Sunday, January 14, 2018

Figured out My Ski Turning Problem

For years, I've been struggling with an annoying problem with my ski turns.
My turns look like backwards 2's.  An instructor and I took a look at my tracks. The turn to the left is nice and smooth. The one to the right is sharp and abrupt.

You turn a parabolic ski by putting pressure on the ball of your foot on the outside ski. You are essentially weighting the inside edge of that ski. It's quite subtle and my less-coordinated left foot doesn't know how to do it properly, so I end up stomping on that ski and the ski turns too sharply.

I need to spend a lot of time on a slightly advanced bunny (green) or an easy intermediate (blue) slope. A slope I spend a lot of time on is "Trailblazer" on Jerome Hill at Sugarbowl.
The Nob Hill slope also at Sugarbowl is nice too. White Pine is a little easy, but ok. You do need to have enough incline to learn anything, so places like the very top of Squaw near the higher building are actually too easy.

I figured this out by actually sitting down in a chair and watching my feet while I envisioned turning left (just wearing running shoes). My right foot's heel rose, and it rolled inward a little, and my weight shifted to be on the ball of that foot. It's hard to imagine all this subtly going on inside a ski boot.

My left foot is a little clueless about how all this works, but now I can spend a lot of time training it away from the pricy ski slope. I can start in a chair and then move to standing up.

I can tell you that turning improperly is very tiring and will shorten the time you want to spend on the slope.

When turning, you should unweight the inner ski. If you're turning properly, it should just follow along with the turn. That foot will be behind the other foot.