Where do I turn if I push on my left ski? The answer: Right to the ski school desk to book a lesson. If you’re asking such questions perhaps it’s time to get your turns straightened out by a professional ski instructor. Please spare yourself the agony of being taught by your well-meaning friends, or, worse yet, your husband.
Skiing is about having fun. Sure it could be fun to straight line it at mach 10 and out of control, taking out some kids along the way before having a yard sale right underneath the chairlift. But as we say at Big White Ski Resort: ”Safety + Fun = More Fun!”. This statement is as true as it is cheesy. So let’s have a look at what a proper ski turn should be.
First of all a proper ski turn is one that enables you to control your speed effectively. This means you should be able to speed up and slow down your progression down the slope at will. Secondly a proper ski turn gives you the control of deciding exactly where you want to ski, which is quite useful when you suddenly realize that you are heading straight for a tree. So you should be able to adjust the size (radius) of your turns as is necessary or as you please. This is what the goal of ski improvement is essentially about – improving your turns so that you are able to control your speed and direction effectively in the multitude of snow conditions and terrain choices out there.
Now let’s have a look at some of the basic mechanics of how to start a proper ski turn. A turn is initiated by turning the legs within the hip sockets. Think of the way you would turn your forearm when using a screw driver. This is what your legs need to do when starting your turn so that you gradually start pointing your skis around the turn before your pelvis and upper body start moving around the turn as well. In technical terms we call this ‘pivoting’. Pivoting enables us to turn in balance. If we start the turn by turning the upper body first we turn out of balance and this turning of the upper body is called ‘rotation’.
So as you can see, there is no need to push on a particular ski in order to start your turn. Learning to turn in this way will surely teach you to initiate your turn with your upper body (rotation) rather than with your lower body (pivoting).
Turn yourself in balance by using pivoting. Improving this skill will give you much more control over your speed, direction and size of your turns.
Taking a lesson from a ski instructor is absolutely the best way to improve your skiing. Research has shown that taking ski lessons improve the overall experience of holiday goers at a ski resort. So if you want to avoid the frustration of struggling on your own and rather want to really improve your skiing and have way more fun, get your turns straightened out by a professional ski instructor.
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