Ski Television:

Face the Force

I got a great carving tip recently from a racer friend. Face the force, she said. Now the force that you're facing is generally not the same direction that your tips, the tips of your skis are facing. It's slightly downhill from that. OK?

Now here's another way that you can kind of figure that out. I’m going to reach across here and hold my knee with my offside hand. And what that does is that it holds my body open slightly so that I can better face the force.

I line up my hips, my knees and my shoulders so they face the force. And I do that by pulling inwards with my offside hand. I reach across and that helps me to face the force.

You reach across and you pull in with that hand. And I want to thank Rock Newberry, a great pro from Mount Tremblanc and it's Tiyou, my friend Tiyou the racer who told me about facing the force.

See what a lot of people do when they start carving is they press forward. Ok, press forward to generate pressure. Now, I’m facing the directions the tips are pointed. But the force is out there. So what I have to do now is kind of turn everything this way and see this angle here? This knee ahead of this knee? This hip ahead of this hip? This shoulder ahead of this shoulder. Now I’m facing the force.

So clean-cutting carving turns are a product of the right angles. You've got to be able to face the force. And that little tip, reaching over with the offside hand might be just what you need to get the body lined up properly. Hope so. Give it a try.