Ski Television:

Quick Hands and Feet

One of the things I love about coming to Whistler in the spring, is a chance to see so many great athletes. Of course you've got big mountain skiers, free ride skiers, the Canadian Free Style Ski Team, the alpine team's here as well. But I’m going to take a tip from the freestylers today. They have this drill where they work on quick hands and quick feet.

I’m going to show you how I would interpret that. The first drill I watched them do, had to do I think with quick hands and quick feet. Planting the poles like this, kicking the feet going, and then they exaggerated a little bit and I couldn't figure out what that was about, getting the hands forward until I watched them skI on the bumps and until I tried the bumps myself.

So I think the lesson for us mortals is quicken your hands by keeping them up front and keeping them moving and quicken the feet by getting the feet together and not edging so much as just turning more.

Okay so that's how the athletes do it. Here's how the mature gentleman skier does it. I try to keep my hands up front like the athlete, quick feet if possible and I just imagine that I have the legs and the lower back of an 18 year old. But even without them, you can still make your way through there with aplomb I think, if you keep your hands moving, feet together for quickness. Give it a try.