Ski Television:

Pick Your Spots

So you've got some beautiful new 165s, 12-metre radius skis ideal for carving. But you know the thing is you've got to pick your spots. If it's too steep you don't want to carve, you want to be doing some nice steered skidding turns.

Now that may seem kind of obvious but you know I’d say lots of skiers, they get on a steep pitch and they sort of work at cross purposes. They start to press down and edge the skis right off the bat.

So on steep areas I am actively skidding at the beginning of the turn. I create a little platform and then I want to come up and let the skis skid so I can steer them and control the speed. But then at the bottom of the pitch, with the flats coming up that's where I can switch to carving. Just switching both edges at the same time, laying the body over into it and generating pressure. Now I don't mean pressing down, I mean generating pressure and I’m going to show you what I mean by that.

Ok, see whether you're slipping or carving you're going to be balancing this way. Now here's what a lot of people do is they interpret carving like this. (pic) They press down. Now my right leg is locked. Don't do that, here's what we want to do. We want to keep the leg supple so we generate the pressure by increasing the edge angle.

Ok, so a couple of points there. Be selective. You might have the most beautiful pair of carving skis in the world but don't try to carve every turn. Where it's steep, do a nice skidding turn. Where it flattens out and you think you can lay them over and do the full-on carves, do it. Hope that works for you. Give it a try.