A Passive Turn Initiation Is Important To Maintain Balance

control | balance | tactics

A Passive Turn Initiation Facilitates Staying in Balance When Skiing Mogul And Powder Terrain

If you are a Boomer and want to ski slowly and in control in moguls and powder it is important that your turn initiations be passive (e.g. patient). Wait for gravity make the turn happen rather than trying to force the initiation of the turn. The slower you make the first part of the turn, the greater the chance you have of staying in balance.

In order for a turn to materialize your skis need to change from having their uphill edges engaged in the snow ... to your skis being flat to the snow with edges not engaged ... to having the opposing set of edges engaged in the snow at the completion of the turn.

When your skis start to move into the fall line that is a signal that the uphill edges of your skis have become disengaged and your skis are now flat on the snow. Once the skis become flat, gravity can then take over and power your turn. Once the skis start to move it is now time for you to start steering your skis across the hill to slow down and complete the turn.

A good rule of thumb: let gravity power the turn initiation, the skier steers the skis across the fall line to complete the turn an slow down.

Tip: Don't initiate your next turn unless you are in balance and in full control of your speed at the end of the prior turn.

Forward Skiing Speed Not Required To Initiate A Turn

This may be hard for most skiers to comprehend but It is not necessary to have forward skiing speed prior to you beginning the turn initiation movement pattern (e.g. extension, moving hips over your feet in the direction of the new turn, tipping your skis, etc) which triggers your turn. You can easily initiate a turn from a dead stop if you use these movements to begin a turn. It is this lack of understanding - the fear of not being able to turn without having a lot of forward momentum - that causes most skiers to ski faster than they need to. And, this makes much more difficult to ski moguls and powder.

Tip: Practice making slow motion turns from a dead stop (zero momentum turns) and waiting for gravity to initiate your turn..