Newbie Skiing Video - Please Give Feedbacks:)

SLOW MOTION



I began skiing in late January 2010 and finally took a lesson today. My instructor said my problems are skiing in the backseat and super-wide stance.

Problems I notice in my video:

1. Ski in backseat in left turn (Is my right-turn okay? I feel more comfortable turning right than left.)
2. Stance is too wide; I stumbled near the end of the video because of this
3. My body seems to be too straight, should I bend down more?
4. My body seems super stiff.
5. My butt sticks out too much which makes me ski in the backseat and gives me back pain.


Please list any major problems you can see and how I can improve.

Thanks epic skiers!


Edited by nickia - 3/8/10 at 1:37am

Wow--lots to work on here.

Your stance is way too wide.  Generally speaking, your feet should be under your femur heads with your legs about parallel...never spread wider than your hips.  Stop skiing in a crouch.  Pull your inside leg back so you hold the ski tips about even.  Get your weight off that inside ski.  Learn to ski with your feet and use your upper body to amplify the foot actions.  Counter (turn your body toward the outside of the turn) and angulate (tilt your shoulders toward the outside of the turn).

There are lots of drills you can do to improve your skiing.  One good one is step turns where you make small steps all the way down the run while you're making the turns.  Do it again and again.  You first find the drill challenging, then boring, then your mind wanders--you finally get it at that point.  Another good drill for you is to lift the tail (only the tail) of the inside ski during the turn for every turn.  Both of these will improve you stance and balance.

Good luck.  Your body should be flexible, relaxed, and balancing.  Your too-wide stance is your replacement for balance.  The drills above will help a lot.  There is more you can work on, but it is very important to master one thing at a time...and only one thing.

Hi can you tell me what does it mean by skiing in a crouch? Do you mean skiing more upright? My instructor told me to go down even lower

the crouch part is from your belt up (ie hunched over).

watch your downhill/outside leg: it is outiggered, long and braced against the snow. it looks like the stiff leg is used to turn but the rest of the body is uphill in a defensive posture.

the downhill leg should be flexed, with both feet closer together, both front too back and side to side

i would suggest more video, same size turns, but on a more gentle slope.  many of your movements
(probably) stem from defensive skiing, so a gentler pitch might give a truer picture.

Nickia, the guys above have hit on important issues.  Stance width is one.  You put a picture of Klaus up in another thread.  In that picture his skis are very far apart, and I have a suspicion you may be trying to ski copy that.  The problem is you are not skiing with the high edge angles he is, so your wide stance is actually counter productive.  As softsnow says, bring your feet closer together.  By doing so you won't have to ski as contorted to achieve equal edge angles, and balancing on your outside ski will be easier. 

You're also aft balanced, and way too heavily weighting your inside ski.  Over weighting your inside ski is evidenced by your outside ski's tendency to loose pressure and track away from you.  At one point in the video you become very spread eagled because of it.  Part of the reason you get so aft and inside is that you're creating counter by dropping your outside hip back.  Getting aft and inside when doing that is very common.  Notice how much inside tip lead you have,,, this is also a byproduct of dropping the outside hip back.  The wide stance just adds to the likelyhood of these issues appearing.

Repair it by first by narrowing your stance, then driving your new inside hip forward as you transition into each new turn. This will create the necessary counter properly, and produce the fore balance state you need.  In doing this, be sure to lead with your inside hip, not your inside foot.  Your inside foot should simply move forward in appropriate cooperation with the forward driving inside hip, out of need, and in a minimal amount.  The result will be functional inside tip lead, much less than you have now. 

Drills you need to practice extensively are lifting the inside ski, and lifting the inside tail.  Lifting the inside ski will remove the dependancy you currently have on weighting your inside foot, and lifting the inside tail will combine fore balancing ability to the outside ski dominance lifting the entire inside ski develops. 

Good luck, and get to work!   

nickia, I just want to add that for such a short time on skis you are doing very well.  You appear to me to have a some athletic abilities, and an aggressive attitude.  You're already experiencing carving, which is exceptional, but I'm concerned that in your rapid progress you are skipping important skill development steps.  Those holes in your skill base will put limitations on the levels you can ultimately achieve.  You are going to have to go back and fill those holes at some point.  In the meantime, you can be embedding inefficient habits that you will have to replace with proper technique.  The longer you leave those holes unfilled, the more deeply they become embedded in your muscle memory, and the harder to overcome later.  By coming here looking for help I can see that you have the motivation to avoid that situation, you just need to discover the path.  The link I have at the bottom of my post can help in that respect.  Best of luck in your learning journey, where ever road you choose to take. 

This is seriously the result of two months of skiing?  You got heart girl.  

