of it.
- Explore the Slope: (Transform one of your everyday slopes into a training ground to build the skills you’ll want to have on more demanding pitches).
- Starter – Pick a slope and ski it five times, each time taking a different line. Pay attention to the different feelings and sounds of the snow on each part of the slope.
- Advanced – Deliberately ski lines you typically didn’t before, for instance: Find a slope that the groomers half-smoothed, ski into and then back out of the bumps to the groomed snow so that you are changing your mechanics over and over playing the edge of two different conditions; In soft bumps make medium radius turns requiring you to mix and match in real time, turning on different parts of bumps, jumping over or absorbing others; Limit yourself to a narrow corridor, maybe 2 or 3 bumps wide.
- Slipping artfully (Fore-aft balance refinement while expanding the use of foot steering and fun stuff to do on flat skis)
- Starter – Everything is not carving! So any time you decide to stop (do so close to the side of the trail for safety) flatten your skis and add an on-snow 180 just before you come to a stop, almost like backing in to a parking slot. Was that fun? OK do a couple of on-snow 360s at random times during a run down a green slope at slow speed. Actively turning your head is key to not getting stuck half way. Giggles are OK, just be aware of other skiers as they won’t expect you to do 360s.
- Advanced – Instead of making short-swing turns today, do pivot slips down the fall line in a two-ski length wide corridor. Got that, try it on something steep. Can you do it in a one ski wide corridor? Do it slowly, use your feet mostly to direct the skis, and allow your whole body to tilt down the hill as you pass thru the fall line. If your skis don’t turn slowly and smoothly, you’re likely back on your heels and rushing them around.
- Slice Those Turns: (Refine edge and pressure-based carving, while eliminating any habitual twisting of the feet to rush the skis through the fall line)
- Starter – When on a flat or green slope, instead of just going straight, roll your skis onto edge and do railroad tracks (using only the ski design to make the skis turn) staying near the fall line.
- Advanced – on wide blue or green slopes (make sure slope is empty first), make railroad tracks within large radius turns.
- Get Hip: (Integrate how you use various leg joints in initiating carving turns.)
- Starter – Initiate turns by focusing on moving the inside knee diagonally into the turn. Feel the front-inside of your shin against the boot. Do it first in medium radius turns so you have time to feel it, then when you get the hang of it, do it in short radius turns.
- Advanced – Explore two ways of using your hips as they affect rotary forces – First, hold your belly button down the hill while turning the skis under your hips (skiing into counter) on one pitch – and then on the next, actively point your belly button where you want your skis to go (steering) – guide them, do not twist them) on the next. Try it at first in medium radius turns.What works? Now try the drill in short radius turns. Hmmm.
- It’s Called Skiing, Not Poling:(Disrupt hands and shoulder habits you may have acquired that maybe are actually interfering with you truly skiing with your skis.)
- Starter – Balance your poles horizontally on the tops of your wrists and ski with them pointed 90 degrees to the fall line. See how quiet you can get the poles, imagine its a tray with a cup of hot beverage sitting on it you don’t want to spill.
- Advanced – ski without pole plants, including green or blue bumps, actively keeping your hands quiet and aimed down the hill in the fall line. Then add back super-light touches, tone down those old pole plants into the softest pole touches possible, where your hands and arms do not get deflected when the pole touches the snow.
- Pressure Tactics:(Improve carving by refining control of ski to ski pressure.)
- Starter – Carve turns while saying to yourself “body weight, leg weight” to guide how you pressure your two skis differently.
- Advanced – See if you can start changing edges earlier and earlier (well before reaching the fall line) while attending to the shift from leg weight to body weight on the new outside ski as you initiate turns.
- Ankle Magic: (Actively improve fore-aft balance and overall dynamism by two moves – jetting feet forward/pulling feet back, and using glutes to move your Center of Mass.)
- Starter – See if you can maintain shin contact with the front of both boots throughout your turns. If not, are you too hunched over, leaning on your heels? try it on a flatter slope, then when you have it working, steeper and steeper slopes.
- Advanced – add some pressure to your ski tips as you initiate turns, and to the tails as you complete them – without opening your ankle joints – do not lose contact with the front of your boots.
- Smooth as Silk:(Speed hides lots of faults and breaks in the flow of movement. Slow skiing requires continuous movement in all joints to create balance.)
- Starter – On an easy green groomer, get a rhythm going then ski it slower and slower and slower till its almost slow motion or you fall over. Then ever so slowly pick up the speed more and more. Make the turns silky smooth!
- Advanced – on a green groomer, get a rhythm going then gradually increase the edge angle and pressure of each turn, making each next turn more dynamic than the previous one. See how close you can get your hip to the snow. Make the greens fun again!
- Real Time Feed: (CARV is a cool technology that will give you real-time objective feedback on your skiing.)
- Basic – Get CARV sensors installed in your boots plus earbuds and iPhone app. The CARV technology assist provides real-time spoken feedback on your skiing through your earbuds with lots of precision. For example, it can tell you the edge angle of each turn in real time as you ski. Or whether your skis are turning at the same time.
- Advanced – CARV has challenge series, ie; Can you make 40 out of 50 turns with at least a 25 degree edge angle? It will keep score. For more tailored shaping or help if you plateau, you might hire an instructor who is familiar with CARV to show you ways to improve your scores further).
- Examine the evidence: (Your skis leave a signature – see what it says!)
- Basic – Look for opportunities to ski under a lift where the snow is still un-tracked. Next ride up, look carefully at the tracks, especially the transition between turns. Maybe pull out your smartphone and snap some pics so you can zoom in. Are there places where your skis are washing out and sending spray sideways? Adjust something that might produce cleaner tracks, examine your tracks again – did it work?.
- Advanced – See if you can make arcs that show two skis on edge followed very briefly by two flat skis followed by two edges. Look at your tracks during the transition into a new turn. What you’re going for is a decisive movement across your skis from one set of edges to the other.., a sweet carved turn! OK, to get that to happen consistently you have to do a lot of things right. Some of the drills above will help you figure out how to get there.
- Apres-ski check-in – (Check in on the delayed feedback from your body)
- Basic – When you succeed in moving differently for a day, its entirely possible you’ll discover that you are a bit sore – in different places that you used to expect. Some places are good to be sore as they indicate better skiing… Glutes instead of quads. Muscles on the front of your shin rather than the calves on the back of your leg. Shoulders instead of lower back. Progress!!
- Advanced – If your feet are sore, first check to be sure you’re not unconsciously tensing them. Then make an appointment with a good boot-fitter and get some adjustments made. Many skiers benefit hugely from a custom footbed because their whole foot is feeling the ski and things line up better in their bio-mechanics.