Snow Skills

O.K., the Torino 2006 Olympics are over, so we’ll no longer have daily demonstrations of awesome skiing and riding. Reflecting back on the alpine skiing and riding events, it’s the higher speed events like the Downhill that made the biggest impression. The memory of how those racers were oriented to the path of their feet is useful to understanding the difference between edging and angulation in skiing and snowboarding.

Those downhill racers were showing a lot of edging. Edging is the movements of your knees, ankles, and hip to direct the skis or snowboard onto edge. These movements are specific in that the degree to which the ski edges is proportional to the range of the body part’s motion. The knee has a greater range of motion than the ankle, so it generally has a greater effect on the amount of edging. The hip has much less motion than the ankle, so it generally has the least effect on the amount of edging. HOWEVER, those observations don’t put the knee completely in charge of edging for two important reasons: 1) all three body parts working in concert can generate stronger edging than any one alone and 2) the body has a role in edging, too.

Those downhill racers were also showing a lot of angulation. Angulation is the positioning of the body to generate edging with balance. Angulation isn’t just banking the body and legs over to the side, however. If you tilt over like a bowling pin, you’ll just drop over. Your body needs to orient itself such that your balance is maintained on your feet; that requires orienting the torso in a different alignment than your legs. Imagine your hips as the bolt in a two-way hinge that allows your weight to build on the outside ski by folding toward downhill. As your body tips downhill, your skis will be tipped onto their edges (with minimal knee movements) and with a solid grip thanks to your balanced body position.

In short, Edge your skis/board: Anuglate your body.