How to be good (at skiing)

To follow on from the last post about how long it takes to get good at skiing, here are a few thoughts on how to get there.

Firstly, to get really good you need to ski regularly. As it takes many weeks of skiing to get to a level most people would consider to be good, a single week's holiday a year will get you there very slowly. Leaving a whole year between each time you ski also gives you a long time to get out of practice. If you are going to spend more time skiing each year, it makes sense to spread that time around the season, or even the whole year, as much as possible. That way you will have less time to forget between each visit to the slopes.

Consider a second holiday in the winter, maybe to a cheaper resort, or a long weekend ski break as well as a week's holiday. If you are lucky enough to live within an easy drive of a ski area, even a small one, then take advantage of that and go there as often as you can. The cheaper local ski centres are ignored by many in favour of saving up for a big trip to a big name resort, but each has its own unique offering which may be well worth a visit.

If you cannot manage a visit to the mountains then artificial slopes can help keep your skiing on form. A few visits before your ski holiday will get your ski legs back so that you hit the pistes in good form on the first day of the holiday. Most artificial slopes will have clubs with regular coaching sessions so you can keep improving your skiing throughout the year.

Two of the best options to extend your annual ski time are to live in a ski resort for a season, and to get at least some skiing in during the summer months. There are many ways to do a ski season, be it working in resort, or funding yourself to take a year out, but those can wait until a future post as it is a bit late for this season and early for next. Having said that, it is always worth asking around when you are in a resort this year if you want to organise something for next winter, and there may even be vacancies where people have left the resort for some reason.

Skiing during the summer months is a fantastic way to improve, as you will at least halve the gap between your skiing trips. There are many options from this ranging from a few hours on an artificial slope, through a week or two at a resort with summer skiing up to doing a whole season in the opposite hemisphere.

 Summer race training camp in Les 2 Alpes
Spreading ski training over the year

As well as increasing the time spent on skis, your rate of improvement depends a lot on what you do with that time. I am a firm believer in lessons or coaching in order to improve your skills, as practice alone can only take you so far. Skiers at any level from beginners to world champions benefit from coaching. This does not mean you have to book into ski school for a week. If you already know how to ski then an hour or two with an instructor to fine tune your technique and get an idea of what to work on can be very productive. If you are at a high level then there are many performance skiing courses you can take to improve your skiing in specific areas, be it recreationally or as a competitor.

Lastly, you can improve much faster if you approach all your skiing with this as your goal. Many skiers spend their time cruising about the same pistes, never challenging themselves, spending as much time on lunches and coffee breaks as they do on skiing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this - it is a very pleasant way to spend time in a beautiful environment, and holidays are supposed to be enjoyable after all. However you will improve faster if you constantly challenge yourself. Ski challenging runs or ski faster (always with respect for other slope users of course). Try to make every turn a good one. On easy slopes set yourself challenges - ski on one ski or do some other exercise, try not to allow the ski to skid, try to make a set number of turns in a given length of piste, or restrict yourself to skiing in a certain corridor. There are many things you can do to push yourself, but it is very easy to let your skiing stagnate if you don't do them.

How to ski powder

Skiing powder is one of the most rewarding, exhilarating and at the same time potentially frustrating experiences you can find on a pair of skis. The technique is not necessarily difficult, if the snow is friendly, but it is one that many skiers struggle to get to grips with. This is particularly true in the many ski areas worldwide where powder snow is a cherished rarity rather than a daily occurence, meaning this is a technique that skiers do not get to practice that often.

Since I wrote this post around three years ago it has consistently been one of the most visited pages on the whole blog. With this in mind  an update with new photos and a few extra tips seems a good idea.

It is true that very deep powder, or deep snow that is heavy or crusty, can be difficult to ski and require very precise balance. On the other hand a manageable depth of light fluffy powder is not that difficult to ski but it can be quite counter intuitive as you have to forget a portion of what you have learnt for skiing on the pistes.

The biggest difference in powder is that the ski is floating within the snow, rather than riding on top of a hard surface. What is actually happening is that the ski compresses the soft snow beneath it until it can support the ski. This means that the ski tends to bend under the skier's weight with the tip and tail being pushed upwards by the snow. The diagram below shows a weighted and unweighted ski in powder. The difference on the shapes means that the weighted ski will tend to float upwards and the unweighted one to dive downwards.

The upshot of this (apologies for getting a bit technical there) is that weighting the outside ski, as you might on piste, will result in the inside ski nosediving and the skier making a spectacular cartwheel. To avoid this you need to apply the weight to both skis equally. Try to develop a rhythm - push down on the skis so that they bounce up closer to the surface, then turn and sink down ready for the next bounce.

As noted in the comments below, there is a common myth that it is important to lean back in powder. This is definitely not the case - if you lean back your legs get tired and it is much harder to turn. I explain this in more detail in the post Why We Dont Lean Back In Powder.

It is also quite important to ski quite delicately in powder, and even more so in more difficult soft snow conditions. If you over-pressure or over-edge a ski it tends to cut into the snow, sink and stop. I like to think of a bounce and float turn - bounce to initiate the turn as described above, then gently float both skis through the turn as they unweight.

It is important to note that powder is normally found off piste, and skiing off piste carries a whole new set of inherent risks. Avalanches, route finding, unmarked hazards like cliffs and ravines, crevasses on glaciated terraine, tree wells in the trees are just a few. I don't want to put you off, but you do need to be prepared. Learn about the hazards and how to deal with them. Seek local advice, check the avalanche and weather forecasts, take safety equipment (transceiver, shovel, probe) and know how to use it. The safest option is to hire a qualified guide. That said, it is often possible to find powder snow on the edge of the pistes, or in patrolled areas of resorts that are deliberately left unpisted, and these areas are relatively safe to go and play in.

Updated 9th April 2011