• Women skiers, this is the place for you -- an online community without the male-orientation you'll find in conventional ski magazines and internet ski forums. At TheSkiDiva.com, you can connect with other women to talk about skiing in a way that you can relate to, about things that you find of interest. Be sure to join our community to participate (women only, please!). Registration is fast and simple. Just be sure to add [email protected] to your address book so your registration activation emails won't be routed as spam. And please give careful consideration to your user name -- it will not be changed once your registration is confirmed.

Tips for getting/keeping legs closer together?

boodles7

Certified Ski Diva
I'm out of pizza mode but need to get my legs a little closer together. They don't necessarily feel far apart but see it in video and have had people comment how it's the next thing to focus on as I'm probably using more energy and having less control that way. Especially when things get steep or fast. Easier runs I seem to be able to do this but can't figure out how to transition it to the more challenging stuff.
 

newboots

Angel Diva
I never had that problem, but the answer to most of these things is practice it on super-easy terrain, paying conscious attention to how it feels, making sure you are doing it consistently. Then slowly increase the difficulty, keeping attention on the narrower stance. When you slip into a wider stance, go back to the easier trail and keep laying it down into your muscle memory.

Boring, but it works!
 

SarahXC

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Having not seen you ski and also not being an instructor this may or may not be helpful… do you put your weight on one ski then the other or between the skis? With my kids when they were learning if their weight was in the middle (on both skis nearly equally) they would get a very wide stance but when they started committing their weight to one ski or the other their stance came back to a more ideal width.
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
If you can google and find a good link, I love doing shuffle turns to help achieve a more natural stance. I only do the shuffles in between turns on greens at first. Another cool drill is to do a small hop upward during an extended transition across the hill. Most people take off without the wide stance and also land a little narrower. But only do these if they feel safe for you to do. The point is not to get hurt while trying to improve. I think that side slips also lend themselves to a narrower stance as they are hard to do successfully if the feet are too far apart.
 

boodles7

Certified Ski Diva
Having not seen you ski and also not being an instructor this may or may not be helpful… do you put your weight on one ski then the other or between the skis? With my kids when they were learning if their weight was in the middle (on both skis nearly equally) they would get a very wide stance but when they started committing their weight to one ski or the other their stance came back to a more ideal width.
Weight is more on one ski
 

boodles7

Certified Ski Diva
If you can google and find a good link, I love doing shuffle turns to help achieve a more natural stance. I only do the shuffles in between turns on greens at first. Another cool drill is to do a small hop upward during an extended transition across the hill. Most people take off without the wide stance and also land a little narrower. But only do these if they feel safe for you to do. The point is not to get hurt while trying to improve. I think that side slips also lend themselves to a narrower stance as they are hard to do successfully if the feet are too far apart.
Thanks! Just googled the shuffle turns. Was with a friend today that was an instructor years ago and he mentioned something like that but we were finishing up so didn't get to test out too much....and was slightly confused on what he was describing as we were on blues and he wanted me to try it out on greens. He said I'm right on the cusp of advancing to the next level and just need to tweak a few things so these videos will be helpful.
 

marzNC

Angel Diva
And then there's my Taos instructor that told me my skis are too close together.
Situation is very different for someone who knew how to make parallel turns on straight skis. My schoolmates who were skiing bumps in the 1960s have to work on getting their stance a bit wider. I was never a parallel skier on straight skis. So had to work at narrowing my stance a bit after starting lessons in the last decade.
 

newboots

Angel Diva
And then there's my Taos instructor that told me my skis are too close together.
Everybody's got an opinion!

I wonder if there truly is a perfect width, and we poor skiers could be modifying out stance ad infinitum, constantly striving for stance perfection. :noidea:

Don't mind me. It's getting late here, on the East coast, and I'm a little punchy.
 

santacruz skier

Angel Diva
Everybody's got an opinion!

I wonder if there truly is a perfect width, and we poor skiers could be modifying out stance ad infinitum, constantly striving for stance perfection. :noidea:

Don't mind me. It's getting late here, on the East coast, and I'm a little punchy.
It’s an old school thing. Took me years to get my skis close together. Personally I think it looks smoother …..
 

shadoj

Angel Diva
Everybody's got an opinion!

I wonder if there truly is a perfect width, and we poor skiers could be modifying out stance ad infinitum, constantly striving for stance perfection. :noidea:

Don't mind me. It's getting late here, on the East coast, and I'm a little punchy.
Ha! Midwest and I'm well past punchy. I skied potatoes today, and it was great! Anyway...
I learned on straight skis and achieved solid parallel; I was a teen when parabolic skis first showed up, and "baseline" widening of my stance was definitely needed. Even now, I still forget sometimes!

An advanced skier (IMO) always has a dynamic stance, narrowing or widening based on conditions, speed, terrain: the feet are independent and feeling the snow. On different equipment, you might even choose different stance widths. It's fun to see what the Olympic racers & slopestyle competitors do with their skis to make things happen... stance width is so variable and constantly changing in reaction to directing their center of mass.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
An advanced skier (IMO) always has a dynamic stance, narrowing or widening based on conditions, speed, terrain: the feet are independent and feeling the snow. On different equipment, you might even choose different stance widths.

This!! Different conditions and types of skis will modify your stance. If you're trying to widen it, then ski some fat all mountains for a few days.

Without video, I'm thinking that you are still is a bit of wedge. Work on parallel skis across the fall line first. Then work to keeping the skis parallel in turns. How far apart your skis are, is where you are comfortable.
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
I had one of the popular L4's keep telling me to get my feet apart. Actually my feet were apart, my knees were together. That insight came from a L3 instructor friend.

So keep in mind what's all attached to your feet. Keeping the knees apart meant I rid of the dreaded A frame and could match edge angles on both skis.
 

SmuggsSkier

Certified Ski Diva
Situation is very different for someone who knew how to make parallel turns on straight skis. My schoolmates who were skiing bumps in the 1960s have to work on getting their stance a bit wider. I was never a parallel skier on straight skis. So had to work at narrowing my stance a bit after starting lessons in the last decade.
I learned as a straight ski skiers. It's been a process to try and get my stance wider. If you widen your stance, you can get more out of the inside ski.
 

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
26,237
Messages
497,697
Members
8,503
Latest member
MermaidKelly
Top