Five Basic Skills on skiing

1. body separation

2. weight on outside ski

3. shin pressure

4. pole plant

5. angle flexion

So, let's start off with body separation. This is when your body is separated from you legs, meaning your upper body should stay forwards while your legs move, and do all the work. You can imagine an invisible line in between your upper body and your legs. For people who have a hard time trying to imagine this, or is more focused on something else in skiing, could try this drill to help. Put your poles in front of you, and imagine there is a cup with hot chocolate on the poles. You don't want the cup to fall, you don't want the cup to move around and you don't want the liquid to spill, which means if you turn your upper body with your legs it's moving around so you can't do that. If you lean one way, then one side of your pole will drop and the cup will fall. This is an excellent technique to use if you are having trouble with body separation.

Second, we have "weight on the outside ski". There are a lot of drills to help, but I'll only name one. If you try to drive your foot on the outside ski while skiing to each direction, it may help. It's really confusing and hard to understand if I try to explain this drill in words without a demonstration, so, if you are having problem putting weight on your outside ski, don't be afraid to ask the coach about how you can improve and how to do this drill. (that I call "The Driver")

Moving on, now we have Shin pressure. If you are a racer, you should already know this but shin pressure is really important while racing. This is because when you have shin pressure along with leaning forwards, and staying low, you will become more faster and in more control. When you're in a race, your goal is to win, and to win, you have to be able to be fast and go in the finishing line. This is why shin pressure is a super important element as a racer. An easy drill that I used when I need help with shin pressure is putting your hands on your knees (without poles) and really pushing your whole body forwards while skiing. I super recommend this drill to everyone. While doing that you want to be aggressive. Being aggressive such as being strong and having lots of shin pressure because it makes you faster as well.

And now, we obviously have to include pole plant. There isn't much drills for this one as well other than pushing your poles to jump to the other side. ( which is confusing to explain so ask your coach about how this works as well) But some of you might not know what pole planting is for, and to answer that, it's for timing the time between every pole plant. When you're pole planting try to bring your poles forwards and not drop one behind. If you are a racer, consider to pole plant strong, hard and aggressive. Don't make it too strong and aggressive though, because you don't want one pole ending up to be stuck in the snow while racing and you either are disqualified or is doing a rerun!

Lastly, we have angle flexion.

And remember, the most important key to skiing is staying safe and having fun!

Some tips for skiing: When you're racing, don't try to look all pretty for the photos, try to win and focus on that instead, because believe it or not, when you are focused on winning, you are going to include all the elements and the pictures being taken will make you look beautiful!