I like this article on getting out of the backseat from Vermont Ski + Ride.
I still think "chin up" when I ski....Six good points that make sense to me. Especially #3 Watch Your Hands. That's one aspect I often watch on strangers as I try to do Movement Analysis when riding the lift at my home hill. Mostly comparing the obvious beginners with intermediates, and the few advanced skiers.
The tip that I picked up from a Taos instructor that helped a lot was "chin up" as opposed to "head up." Another Taos instructor kept saying "stand tall" to the skier with the worst form in my advanced (black but not double-black) Ski Week group last winter. She even did a off-skis demonstration with that skier of why standing tall, instead of bending at the waist, made someone more stable when skiing uneven terrain. Both of those instructors happened to be women with 20+ years of experience teaching at TSV.
Thanks for sharing this article - very timely as I just got up the nerve to have a friend shoot a quick video of me skiing and I was agog at how much hind end was hanging out there. I have a touch of scoliosis so I know I need to keep reminding myself to pull in my pelvis - paddleboarding helped a lot just gotta remember to apply it to skiing.
However, I have a super noob question - what do they mean by ankle flex? I think of flex/extension as pointing a body part towards or away from a reference point. Any help on this would be appreciated. Thanks!
Please let me apologize in advance. I am slightly pedantic, and into linguistics, and a former RN, so I want to share a common partial misuse/misunderstanding of the term "flex the ankle". I do want to stress that I still use the term flex the ankle in a lesson, I just never use the term extend the ankle. Why? Well because there is technically no extension possible with this particular body joint. We can either dorsiflex, or plantar flex. The ski relevant flexion is dorsiflexion, bringing the foot up towards the front of the shin.
I know, I know, I am being super annoying and for that I am sorry. I do not want to make anyone feel bad about their use of ankle flexion, but I also find articles that stress "increase the flexion" a bit confusing, especially for healthcare professionals, who are actually quite well represented in the ski community. I think that as long as we describe in which direction the flex takes place then the term is very useful. I do wish that articles written in professional ski related publications would specify the flexion (dorsi or plantar) and then describe it for non anatomically minded readers.
Open and Close were the words used by my Massanutten coach. Took me until the second season to really understand what he meant. We were working on a basic drill on a green because the other person who showed up for the Over 50 clinic wasn't getting how to do a rounded turn. Back then one side was much worse than the other. Ultimately what helped is that he had me try to demonstrate without skis on while holding up my ski pants. He said "Open" and "Close" until I was actually moving in the way that matched what he wanted to see happening. Very hard to interpret the words when only seeing the outside of an instructor's ski pants.In lessons I sometimes use the terms opening and closing the ankle. But I’m very aware that it’s always a challenge and so important that skiers understand what is actually meant.
Open and Close were the words used by my Massanutten coach. Took me until the second season to really understand what he meant. We were working on a basic drill on a green because the other person who showed up for the Over 50 clinic wasn't getting how to do a rounded turn. Back then one side was much worse than the other. Ultimately what helped is that he had me try to demonstrate without skis on while holding up my ski pants. He said "Open" and "Close" until I was actually moving in the way that matched what he wanted to see happening. Very hard to interpret the words when only seeing the outside of an instructor's ski pants.
So did he. Still didn't register. I'm too visual. Seeing my ankle move made a huge difference.A lot of times I will use my hand - thumb and forefinger - to represent the ankle and show what I mean by open versus closed.
So did he. Still didn't register. I'm too visual. Seeing my ankle move made a huge difference.