WHAT ARE TURNS FOR?
HOW DO YOU TURN A SKI/
UNWEIGHTING 1 - DOWN SLOW
UNWEIGHTING 2 - DOWN QUICK
UNWEIGHTING 3 - THE BUMPS METHOD
STEERING

I once spent two weeks with a regimental ski team, who were training for the British Army Downhill Championship, in Champery, Switzerland. There's nothing very interesting about that, you may say, but two of the five soldiers taking part had only been skiing for six weeks! The competition was a week later, and these two completed the course at speeds of up to 60 mph, and they weren't last. How did they do it? They managed because they were extremely fit, they were prepared to clock up an enormous mileage, and they had a really positive attitude. Yet without being taught more than a snowplough at the start of the six weeks, they were able to ski in a downhill. Cynics may say that their aptitude at the end of six weeks also had something to do with the munificence of the British taxpayer. The even more cynical among us may say that it was because they were lucky enough to avoid being sucked into the ski school system. All this is complete rubbish....

The point of mentioning this is to show you that technical knowledge is not everything, and with complete dedication to the three main principles of fitness, mileage, and attitude, technique can come naturally over a short time. The problem of course is that it may be impossible to adopt the soldiers' dedication because of time, money, or whatever. Besides, their training schedule did only concentrate on downhill technique, and although they eventually became ski instructors, it took them a little longer to get the hang of all the other types of turn apart from downhill ones.

Modern turning techniques were developed during the late sixties by the gurus of the time, from dissecting and analysing the smallest movements of children and racers as they tore down slalom courses. George Joubert and Jean Vuarnet from France took pictures of racers with motorised still cameras, and their movements were broken down to form the basis of the turns we use today. These quite radical changes in technique went hand in hand with the improved technology in ski and ski boot manufacture, and during the past thirty years have stabilised and been adopted almost universally as the best way to ski.

In passing I do hope that what I say on these pages will provoke some argument, and not just from the theoreticians and teachers out there. I want to know what you think. It’s one thing to stand with someone face to face on a mountainside showing them a move that they can carry out, but I have no idea whether written words and a few photographs are going to get the same results. Do let me know!

Right we’re off. Let's just summarise what turns are for:

We use them to get round corners. We use them to brake and control our speed on the piste, in the bumps, on the steep, and in powder snow. These are usually short, snappy turns. We may also use short snappy turns as an alternative to ancient courting rituals or when we feel exhilarated with excess energy. On the other hand we make fast long turns on wide empty pistes, and for off piste and glacier skiing on Spring snow, or when we feel knackered and couldn’t be bothered to do short snappy turns.

Our technique will be governed by the weather, the type of snow, and even our mood on a particular day. All this is obvious, but it is surprising how many people apply the only turn in their repertoire, namely the bog standard stem christie, to try and cover all these different situations. Now I don't have anything against the bog standard stem christie; it is a very useful turn, and the basis for everything that follows, but its very success as the universal turn can be a skier's undoing. For example, if he tries to use it on ice, or the steep, or in deep snow, or trying to race round slalom gates on a club day, he is not going to find it very helpful.

Quite simply you are going to forget the bog standard stem christie and start all over again. The knowledge and expertise you have gained so far will be a help, but don’t consciously draw on it. We’re going back to the drawing board.

HOW DO YOU TURN A SKI?

‘The turns are the manoeuvres by which the skier alters his course. The good skier uses them as sparingly as possible’. Vivian Caulfield - ‘Skiing Turns’ 1922.

There are many ways to turn a ski, and they nearly always depend on either unweighting or steering, or as usually happens, a combination of both. (There is also a third alternative, where you lie down on your back in the snow, swivel both skis around in the air, and your bottom too, and you find you are facing the other way when you stand up.)

You go down slowly, and then jump the backs of the skis up. As they unweight, you can get them round. The jump becomes minimal once you have got the hang of it, and the faster you go, the less you have to unweight the skis. By the time you read this, you should be well past this stage, and will probably be doing very little unweighting. This method of unweighting is used when learning parallel turns, doing linked short turns in deep snow, and by downhillers and giant slalom skiers with slight variations.

If you drop down on the skis towards the end of a turn they will actually unweight and come off the ground. If you don't believe me, stand on a weighing machine (preferably without skis and boots unless you have a large bathroom), and drop down very quickly. The dial will drop to zero before it comes up again to register more than your normal weight. As you drop down quickly while finishing the turn, the skis become unweighted, they slide round a little further (rather like a miniature christie stop). The weight on the skis goes back up again as you rise up and brake against the snow, the skis should follow, and you jump them up and round. This is a far more effective method than the first for certain turns, but it is harder work. It is used by slalom racers, flash Harrys on the piste, and on hard steep slopes off piste. You will also be doing it once you have digested 'The Basic Short Turn' technique. Do not worry if you do not understand this method just yet; it will be made clear later.

The bumps unweight the skis for you. As the middle of the skis pass over the top of a bump, both the back and the front of the skis come off the snow, or at least will be only lightly touching it. The skis can therefore be pivoted round on their centrepoints, if you do certain other things as well that are discussed in 'Better Bumps Technique’. This method, surprise, surprise, is restricted to the bumps, and is invaluable for learning to ski on them with confidence.

These are the three methods of changing the skis direction by unweighting, ie: lifting one or both of them off the snow. In the first two methods it is the back of the skis that are generally unweighted, and in the bumps method it is the front, or the front and the back with weight remaining over the middle.

STEERING

All turns involve steering too, some begun with an unweighting movement, and some using steering only. Steering involves putting weight on to a ski to start it turning.

Depending on the type of turn, a ski can be steered on its edge (edging and carving), and on its sole (sliding). You will probably have gathered that steering a ski on its edge involves angulation and quite a bit of work, whereas steering a ski on its sole means that you can stand more upright and relax. What usually happens is a lot of sliding and not much edging with novices, and a lot of edging and not much sliding with Alberto Tomba. As a rule novices rely on steering to make the complete turn, while more advanced skiers will unweight the skis to start the turn, and steer them to finish it off.

Just watch a few hundred skiers coming down the homebound freeway of an evening. Make a note of how they are turning. If the slope is quite testing they will be using many combinations of steering and unweighting. See if you can spot who is doing what. Don’t count that fat lady in the lilac jump suit who has taken her skis off, and is walking down.

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GLOSSARY