 Spend half the year in the mountains and the weather goes from becoming a nice ball-cap day, to a toque and goggle day, or even a hood day. The visibility closes in, the snow starts to fall, the light gets flat -- what do you do?
I like to keep things pretty basic, especially if the snow is uneven, or gets chopped up. I use lots of up-and-down movements. Get the feet a little farther apart. Focus on turning rather than edging. And I try to keep the speed down; it's a little rounder turn. And to get that rounder turn I want you to work with me for a moment here. We don't want to edge too hard; if you edge too hard you can stop the skis from turning. We need positive steering because the visibility is a little bit questionable. Maybe our balance is off slightly, and if we put the knees in too much -- like that for instance -- the skis can shoot ahead, and then we're in the back seat. And that's trouble. So instead of focusing on edging I suggest you focus on steering, just turning the feet. That'll allow you to finish the turns off, allow you to keep your balance, and allow you to keep going.
 Skiers can sometimes have trouble maintaining their rhythm if they're over-edging. They run into trouble because they routinely and habitually angulate with their lower legs each time they flex. In other words, they push their knees in each time they flex. Try instead to keep your knees neutral when you flex. When the snow is irregular, and the visibility leaves something to be desired, I think our goal is not to make beautiful carved turns. Your goal is to keep turning on a rhythm, maintain your balance. Feel sort of comfortable in these awkward conditions, rather than real high performance.
That’s what I try to do, anyway, when the weather closes in, and the visibility shuts down a little bit, and the hood comes up. You know, it's got to snow sometimes, and when it's snowing maybe it's not that easy to see, but the skiing can be real good if you have an approach.
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