Ski Television:

Bend Your Ankles

    
I think ultimately, the way to enjoy a great mountain like Whistler is to ski all snow all terrain, like this fantastic terrain up here off the Peak Chair. And to do that you have to be able to balance. And you use your ankle joint to do that. Let me show you.

Okay, now like I was saying, you've gotta be able to bend your ankle. Hard for me to show you how you bend your ankle, obviously, 'cos it's in the ski boot. But suppose I take my boot off. Look, when I bend my ankle, notice that the heel stays down. (top photo) The knees go forward, but the heel stays down. See I’ve got real mobility in there.
(bottom photo) That's how you do it.

So you may not want to go with the naked ankle, but here's what you can do. Undo the boots, undo the top two buckles, undo the power strap. You can leave the lower ones done up, but get your top two buckles undone. Now you don't have any plastic that you can use as a crutch. You've gotta use your ankles to balance with. You can still ski quite nicely. It doesn't feel quite as sporty, a little looser, but this is a great way to get those ankles working.

Remember how that looked when I had my boot off? How I said I kept my heel down as I bent my knees? That's what you gotta be able to do. You gotta feel that you flex your ankle within your boots.

Now let's do the boots up and I’ll show you how it works. With the boots done up I have much more lateral responsiveness. But look, I still want the same mobility in the ankles. See I can push my feet ahead just like that 'cos I’m bending then releasing my ankles.

Trust me, learning to use your ankles like that is just so useful when it comes to skiing in powder or chowder or broken snow. And it's the right way to use your skI boots. Here's a mistake a lot of people make--they just jam their shins forward like that. Jam them so far forward that their shins hurt. Then their heels lift up and the tails of the skis often skid.

What we want to do is work the shins in a narrow range of movement. Maybe get the feet a little farther ahead than you're used to. Now, within that range we move laterally. And the boots have fantastic responsiveness laterally and they allow you a little bit of movement fore and aft so your ankles can work.