Striving for Balance

Finding balance in skiing can be as elusive as finding it in life. It is especially challenging at the beginning of the ski season. Yet balance is the foundation of good skiing.

A wise man (okay, a race coach) once said balance is any position you are in if you have not fallen. While a little tongue in cheek, the point he was making is that balance in skiing is achieved by being in a constant state of motion. As a skier makes their way down the hill the platform under their skis is constantly changing due to incline, snow texture, bumps, depressions, and so on. If you are static (i.e., not in the process of either bending or extending your legs) you will get the sensation of the terrain skiing you rather than the other way around.

Here are some simple drills I find helpful to get in balance, particularly at the beginning of the season.

1) “Shmeered turns”. Try not to carve your first day or two back on snow. Instead focus on using lots of movement in your hips, knees, and ankles to make round turns down the hill. With carving skis, one can easily apply an edge while being out of balance but it is impossible to execute round turns out of balance.
2) Feel your feet in your boots. Where are you feeling pressure on your feet (shins, heels, inside, outside)? Where in the turn are you feeling it? Try feeling as though your feet are flat on the bottoms of your boots – as though you are balanced on the binding – throughout the turn.
3) Try skiing with your toes up throughout the turn. This forces you to balance over the ball of your foot.
4) For more advanced skiers use inside ski turns where you start each turn skiing only on your inside ski, adding your outside ski after you turn out of the fall line.
5) Also for advanced skiers, use delay turns where you pivot into the fall line, take the time to balance over your skis, then pick up the edge to complete the turn.

Above all, be patient. Your balance will return with some mileage. This is the time of the season to focus on the fundamentals. With strong balance as your base you will be able to take on new ski challenges throughout the season.

On a personal note, I have made a huge leap forward in achieving some balance in my life. I have made the permanent move to Whistler where I will run my media consulting business while skiing and instructing as much as I can. :)

Guided Mileage

Skiing is a mileage game. The more you ski the more opportunities you have to experience different conditions and terrain and improve your ability to ski them. Yet so often I hear people say that they ski and ski and don’t seem to improve. My response is to ask what they are working on. Nine times out of 10 they have no response. Unless you know what you are trying to improve, how do you expect to get better?

To help you figure out what you need, take a lesson. And don’t let the learning end when the lesson is over. Make notes of the tips the instructor gave you, the terrain you skied, and any drills or tactics the instructor had you use. When you free ski replicate elements of the lesson that worked for you. Have a focus for each run. Know what you are working to improve and what tactics you can use to get better. Rather than just repeating the way you always ski over and over again, guided mileage helps you make the changes necessary to improve.

Buckle Up

The most important part of your ski equipment is your boots. For people starting out who can’t afford to buy everything at once I advise buying boots and renting skis. Your boots are what transfer all your muscular efforts into your skis. Changing boots will affect your skiing more than changing skis.

Yet I am constantly surprised at the number of skiers who suffer through ill-fitting boots, who have to crank down the buckles to get anything out of them, or whose feet are always cold. Boots can be blown out. Buckles can be moved. Shells can be shaved down. Very few people are lucky enough to have factory-made boots fit them perfectly at the store. This is why ski shops include boot fitting as part of the cost of the boot. This includes not only the initial fitting but any adjustments required once you start skiing them and they pack out.

Don’t forget the bottom of your feet. I’d highly recommend foot beds if you are a regular skier. Foot beds support the arches of your feet allowing for better power transfer and feet that aren’t sore at the end of the day. The ones that come with boots are one size fit all. Super feet are a cheaper alternative though I swear by my custom foot beds. They last for years and can be moved from ski boot to ski boot.

I am often asked how a boot should fit. My answer: snug but comfortable. You want your foot firmly housed in the boot with no room to move but you don’t want it to pinch or hurt. You should be able to ski comfortably with your boots unbuckled. In fact, I often keep the bottom couple of buckles undone for my first one or two runs of the day until my feet get used to them again.

The most important buckle on your boots isn’t actually a buckle at all but the power strap – the Velcro strap at the top of your boots. This should be done up as tightly as you can so that the tongue of your boot is firmly against your shin with no space between. Otherwise people ski too far forward in their boots trying to seek the tongue and find that control.

The single best thing I’ve learned this year is to do up my power strap over the tongue but UNDER the shell of the boot. If your boot will accommodate you doing this, do it. It will get the tongue of the boot firmly against your shin. Plus it will upright the boot slightly allowing you to stand more comfortably in your boots and ski in a more stacked position using your skeleton rather than your muscles making you less tired at the end of the day.

