Snow Skills

The Winter Olympics is surely the elite of sporting competitions with regard to the limited number of athletes who are ultimately successful in their events. Consider that the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens dished out at least 925 medals in 28 different sports. Not all sports are created equal, but the Summer Games has many sports with many different variations of events. Swimming is particularly a sport where the medals seem to be awarded in excess. At the end of the Summer Games, someone is the best in the world at doing the freestyle 2 laps in the pool. Somebody else is the best at freestyle 4 laps, another at 8 laps, another at 2 laps in breaststroke, etc. etc. With so many events, it’s not uncommon for an swimmers to have the opportunity to win multiple medals in different events at the same Games.

Rowing is another example where dozens of medals are awarded for essentially the same activity. There’s one person, two person, 4 person, and 8 person teams competing in several different lengths of events. With all due respect to the built-like-brick-outhouse rowing athletes of the world, at some point it’s just rowing a boat, no matter how many are doing it or how far you’re going.

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It’s been just over 10 years since shaped skis became a major factor in the skiing industry. The concept of a ski designed with exaggerated sidecut (relative width of the ski’s tip and tail compared to the width of its waist) has come a long way to making skiing easier and more efficient no matter what your ability. In that time, the design shaped skis have evolved past just a different sidecut to take advantage of new materials and design features as well. This evolution has changed how to select a proper length of shaped ski and resulted in today’s trend to select a shorter length than would have been chosen 10 years ago.

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Skiing in fog and poor visibility conditions brings on a whole new set of rules for skiers and riders. The loss of visibility will basically reduce your confidence to the point where just navigating down a trail can be a challenge. You can maintain good rhythym in your skiing/riding and stay oriented on the slopes through the use of a tactic called corridor turns. Corridor turns require only limited vision through a combination of mental imagery and the use of what few physical features are available.

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Skiing on the outside leg only is one of the true gold standards of improving one’s skiing. It’s an activity that has several benefits, capable of being used for different movements and sensations. For this post, let’s talk about stance.

One leg skiing could be considered a ‘cheater’ exercise in that it isn’t really how you ski, but doing it successfully exposes you to highly effective motions and sensations. Go to easy terrain and begin to make a comfortable parallel turn at medium speed. After a few turns, start making turns where you lift your inside leg only a couple inches of the snow, alternating with each new turn. After it’s off the snow, it will be easier to balance on the support leg if you rest the raised leg against the boot of the support leg. If you struggle at first, try just tapping the inside ski through each turn; this effort is lower-impact and will give you the same sensation.

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The pole swing can mean a lot in terms of building better balance in skiing. If you initiate a turn with a pole swing, you’ll be improving your timing, enhancing flow of turning, and being decisive on changing direction. The pole swing can add more balance as well, but only if the swing motion has a positive impact on your stance. To help your balance, make your pole swings from the wrist, not the arm.

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There’s no better terrain at a ski area to convince you to live in the moment than tree skiing. It’s an awesome parallel between moving along through the trees and moving along in your life. In both, you’re going to pass by many distinct points, which come with little prior notice and are gone in a blink of an eye. There’s no time to hold on to anything in the glades; you’ll need to create turns promptly and release them quickly.

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A great day of snowshoeing is only as great as your footwear. As snowshoeing is all about mobility, footwear is key and I’ve been having great success this season using L.L. Bean’s Cresta Hiking Boots. Read the rest of this entry »

The world of sports has many examples where the introduction of new equipment has changed the nature of the activity. Consider what hockey was like before goalie masks. Consider playing in the NBA with low-top sneakers. Consider sailing with cloth sails. The equipment innovations that replaced these conditions were far from a crutch; they allowed athletes to refine their movements and reach new levels of performance.

In the early nineties, the availability of skis with exaggerated sidecut dimensions brought renewed ease of effort and fun to skiers of all abilities. These new style of skis were so exotic in appearance that they were initially referred to by such phrases as “hourglass skis, parabolics, or goofies”. After barely a decade, this class of skis is simply referred to as “shaped” and represents the contemporary ski of choice on the slopes today.

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The Winter Olympic Games will have been held 20 times when Torino 2006 begins on February 10. These locations make for great apres ski conversation including good trivia challenges.

Good trivia questions include what cities have hosted the Games more than once and and when? Have the Olympics been held in Italy before? In 1994, the International Olympic Committee changed the cycle of Summer and Winter Games being in the same year: where were those Games held? How many times have the Games been held in North America and where? Where are the next Winter Olympic Games scheduled to be held after Torino?

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Ski the moguls slowly? “Better said than done!” is probably a fair guess at the next thought through your mind. It’s a big jump in expectations to ski from groomed trails into a mogul run where space is limited and expect to make terrific turns with speed and style. The image of professional mogul skiers like those that will compete at Torino 2006 could give you an unrealistic expectation of how to ski moguls. You’ve got to crawl before you can run, Young Jedi, and developing skills that let you ski moguls flowly is part of the first steps.

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