NSW Nordic Ski Club
FEET UP OR HEAD DOWN - THE BASICS OF SKIING: XCD
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This is probably a which came first question, the chicken or the egg? Do you ski from your feet up or from your head down? Just to make it more complicated, our old friend Nils Larsen of Beyond the Groomed fame talks about skiing from your centre. There is a kind of conceptual duality in skiing. You may have observed downhill skiers lifting their inside foot up. So are they thinking ‘I will weight my outside ski ‘ or ‘I will lift my inside ski’? The result is probably the same, but the conceptual trigger is opposite.
The brain controls the body but many responses are sub-conscious and basically automatic. Sometimes the conscious overrides the sub-conscious reactions though not always for the best. Fear or apprehension can completely lock up the body so that movement is stiff and jerky rather than fluid and flexible. What is the stimulus for such a reaction? In my case it is visually generated - I look, then get apprehensive. This increases when I can’t see properly, such as in a blizzard. Skiing with virtually no visibility is a great way to discover skiing from the feet up. Because there is little visual stimulus sending messages to the feet, the feet have to respond to whatever they encounter. This should only be attempted at low speeds in open and obstacle free terrain. The recent death of a snowboarder after hitting a lift pylon in poor visibility conditions is a timely reminder that apprehension is a good personal safety warning device. Skiing from the feet up means that your reflexes sharpen up, you only respond to what is really there and not what you think might be there. Then the fun really begins. Your feet act like a 3D scanning pen that plots the terrain and sends an instantaneous message to your brain. The response appears to be automatic, though I think this only comes from lots of on snow experience. It may take a few head plants to work out the right response, especially if the conditions are new. Early in the season I find that there is some re-learning to do and a few crashes are expected in the first couple of days of ‘re-booting the system’. Once up and running, the brain is fantastic at firing back the response to the feet, if you let it.
If you let it? Letting go of the cerebral is essential to fluid skiing. From my own experience, good skiing is like a jazz improvisation. It is possible to play a satisfactory line by sticking to the notes in a chart, but a really good improvisation comes from the feeling and not the theory. OK, there are times when my technique is not up to scratch for the situation. That is why developing a wide ranging and versatile technique is useful - it opens up the possibilities and allows really satisfying improvisation. This is the making of music and creative skiing.
Will everything fall into line if your feet behave? I hear you saying ‘fall is the operative word’. I know an excellent bump skier who looks like a wild animal on the slopes and certainly not pretty, but can negotiate anything at speed. He skis with his feet and not his head. His body is relaxed and just faces downhill while his feet and legs bounce around under him. He exhibits what Lito Tejades-Flores calls dynamic anticipation. I have found that kids often ski this way without thinking about it. In fact, analysing it probably locks us up and prevents it occurring. Lito recommends visualisation to come to grips with dynamic anticipation, and rather than spend pages in attempting a description, he suggests you watch some good skiers and picture the whole person.
For those of us who find our body out of tune with our feet, there are some useful mind tricks to help us along.
This uses the concept of ‘referred movement’. It is similar to the one used by physiotherapists to describe pain occurring in some place remote from the point of injury. For instance, if you think of doing something with your hands, it will have a flow on effect to your body position, legs, feet etc. If the ‘referred movement’ is effective, everything else simply goes into the right place. I only have to think of one thing. After a while, these little tricks can be discarded as the technique becomes automatic. Here are a few body/mind tricks which have helped unlock a few techniques in telemark turns. Some are direct concepts, others create referred movement effects. The technical jargon used by instructors to describe some of these effects is shown in italics. Where I am aware of the source of an idea, their name is acknowledged.
