How Do I Turn?

[GrimSurfer]

Great post, @TallGrass

To heck with being mindful when starting out to avoid injury. Ha ha. I’m acutely aware of everything going on in my knee joints during an aggressive snowplow after 30+ years of skiing.

Taking my son in law out in a few weeks time. I told him I won’t introduce him to the sport unless he wears his soft brace (tore an ACL a few years ago playing soccer). He shrugged and said he didn’t need it. Youth!

[TallGrass]

@FourthCoast First, you need to find a willing mentor to take you out on the slopes... like this...


Yes, folks! There's video too!!! (click image below)



Skiing by Committee -- where both sides have "inner" ski pole. (look again closely... W-h-y...?)

Instructions were easy enough: "Little skis, follow the big one."

[lowangle al]

A big difference in whether you skid or carve starts at the transition, If I'm on a single camber ski that is easy to turn I will weight and lean my skis on edge right after the transition, before the turn starts. This way they start carving right at the beginning of the turn and they will carve across the fall line.


With a dbl camber ski that doesn't want to turn, the skis cross the fall line unweighted with either a jump or step turn. After they cross the fall line then I'll weight them. It is harder to get skis to carve when weighting them in the middle of the turn as apposed to the beginning.

In powder you can turn a dbl camber ski the same way as a single camber one because you aren't relying on the edge of the ski contacting solid snow.

LMK if this needs further explanation.

[mca80]

Watching a lot of videos I notice many people wear knee pads. What is the risk, since the knee is dropped it may bang against ski? As far as brace, I thought tele was supposed to be far easier on knees than alpine downhill. Or is this constant pseudo lunge stressful?

This is of import to me in particular, my knees get fairly sore without proper stretching before and after (and during breaks) with simple activities like hiking and xc--although stretching mitigates or totally eliminates this, and not so much when road biking. Probably a bit susceptible to knee issues due to poor choices and practices when young.

[mca80]

@lowangle al would it be better to spend my early learning on powder, compacted snow, or both? Since edging is not as important in powder, will I develop bad habits strictly turning in those conditions to begin with?

[lowangle al]

I don't see any bad habits caused by skiing powder. The difference in powder is that a dbl camber ski will turn without the heavy weighting. It doesn't need to be a lot of powder, just enough softness to get your tips to to engage to start the arc.

You will learn a lot more when your skis are working as they should then when skidding around on hardpack. Dbl camber skis are made for touring not turning. To get them to turn you need a bigger bag of tricks. Not ideal for learning.

[mca80]

Ok thanks. Since I am skiing Kongsvold or Nansen shouldn't matter then. I just figured maybe weighting and edging would be different even on minimally cambered skis like these that it might benefit to do some hardpack to help learn more proper elements of technique.

[lowangle al]

I think you need good conditions to learn, and good conditions for dbl camber skis is a couple inches of soft snow. Good conditions for a single camber ski could be packed snow.

The few things I gained from skiing dbl camber skis at the resort are, skiers thumb, torn meniscus and water on the knee. Other than that I learned a lot more doing laps in light powder on little hills. And that's with getting maybe a tenth of the vertical.

[mca80]

@lowangle al how did you tear your meniscus?

[GrimSurfer]

Watching a lot of videos I notice many people wear knee pads. What is the risk, since the knee is dropped it may bang against ski? As far as brace, I thought tele was supposed to be far easier on knees than alpine downhill. Or is this constant pseudo lunge stressful?

No accidents like this typically occur…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SEGIyL_WoBk. (Still makes my eyes water every time I see this)

The sport is notwithout its strains and sprains. If you’re prone to knee injuries, wear a soft brace (I’d say the same thing to a XC or BC skier who had every buggered up a knee). It won’t affect a normal flex and will take a lot of out-of-plane force off the ACL).

A lot of problems can be avoided by warming up, which you’ll do anyway on the climb. When you get to the top, do some stretches, like lunges. (The ideal time for any stretching is after warm up anyway).