Video:How to Ski a Straight Run

Transcript:How to Ski a Straight Run

Hi, I’m Mike Doyle, Skiing Guide at about.com, we’re here today at Killington Resort in Killington, Vermont with professional ski instructor Ken Marisseau.

Maintain an Upright and Athletic Stance

Now in learning to ski one of the most important aspects is an upright and athletic stance. So what we want to do is sort of find the middle of our feet and maybe move back and forth a little until you find your weight over your arch and maybe slightly in front.

Flex Knees and Ankles

From there I want to make sure that I’ve got a little bit of flex in the knees and ankles. That I’m pretty open through the middle. I don’t want to crouch. And that my shoulders are loose and relaxed.

Keep Eyes Forward

Lastly, I want to keep my chin up my eyes forward. And as I begin to move I want to maintain this stance. What’s going to help with that is sort of keeping my hands out to the side and slightly in front of the body as I begin to move.

Center Your Body Weight

The key to an effective stance is athletic balance. You want to center your body weight equally over the middle of the feet and maintain this stance as your skis begin to move with gravity. The trick is to remember you’re standing on a hill not a flat surface. What might be good balance on a flat surface is what we call in the back seat on a mountain side, so try to balance more as if you are jogging, not standing still. Keeping your hands away from your body and slightly in front makes this much easier to maintain. Also important is a relaxed upright stance.

It may seem tempting to flex all of your major joints, however a low stance is much more tiring and it compromises your balance.

Flex and Extend Your Ankles

When you put on your ski boots you encased you ankles in a big hard plastic shell and it felt like they might have been immobilized. However, slight flexion and extension of your ankles creates pressure on different parts of your ski boot. This transmits your movements to the ski to help with your balance and your maneuverability.

Put Pressure on Different Parts of the Boot

What we want to work on here is a skill involving pressure on different parts of the ski boot. When you put your ski boots on it felt like you encased them in cement and you couldn’t move. But they do move a little, in the fact that there’s resistance in the ski boot, is actually a good thing because that transmits our movement to the ski and the ski will do the things we want it t do by pressing on different parts of the boot.

Practice Subtle Moves

The key here to remember is it’s a subtle move of just the knees and ankles. I don’t want to help it out by bowing or tipping my body around. I want to keep this pretty still and isolate the movement down into the lower part of the leg. So, we’ll try that in motion. One or two pushes, find my neutral stance, and just flex and extend my knees a little bit inside the ski boot.

Using your ankles can help you regain your balance before you might fall, can help you absorb small bumps in the terrain, it can help you turn your skis or tip them on edge, and it can even help you take off on a jump.

The Perfect Straight Run

While in a straight run, gradually flex and extend your ankle joints, while keeping your weight centered over the middle of your feet. Try not to help by bending at the waist and notice how you feel pressure on different parts of the boot and different parts of the ski as you flex and extend your ankles. Keep your eyes ahead, in an upright relaxed stance.

So, as I push off with my poles to get moving, once I’ve done that I want to stand again, and find that centered neutral stance. My weight’s equal on both feet. Slight bend in the knees and ankles. Open at the hips, hands are up, and I’m looking where I’m going. So, I’m going to push off with my poles. Once I've begun to move I’m going to stand up find that stance again. My weight’s equal on both feet. I’m on the balls of my feet. Slight flex in the knees and ankles, open in the middle, my hands are out and my eyes are forward.

Thanks for watching. To learn more visit us on the Web at About.com.