Help me tele better.

[Dongshow]

You're off to a good start, don't listen to the Raven, he's really a crow with delusions of grandeur.

[teledance]

Lose the poles and keep the hands out front for a few runs, it will help. Keep having fun.

[Raventele]

Listen to teledance..you seem to be flapping your arms around way too much..
Don'd listen to Dogshow ;I am not sure he skis..

[tigerstripe40]

yeah, I tend to flap. I think the poles are too long, actually.
I will do some more runs without poles.

[Raventele]

pole held upside down gripped below basket is the apprx right length for alpine when your arm bends to about 90 degrees with the pole touching snow on the flats..less long for tele..some ppl I know ski with very long poles, but they only really use the poles for climbing or skating on the flats

[tigerstripe40]

So, other than quieting down my upper body, anything else, or do I need to post some video showing me more to the side?

-James

[oldschool]

Hi -

I spend most of my time on the Northeast forum, but just recently got pointed over here and am happy to find more tele stuff!

As a word of disclosure I have no instruction background but have been tele skiing for about maybe 10 years now on downhill gear - maybe three decades turning on XCD now and then when touring.

Looking at the video I think your posture is way too tall, body open. Get down. I've seen folks really be in super low crouches which I think is a bit extreme, but that person was also banging straight down the edge of a nice steep run and dropping turns in an area the width of about a sidewalk. It's hard to pull that off any other way than to have your center of gravity low. Personally I think it also helps to ski steeper stuff to cause you/force you to need to link turns more quickly to control your speed - this will let you do the same on flatter stuff once you are confident from both sides. I had the same problem of having a strong side but I think I just worked on it. I probably still do have a favored side to turn from, but I have to be pretty tired to have that come up. I find flats and green squares are squirrly for me since there is less soft snow to turn on usually and you tend to build speed.

I also think a good exercise is just to focus on driving as many turns in a row as possible - link, link, link, link with your chest facing down the fall line as much as possible.

other things are to really get a feeling for the back ski and front ski edges as they relate to your big toe on the lead foot and little toe on back, but more how the back foot creates edging that helps the turn. Once I started using a lower stance this helped me.

Anyway, those are some thoughts from me.

Maybe the best if you want some tips in one spot - Paul Parker's book - I found a lot of good things in it. Not easy to translate but if you really look at it, you can figure some things out and it definitely helped me. sixteen bucks or so.



Good luck !

[TomH]

You're off to a very good start, and linking turns pretty well. First off, as others said, ditch the poles for a while (at least on the mellower terrain) or lay them horizontally on your hands (without gripping them) which helps keep the hands up in position and gives you a focal for keeping your upper body squared up.

Without seeing some side shots, some of this is speculating, but looks like you're still riding predominantly on your downhill ski, with only enough pressure on your trailing ski to keep it somewhat in check. So I would renew your focus on weighting the rear ski a lot more - and it'll then track and carve more as opposed to sliding.

I with old school in that getting a little lower and slightly more spread out will be to your benefit, and will force you to weight that rear ski more, because if you don't you'll just fall over. I would also lengthen your turns while learning, and incorporate a longer traverse before transitioning into the next turn. It will give you some time to settle into your edges and feel locked into the tele before transitioning to the next turn. When you start getting totally locked into longer turns, then start shortening your radius to get into quicker transitions.

[Dongshow]

Seriously, other than the awkward hand movements you seem to be doing pretty well for a beginner.

You can work on keeping your hands quiet and keep the poles by pretending you're pushing a wheelbarrow or driving a bus. Always steering into the next turn will keep your torso pointing the correct way.

Standing tall like that on what looks to be a green run and pretty flat is efficient and better practice than getting low and spreading out a bit. You can drop a bit lower as you venture into steeper terrain and deeper snow but you shouldn't get really low and spread out. How are you going to pressure and edge the trailing ski if you spread out?

Getting super low will not help to make quicker turns, I know some folks do it but for really efficient skiing,tele or alpine, you need extension at some point otherwise you are compressed the whole time and that not bio-mechanically sound.

Parker's book will tell you everything you need to know but he would never tell you to get low. I've seen him ski in person and he uses flexion and extension and Is usually in a relaxed athletic form, not crouched in anyway.

I don't know how other's can tell much about your edge pressure from that video, it's not the best quality, but to me it looks like you're headed in the right direction.

[Raventele]

To find the feeling of pressure on both skis, if you seem to have lost it or just are not sure, I find skiing in a traverse holding the lead change and extending and compressing on the skis a really helpful exercise..especially if there are some smallish bumps one can work over.. jump the skis almost off the snow and land them with some force and incorporate some lead changes..it's a fun and useful exercise..