Inside Knee Movement During the Turn

Now that you have a focus, play with it everywhere. Discover for yourself how intensely and how far you can abduct that knee. Just don't forget to let the core follow it into the new turn.

That inside knee movement is important to put your skis more on edge, but what would help even more is to roll your inside ankle into the turn. If you do that you will edge faster because you are using both your knee and your ankle to get that ski on edge.

 

Like justanotherskipro said, movement of the core is important too. Keep practicing tipping and when you get that down try to move your core farther and farther away from your skis. Doing that will bring your skiing to a whole new level.

Gotta love those "Aha!" moments. They're a big part of what keeps skiing fresh and new, no matter how long we've been doing it.
 

+1

 

I self-discovered the OP's inside knee movement in an "Aha!" moment about ten years ago. It improved my turn initiations but they still weren't as fluid, fast and reliable as I wanted. In challenging bumps or steeps I couldn't match the rapid yet seemingly effortless initiations of top level instructors or others whose skiing I admire. I'd still get behind.

 

This season I had lessons with two L3 instructors: a two-hour private at Okemo and a group ski week at Taos. One thing both instructors noticed was that I was skiing with controlled or tensed feet and ankles. (How they saw into my boots is a mystery, but that ability is what I was paying for.)

 

The Taos instructor observed that our whole group had this issue so we began each morning playing groomer games with RELAXED feet, then beginning each turn by delicately ROLLING our ankles (particularly the inside ankle)... a tiny move that's faster and easier than anything you can do with your knees. 

 

Once we'd built this habit he led us into Taos's legendary bumps, trees and (eventually) uber-steeps. This one little move gave me the ability to launch turns anywhere - instantly, effortlessly, smoothly, confidently. No more shopping for turns!

 

I liked the instructor so much that late in the week I booked an afternoon private. He charged - no, danced! - down North American, a long, steep, bumped tree run. The coolest line funnels down a narrow creek bed and it feels like a bobsled run, just 1-2 moguls wide - turn now or else! He ripped it non-stop and I followed right behind, matching him turn for turn and whooping it up.

 

Relax your feet. Start every turn by just rolling your (inside) ankle into the fall line. The turn will begin instantly and with essentially no effort. Then use the bigger movements of your knees and femurs to shape the middle and end of the turn to control line and speed.

 

I had the opportunity to do a race camp with Jens Husted, a PSIA D-Team guy when I started teaching and one of the Sybervision skiers along with Chris Ryman, whose coaching was one of the biggest influences in my learning journey. His advice 30 years ago to "point your thighs at the turn" is still my mantra. I like his focus on thighs better than knees, because I want the rotation at the top of the leg in the hip joint rather than trying to rotate the knee. 

 

I had a chance to ski with Sean Warman several times during his two terms on the PSIA Demo Team (now Alpine Team). My take on his relaxed feet thoughts was that you didn't want to press parts of the feet into the bottoms of your boots, but rather to raise the other sides of the feet inside the boots. In other words, instead of thinking...roll the right arch into the snow for left turns...you wanted to think raise the outside edge of the right foot inside the boot for left turns (at the same time, of course, you're raising the left arch). When you press down, you make a stiffer leg than when your raise up.

See what I said, last page of the .;pdf file especially, in this thread:

 

http://www.epicski.com/t/111959/back-to-basics

 

 

You got that backwards. 

You might want to check out this article: Perfect Turns by Bob Barnes