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Kickturns, a useful survival skill even for an intermediate

marzNC

Angel Diva
Tempted to give this a try in the privacy of my back yard once we get a little snow.
Dawned on me that kick turns could be practiced indoors on soft carpet in a big enough open space. Preferably with the shortest skis hanging around the house.
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
Dawned on me that kick turns could be practiced indoors on soft carpet in a big enough open space. Preferably with the shortest skis hanging around the house.

I feel like that would hurt more if you miscalculate and end up on your butt though, unless the carpet is exceedingly padded. Because I was wondering the same thing.. lol
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I feel like that would hurt more if you miscalculate and end up on your butt though, unless the carpet is exceedingly padded. Because I was wondering the same thing.. lol
Yeah, but my sense of hard groomed snow in the northeast is that's not exactly a soft landing either.

When you can take your time, starting with initially just getting the tail placed far enough forward while keeping weight on both poles, it's not that hard to back off and just set that ski back down where it started. Putting both poles behind the uphill skis helps to keep the shoulders facing downhill.

Have you seen people stick a tail in the snow to stretch? That's with their shoulders facing the ski tips. Doing that first might be a way to get comfortable with the idea of bringing the boot up that high.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
....
When you can take your time, starting with initially just getting the tail placed far enough forward while keeping weight on both poles, it's not that hard to back off and just set that ski back down where it started. Putting both poles behind the uphill skis helps to keep the shoulders facing downhill.
....

This. Lean back on the poles. Place pole tips far apart left-right-wise, behind you. Position both hands, holding onto pole grips, up against your butt. That way your hands won't wobble as you lean back on them. It feels like you are sitting on the tops of the poles which are cushioned by your gloves/mittens ... sorta. Leaning back this way allows you to lift and rotate the ski without falling over.

Propping the tail of the lifted ski right next to the stance ski's tip is something to work on. At this point if you have light weight skis and bindings you'll be glad.
 

santacruz skier

Angel Diva
I wouldn't want to get sand in bindings.

In any case, not too much fun along the New England coast during the winter time. It's often cold enough for daytime snowmaking just over an hour's drive away from Boston! :smile:
Good point about sand in the bindings !
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
Learned these as a kid. Thanks for the reminder not to follow you at Taos! ;)
That is one scary run!
LOL. That was my third day skiing ever at TSV. It was a good snow year with lots of powder in trees everywhere. I was with my ski buddy, Jason. Made the mistake of asking Ski Patrol for directions. The assumption seemed to be that we wanted the hardest terrain, which is Lorelei Trees and double-black. What I was looking for was Lorelei, which is black. At Taos, the difference is significant. As I sat waiting for Jason to sort himself out (long story), I could see an instructor thru the trees. We traversed in that direction and had a good time finishing up on Lorelei. Last season I learned the easy way to go from Lorelei to the lower section of Lorelei Trees during my Ski Week.

The fact that I knew survival skills like side slipping, falling leaf, and kick turns from learning as a teen is one reason I was willing to follow Bill for "adventure" runs during the first few years we skied together. I was more of an adventurous intermediate back then before doing clinics or taking semi-private lessons. But I always knew that I could make my way down pretty much any steep terrain one way or another without taking off my skis. Usually only did one adventure run per day though.
 
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VickiK

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I learned kick turns when I first learned to ski. I'll have to try it out again.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
I remember it was easier with shorter skis....
The first time I tried doing kick turns at Massanutten (3 years ago), I remember thinking it was a lot easier than with the straight skis I learned on. Those skis were well above my head, maybe a foot?. Probably had skis that were 148cm at Massanutten. The basic straight skis I bought in 1982 were 170cm, and were on the short side because I was an intermediate sticking to groomers back then.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
:bump:
Since kick turns came up in a recent thread, I looked around to see if there were any videos to add to this discussion. Found a couple. If you watch to the end of the first one, there are ideas for how to make use of a kick turn on flat terrain.

Since I don't have any interest in becoming a backcountry skier, it never occurred to me that the term "kickturn" means something quite different with bindings that don't have the heel locked down. The second video shows two types of bindings used for going uphill.


 

kiki

Angel Diva
Thank you for the info on kick turns! I have a private lesson in a couple weeks and will ask to work on this, seems incredibly handy!
 

teppaz

Angel Diva
LOL. That was my third day skiing ever at TSV. It was a good snow year with lots of powder in trees everywhere. I was with my ski buddy, Jason. Made the mistake of asking Ski Patrol for directions. The assumption seemed to be that we wanted the hardest terrain, which is Lorelei Trees and double-black. What I was looking for was Lorelei, which is black. At Taos, the difference is significant. As I sat waiting for Jason to sort himself out (long story), I could see an instructor thru the trees. We traversed in that direction and had a good time finishing up on Lorelei. Last season I learned the easy way to go from Lorelei to the lower section of Lorelei Trees during my Ski Week.

The fact that I knew survival skills like side slipping, falling leaf, and kick turns from learning as a teen is one reason I was willing to follow Bill for "adventure" runs during the first few years we skied together. I was more of an adventurous intermediate back then before doing clinics or taking semi-private lessons. But I always knew that I could make my way down pretty much any steep terrain one way or another without taking off my skis. Usually only did one adventure run per day though.
Just stumbled on this thread and the exact same thing happened to three of us at Taos last year, except we didn’t ask Ski Patrol: we were looking for Lorelei and simply ended up in Lorelei Trees by mistake. While I actually enjoy steep terrain, I’m not overly fond of tight trees. I might have let out a few choice words.
As for kick turns, they were part of the French ski school curriculum when I learned (1970s) so I used to be able to do them fairly easily on long skis. I haven’t tried since!
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
:bump:
Since kick turns came up in a recent thread, I looked around to see if there were any videos to add to this discussion. Found a couple. If you watch to the end of the first one, there are ideas for how to make use of a kick turn on flat terrain.

Since I don't have any interest in becoming a backcountry skier, it never occurred to me that the term "kickturn" means something quite different with bindings that don't have the heel locked down. The second video shows two types of bindings used for going uphill.



It was indeed quite weird to learn that kick turns are different for uphill skiing. I find them much easier than the regular ones though haha.
 

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