How to Ski Parallel Consistently

Have you ever watched a pro ski and wondered how they can make consistent parallel turns with such grace and skill? Many of it comes with age and mileage but there are certain tricks to the trade that you can rely upon to increase your skiing efficiency. This article will give you a simple exercise to try that will improve your balance, your posture and your consistency while skiing any terrain.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Good skis, boots, bindings, poles, warm ski clothes
• motivation to improve your parallel skiing
• time and money

1. You must visualize yourself creating consistent parallel turns. Where are your hands? They should be not too high, not behind you, and somewhere comfortable in front of you so that all's you have to do is tap the snow somewhere close to the tip of your ski by swinging your poles one after the other. Visualize your center of mass or upper body. Where is it when the turn begins? It may be counter to the direction of the turn.

2. Okay. So you initiate your turn. How do you do that? Usually it is a good idea to scope the terrain, check it out for pitch and icy spots, get your edges ready and hooray and off you go. But wait. How do you make consistent turns? Here's a good way. Imagine yourself at an angle ahead of the angle from your knees to your boots. Flex your feet. Where is the pressure being placed in your boot. Imagine the pressure close to your big toes and the balls of your feet. You may exert pressure more towards the inside toe at times, and more towards the outside toe at other times.

3. Next, keep your focus upon your balance and stance for this exercise. You want to be consistent with your posture. A way to do this is to count aloud. At a certain point in every parallel turn your skis flatten. When your skis flatten, this is when you must have that consistent stance, slightly forward extended and ready for the next turn. So you say, "One" or if you are French you will say, "un" and so on when your skis are flat.

4. By doing so, you are forced to create an even momentum and somehow you become more conscious of your extension and flex into the next turn. You must extend from your hips up while keeping your hips facing the bottom of the hill. Most of the movement is from the femur down. The movement in your wrists is slight; just enough for a simple pole plant or semblance of one.

5. The idea is to shout out loud. By doing so you will not only enjoy the shouting, you will create consistency in your parallel turns and maintain a consistent posture throughout the turn.

Tips & Warnings

• For this type of exercise it is best to use blue terrain but you can try it in any terrain.
• If you are a novice please take precautions to begin with lessons on how to stop.

[writesource]

on 1/14/2009 Interesting article!