| Concept | Effect |
|---|---|
|
Think ‘soft front knee’ (Zoe Campbell, Instructor, Scotland & Cardrona NZ) |
Keeps your front knee over the binding. This helps you to steer and keeps you collected. It breaks down the fear of the hill response with its associated stiff and straightened front leg. |
Imagine you are an air mattress footpump – suck air in to rise up, blow it out to sink down (PCA) |
Unweights your skis to enable you to change edges. Develops rhythm. This can be fluid and flowing to sharp and ‘pumping’ in response to steepness and snow condition. Watch out for hyperventilation in high speed short radius turns! |
|
Imagine you have a headlamp in your front kneecap. Point the front kneecap in the direction you want to turn. ( Paul Parker, ‘Freeheel Skiing’) |
A simple way to develop basic steering and can be used from straight running in a telemark position to turn out of the fall line. Pushing the knee over also starts to put the front ski on edge. Once the front knee idea has become ingrained, try pointing the rear knee in the direction of the turn as well. |
|
Imagine you are like an ocean swell rolling down the hill , rising and sinking in seamless motion. |
Develops essential rhythm and the great feeling of flowing rather than jolting down the hill. It breaks down the ‘I will turn now, wait a bit, traverse, turn again, wait a bit ….’ syndrome. |
|
Think ‘links’. Imagine a funky jazz ballet or rap dancer in constant movement as opposed to a classical dancer moving between held positions. (gross generalisation I know, and apologies to classical ballet people. PCA). |
Shifts the focus of the mind from the ‘turn’ as a static entity to the between turns space which is really a continuous movement. It encourages a seamless rhythmical movement. The link may be generated by up breathing, early edging of the rear ski, a pole plant etc. It helps to overcome getting stuck in a turning position often resulting in over turning. |
|
Think ‘slinky’ like a cat (PCA’s favourite word). There are many other animals you can picture for different effects – eg. Think ‘snake’ to encourage weaving (Ivan Trundle, Australian Nordic Ski Instructor Manual) |
Develops a sense of smooth integrated and relaxed rather than jerky disconnected movements. |
|
Think ‘Big Toe / Little Toe’ (Paul Parker). Feel the pressure under your front foot big toe side and rear foot little toe side. |
Promotes edging of both skis. The effect is to refer the pressure along the whole side of your feet not just the toes. This also helps you to increase or decrease pressure on the back foot especially. |
|
Reach out with your downhill hand to grab something at the bottom of the hill (Zoe Campbell) |
Especially useful on steep piste to avoid falling into the hill at the end of turns. It keeps your centre over your skis and generates major angulation and edging |
|
Touch your front (leading ) knee with the opposite hand |
Gets your hands low and turns your body to face downhill. This encourages a compact and dynamic stance, like a coiled spring ready to rebound into the next turn (anticipation) |
|
Drop your outside hand down to touch the calf of the inside (rear) leg (Ivan Trundle) |
Drops your outside shoulder down and pushes both knees into the turn. This creates counter-rotation and angulation. |
|
Lift an imaginary large barrel to the outside of each turn (Ivan Trundle). Hug a giant beachball and offer it to someone down the slope. |
Creates a ‘banana’ shape for the upper body and arms, keeps the hands low and encourages counter-rotation and anticipation. |
|
Relax your ankles (Nils Larson, Beyond the Groomed) Relax your hands. Smile as you go down the hill (June Hawkins, Sovereign Lake XC Area, BC) |
Releases tension in the rest of the body and enables you to respond flexibly to the terrain. The hand/feet relaxation is a trick I use at the dentist for pain isolation – check out your hands next time the drill starts! |
|
Imagine a loose scarf is tied around your knees as you change lead foot (Nils Larson, Beyond the Groomed). Imagine a horse about to jump collecting itself (Paul Parker) |
Collects the legs under your body and cures the'D’Artagnon’ syndrome of the lunge telemark. Keeping collected will help you put pressure on the skis, particularly through the back foot. |
The list goes on and throughout your skiing life there will be many different keys to unlock your body. At the core of it all though is the ability to let your feet respond and relax your body. The skis under your feet will do what they designed to do. If they are designed to turn then you are in luck and all you have to do is let them turn. There is no need to twist them round, force them or thump them. The skis will want to turn and you just hop on for the ride.
Go with the flow and enjoy the improvisation.
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