Big Picture Skiing

Japan 🇯🇵 technical skiing paradise. Yes the powder is world class but no one wants to take nice photos on a powder day…they want to rip powder turns too!

I remember when I first learned there’s more than one way to create separation of body parts when we move. Thank you you brilliant thinker. You helped me to start feeling for these differences and try and spot them when people walk. And thank you to Adarian Barr for helping me understand leverage and that rotations are everywhere and so powerful if you know how to use them.

I’d previously thought that in skiing you had to rotate body parts in opposite directions to create separation. Upper body one way, lower body the other. Or just keep one part still and rotate the other.
Then I discovered you could create the exact same separation by rotating both the same direction — just one moving faster than the other.
Obvious when you think about it. Not obvious when you’re trying to feel it in your skiing.

I have made thousands of ski runs down the mountain and thousands of reps moving my body in weekly routine of building greater body awareness in the pursuit of making better ski turns. At first separation of body parts in skiing feels robotic and contrived but thats just part of the process. It’s a necessary thing you must go through before movement feels fluid and less mechanical. One reason why we don’t seperate our body parts well when learning skiing (or any sport for that matter) is because FREEZING body parents together reduces how complicated it is to manage our different body parts moving differently. If we only needed to seperate like my simple stick figure graphic then skiing would be way easier. In reality though there are many more joints and muscles that control movements. So that’s why it’s much easier to just stiffen up and move everything together to turn. Luckily with time and focus you can learn to find fluidity and UNFREEZE those joints, bringing freedom and refinement back to your skiing.

What’s my takeaway from this?

Be ok that you start out skiing more uncoordinated and frozen together. It’s a good strategy to start out with. But if you want to become a great skier spend time on feeling into how to create separation in the varied ways shown in this post. Save for later to remind yourself when it’s ski time.

Most people try to help by giving answers.

It feels useful… but it often skips over the part that actually builds understanding.

Nic shared a great story about how guiding someone to find the answer themselves lead to success, excitement and motivation in her mum to keep going. So what did she change…?

Instead of giving the answer… she asked better questions and gave just enough guidance.

That’s when things started to click.

This is something I try to guide people toward in their skiing too.

Not just what to do
but how to learn

That’s when progress becomes more consistent… and a lot more enjoyable.

Have you ever had something click because you figured it out yourself?

The difference in relaxed stance between a performance ski boot vs rental ski boot. In both photos it’s me.

I recently rented all my ski gear when we visited ski Dubai indoor centre. I deliberately wanted to see what skiing in the gear that beginners and many people renting get given. The first thing I felt was a sense of resting in the “backseat”. Or put another way, my usual ski boots encourage my resting position to be more athletic and balanced more on my forefoot.

I post this because I think many skiers are held back in their progress by their ski boots. While you still need to learn balance skills for skiing, and the boots cant do this for you, I think beginner and intermediate boots are too up-right.

Coaches and instructors need to try the gear their students are in to remind themselves of what it feels like. This way they may be able to help coach more effectively knowing what the skiers equipment does to their stance.

I would be curious to see an experiment where a group of beginners were given the same flex boots but:
-one group with more upright boots
-one group with more forward lean boots

Would there be a difference in how much they progressed? I wonder….