Once you get your boots fitted perfectly, there is a lot you can do once you take them home to take care of them. Always keep them buckled. Thoroughly dry them out each time you use them by either removing the liners or using a boot drier. Do NOT leave the carefully adjusted shells by the fire or there is nothing a boot fitter can do to help you!

Ice Ice Baby

I once had a trainer tell me he loved the ice. He said that it gave him external feedback as to whether he was balanced on his skis. While I certainly wouldn’t go as far as to say I enjoy skiing on ice, there are ways to it less painful.

First, it’s important to determine if what you are skiing is, in fact, ice. Sometimes skiers refer to hard pack as ice. It isn’t. Hard pack is snow that is packed down so hard that there is no loose snow on it. It is white. Ice is when you can see your reflection. Ice sparkles in the sunlight. Neither are particularly fun to ski but at least with hard pack, you can carve through it. Well tuned skis certainly help.

One strategy with ice is avoidance. Some runs will always be icier than others. These are usually those that funnel through a lot of traffic. For the same reason, icy spots are generally found in the middle of runs. These spots can be avoided by skiing as close to the side of the run as you are comfortable. Steeper pitchers are often icy because of skiers and boarders of lower abilities who push the snow to the bottom side slipping rather than carving the run.

If a patch of ice is unavoidable I think of skiing it “lightly”. While the natural reaction is to try and dig in, if it is truly ice and not hard pack you will not win that battle. It is better to get over it as quickly as possible while trying not to allow it to disrupt your rhythm. Concentrate on this good rhythm and on continuous movement (bending and extending) in your legs as ice often causes one to freeze up (pardon the pun).

The better balanced you are over your skis, the less ice will throw you. So on icy days, as on any other days, focus on balancing over your feet with your feet flat in your boots .

Like any new situation, skiing ice gets easier with practice so try not to give up and quit early on an icy day. You may never love it like my trainer but you will get more comfortable with it. And if all else fails you can exact your revenge on ice by consuming it in your après ski cocktail!

Posture Perfect

A simple adjustment many skiers can make to improve ski performance is to modify their body position between the waist and the neck. The majority of skiers either ski too upright or bend over straight from the waist. Skiing with your back straight and shoulders back may follow what your mother told you about good posture but does nothing to engage your ski from its centre to its tail. This body position is more often seen with men, particularly those who carry some extra weight around the middle, but can also be seen with those who have participated in aesthetic-based sports (e.g., dancing, figure skating, diving, or gymnastics).

Skiing bent over from the hips is more common with women and tends to happen when skier are told to bend over more without being told how to do so. Then the bend comes at the hips giving the appearance of the butt sticking out. What this does to ski performance is get the skier “in the back seat” and thus unable to effectively work the front of their ski.

So what should good ski posture look and feel like? Think of being in a “ready position” – an athletic position like you would if you were waiting for a tennis ball to be served to you or a football to be snapped. For women, picture wearing a super tight pair of high waist jeans that force you to suck in your tummy. Picture these jeans coming up a couple inches higher than your belly button then roll your shoulders over keeping your waist upright. For men who may not be as familiar with the tight jeans feeling, picture getting sucker punched in the stomach around your belly button. As your stomach moves inward, roll your shoulders forward.

The goal for both groups is to keep your butt and hips upright and stacked over your legs with only your shoulders rolled forward. This will give you the active stance necessary to react to anything that comes at you but also allow you to use the whole length of the leg in your skiing and engage the whole ski tip to tail.

Look up...Way up...

One of the simplest things a skier can do to improve their skiing is to change where they look when they ski. If you love the way it looks when your skis disappear under deep powder or how cool it is when you show off the base when you are carving, you are not looking far enough ahead! When you are driving, do you look at your hood ornament or the road? The next time you see ski racing on TV take a look at where the racers are looking. They are not looking at the gate they are skiing around, they are looking two or three gates ahead. Integrating the same tactic into your recreational skiing will dramatically improve your skiing.
Skiers that look down or immediately ahead when they ski are often not symmetrical from turn to turn. They fail to anticipate changes in terrain. Their skiing lacks flow. They are more likely to be involved in collisions with other people on the hill.
So the next time you are skiing, pick an object way down the hill to focus on – a ski chalet, body of water, or a caution sign. Keep it in your sight the entire run. If you are not in the habit of doing this, it will feel foreign at first and you will likely have to keep reminding yourself to look up. But I guarantee you will be skiing faster, more fluidly, and in control.