SKIING

Welcome to my skiing page. On this page you will find links to Canadian, American, New Zealand and British ski instructors associations. It also has an extensive equipment link list and some links for online skiing magazines and racing information. Soon to come. . . information on freestyle skiing. Links are at the bottom of the page. Skip to the links section.

Well, I guess I have to change my skiing write up along with everything else. I have been a level 2 CSIA instructor for too long. It is time for me to get my level three. I have worked on my skiing a bit in the past while and it is showing. I have gotten comments on how much it has improved from some friends in New Zealand which always makes anyone feel great. I feel that my technique has improved enough to give me a good chance at my level three. I have been teaching mogul skiing along with skiing deep powder and ice. I feel that my turns are dynamic enough to please most and I can detect and correct pretty damned well now. I am ready for it.

One thing that has made a difference for my skiing is switching to newer techniques to go along with the new shaped skis. Some of these changes include stance and turn initiation.

STANCE
One of the big changes in technique comes in our stance. Where before we used to allow a decent sized lead change now we don't want to see as much. Instead, we want to have our hips more square to the ski tips. Basically, you do not want to be looking downhill too much but instead allow your body, and hips, to follow where the skis are more. In my opinion, this requirement has always been there, it is just now more strongly emphasized. We still do not want to turn with our shoulders, we want our legs to do the work.
The main advantage to skiing with a small lead change comes in what the downhill ski does throughoutthe turn, especially toward the end of it. In a more square stance we will have less of a chance of over pressuring the front of the ski with the downhill foot. If you do overpressure the front of the ski, by pressuring the tongue of the boot too much, you will also underpressure the back of the ski. This causes the back of the ski to wash out and skid. It sort of feels like you are almost slipping into a small snowplow at the end of the turn. This is called stemming by ski instructors.

One of the other changes I have made to my stance to go along with new techniques is to make sure I have a generally wide stance (with adjustments made for snow conditions) and to start the turn with my inside knee. What does this mean? Well, quite simply I am looking to have a strong stance laterally by making sure my feet are the proper width apart given the snow and terrain conditions (more on this later) and I want to think about starting my turn by rolling my inside leg so that I am standing on my little toe side of that foot. It is the same motion as moving the inside knee toward the direction that I want to go. By doing this, I feel that there is space between my knees as I am skiing and that they do not get in the way of each other. In fact, sometimes it feels like I am sitting on a horse or motorcycle because I had a bad habit of A-framing (A-frame--the shape the lower leg takes when the knees are too close together and you are one foot skiing.) When I do this I am using both skis to ski down the hill instead of only the outside foot.

TURN INITIATION
By starting the turn with the inside leg I end up leading into another change in my skiing: turn initiation, or starting my turn. With new skis the technique is more a case of rolling your lower legs into the new direction and steering the ski around the turn. Think of your toes as pointing to 12 o'clock and your heel at 6 o'clock. You want to roll your ankles either to 3 o'clock or 9 o'clock. When you do this you have to be careful to know where your hips are: they should be quite square to the skis. They should not be inside too much or else you are in a sitting position and you will find you cannot control the outside ski because you are on your inside one.

A good drill to help with your stance is to simply drag both ski poles on the snow at all times. Make sure the tips are dragging somewhere around the sides of your feet. Also be careful to make sure the downhill pole does not come off the snow. If it does you are probably leaning your body too far uphill. We sometimes call this tipping. The only good tipping is when you slip $10 to your instructor.

STANCE WIDTH
Earlier I meantioned something about stance width and terrain adaptations. I said that my stance will vary depending on terrain and snow conditions. What did I mean by this? If you look at people that learned to ski a long time ago you can see that they tend to have a very narrow stance with their knees almost rubbing together. If you look at racers however, even historically, they have have a wide stance. Depending on the snow conditions you will want to adopt something like one of these stances. If you are skiing in deep powder or moguls, or spring slush you might want to consider skiing with your feet a bit closer together. Doing this you'll find that your skis will want to split or wander less. Basically, you want your skis to either go over the same size of mogul or to not be torn apart when you get into different softnesses of snow. If you ski in a lot of crud snow you'll know this feeling. A narrow stance will help you to feel strong.
Now, when you are skiing on groomed snow or on icy or hardpacked conditions you will want to have that wide, racer style stance. This will do two things for you. One: it'll give you two cutting surfaces to use on the snow; and two: it'll give you much more room to move your legs without your inside leg getting in the way of the outside one. This stance also tends to give you great lateral (side-to-side) balance.
So, try a run while varying your stance width as you go down. Start with them ridiculously wide apart and let them come together until they are almost touching. Then try this on a variety of snow conditions.

Does any of this make sense to you? If it doesn't then drop me an email and I'll try to explain it to you more personally.


Sites for Ski Instructors

logosCSIA/AMSC homepage--Canadian Ski Instructors. Includes CSCF and CASI pages.

logoPSIA homepage--US Ski Instructors.

BASI homepage--British Ski Intructors.

NZSIA homepage--New Zealand Ski Intructors.


General Skiing Interest

The Canadian Ski Council

The F.I.S. homepage--Race results, etc.

buttonAlpine World Cup--An unofficial World Cup race page.


Online Ski Magazine Sites

Ski Canada Magazine Online

Skiing Magazine Online

Ski Magazine Online


Ski Equipment Sites
Some of these companies include boots and bindings on these sites.

Atomic Skis--includes Oxygen Snowboards, Atomic Boots and Atomic bindings.
Dynastar Skis--includes Original Sin snowboards, Lange boots and Look bindings.
Elan Skis--includes Elan snowboards.
Fels Skis
Fischer Skis--includes Raichle boots.
Head Skis--includes Head boots and Tyrolia bindings.
K2 Skis
Nordica Skis--includes the Nordica line of equipment for skiing.
Kneissl Skis--might be a good site if it was in English...
Olin Skis
Rossignol Skis--includes Rossi boots and bindings. The company I ski.
Salomon Skis--includes Salomon snowboards, Salomon boots, Salomon bindings and Salomon snowblades.
Stockli Skis
Volant Skis--includes Volant snowboards and Limited snowboards.
Volkl Skis--includes Volkl snowboards.


The Thunder Bay Ski Scene

Loch Lomond Ski Resort--one of the local hills in Thunder Bay

The Skihaus Ski Shop--local dealer for Rossi Dynastar and Volant. Where I bought my Viper 9.9 Rossi's


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