I don't know what planet the rest of these folks are on, but I would surmise to say that when they were beginners with two months of skiing they probably looked more like someone trying to edgie-wedgie through grandma's china cabinet than this.  I think it is completely unrealistic to start to give someone a laundry list of carving or fore-aft balance techniques to try out as a total beginner skier, and expect them to have a nice clean, expert form.  What is clear from this video is that the girl is seriously aggressive and ready to tackle the sport. 

All of the technique stuff is not going to come in a matter of weeks or months, although the fact that you already appear to be skiing parallel AND linking turns seems to indicate that you are a fast learner.  (This is HUGE, imo - That takes a long time for most people!)  Focus on one thing at a time and don't forget to keep loving the sport as much as you appear to.  

nickia - I did not read any of the previous postings so here is my unbiassed observations and opinion.

Great skiing for a total beginner. I liked your round turns, good rhythm and nice flow. You also showed som great angulation and outside ski pressure skills. I think you have what it takes to become a good skier.

Looking at the video my first thaughts hoovered arround your turn initiation technique. Its not very obvious but it IMHO builds on tipping your skis on edge and then waiting for them to turn. This is quite dangerous even if its exactly what carivng builds on because your first part of the turn will be quite wide and you will pick up substantial speed. The rest of the turn you then skid due to a mix of leg steering and hip rotation. You are turing your feet. One interesting thing I saw a couple of times is that you use your inside ski to crank your outside ski into a skid. You point your inside ski more into the turn and create a rotating effect as it hooks up. At this point your skis are diverging. This is really bad. If your outside ski does not follow your inside ski into the turn and you are standing as wide as you are you will fall into something we call spagat. Not reccomended even if it looks like you are athletic and young enough for such a gymnastic move.

What I would like you to do is to slow down and start working with pressure techniques and steering since it will open up more skiing terrain for you. If you continue on your current path you will be dead ended very soon. And there is a good risk of you getting injured as pist gets steeper and they will. I frequently run into terrain that requires me to adapt. In fact I always adapt to the terrain. This is what makes skiing fun for me anyway. Your overly wide stance is offcourse something you need to fix but its not only a fix for everything. You are using a wide stance by default. This means that its a stance you are comfortable with. Start working on correct technique and see how your stance changes. If I tell you to stand closer it will not help you in any way.

Wellcome to the sport and keep on skiing.

Read through the replies and found this to be excellent advice . Look at the videos rick has on his site. They will give you a pickture of all the options out there. Memilygs posting is also full of good information.

 PS ps ps....  Come visit theskidiva.com, it is fully of lady centric advice.

And post that vid - the girls will definitely for you.  

Start by practice a few traverses standing on the downhill foot and raising the tail of the uphill ski a few inches of the snow. Do this until you can comfortably traverse in both directions. Try this in a wide and narrow stance and see which one is easier (although by now I guess you suspect its narrow). Doing this slowly is good practice. If you find after a healthy amount of tries you are making very slow progress, you should seriously consider seeing a boot fitter for alignment.

From now on though, whenever you are on a cat track, run-out, flat area, or the like, ski it on one foot alternating back and forth to build up that balance.

I'll start off by saying, great job. Seriously, your technique is looking quite good for someone who has only started skiing this season and has only had one lesson. I'm going to try my best to give you very simple tips that you can apply to your skiing.

1. You are absolutely correct, your stance is too wide as of right now. Shoulder width is just peachy for what you want to do right now. Your stance shouldn't feel unnaturally wide, or like you're locking your feet together, either. Remember, you're trying to use your feet and your legs to move your skis. You don't want to put them in a position that's going to restrict your ability to move them.

2. Moving up your stance, there is the issue of your being in the backseat, and crouched at the same time. These are frequently linked problems. What you will need to do is flex your ankles more in your boot, while bending at the waist less. Translation: While you're skiing, try to keep your knees over your toes, instead of over your heels. Keep your shoulders and back straight.

From there, there are some movements you're making that need to be corrected. However, I would suggest working on those stance issues first. Stance and balance are the foundation of sound skiing. You may find that some of the techniques that you are having trouble with will correct themselves or at least moderate as you correct your stance.

For example, when you're starting a new turn, you tend to go from parallel to a slight wedge. This looks to be a result of being unable to transfer your weight in parallel with your skis so far apart. As soon as you've started your turn, the inside ski goes from being in a wedge to turning sharply towards the inside of your turn. This is causing a 'backwards wedge', or diverging skis. Again, this could be a result of having difficulty balancing with such a wide stance.

I'm going to be honest, a lot of what I'm seeing here looks like it is technique that has been copied from Olympic downhill and super g. The super wide stance, the way you are attempting to change edges... it is reminiscient of what was shown on NBC from Vancouver. If that's the case, keep in mind that those skiers are dealing with forces and speeds far in excess of what you are currently facing. Their technique is exemplary, but can't be transcribed directly down to a more novice level.