Ski Instruction

     Trust your skis, Trust yourself

        Learning to believe in yourself

        as an expert skier

 

 

Often ski instruction is viewed as a simple, step-by-step, cut-and-dried affair: Do this, then this, then finally this, and voila, your turns will be ever so much better. And sure, that is the way it often works. Master the secrets of subtle weight shift, get a better feel for the way your edges grip (or don’t grip) learn to pick a better line through the bumps...and of course, you’ll find yourself skiing better. But there are some awfully subtle, almost purely psychological aspects of the journey to expert skiing that don’t really fit into that step-by-step model of skiing progress. In my books, and videos, and coaching sessions on the hill, I spend most of my time helping skiers build better movement patterns, step by step, working on the timing and coordination of specific skiing actions. But in this short essay, I am going to try to talk about something altogether different: the psychological space in which real expert skiing takes place.

 

How do experts feel as they pull off those breathtaking runs? How much concentration do experts put into their turns? their on-snow decisions? How much of expert skiing is conscious? How much is instinctive, almost automatic, unconnected to actual thinking, actual decisions that the skier has to make? You can see where I am heading. My personal experience and what I have learned from a host of brilliant skiing friends is that there is less actual “thinking” going on in expert skiing than most skiers imagine. Most of the time experts are simply reacting to the mountain in front of them, rapidly, almost thoughtlessly, almost intuitively. They trust their skis, and they trust themselves to do it right, every time, turn after turn, run after run... Strangely, developing such trust can be just as hard as developing good modern ski technique itself.

 

The first step, and sometimes the hardest step, is when you first realize, and admit, and accept the fact that you have become a good skier, a really good skier. I know it took me a long time. I was a young instructor at Squaw Valley, one of the most challenging ski areas in the West. And was I ever enthused. I spent every free moment seeking out steeper slopes, heavier, more gnarly drifts of Sierra Cement, and after a couple of seasons I was really starting to feel comfortable on this great mountain. But I still didn’t believe it. I’d start down the West Face of KT22 in a three-foot dump of heavy Sierra powder and everything would be going well, floating, ecstatic, in waist-deep snow. And then my mind would crack. “I can’t possibly be doing this. I’m not this good a skier!” And as soon as that thought crossed my mind I would tumble. More than once. Really. I got out of this “catch-22” dilemma almost by accident, with the help of one of my all-time ski gurus, Stan Tomlinson, the assistant ski school director at Squaw in those years. One afternoon Stan and I were making first tracks down the flank of Granite Chief, and after about a bazillion great turns we pulled up and Stan looked at me and said, in his inimitable quiet manner, “Lito, you have really become a powder skier.” That’s all it took. Because Stan was such a straight, no-nonsense guy, you couldn’t argue with him. And so I stopped arguing with myself about whether or not I could really ski. And with the new acceptance, of course, my skiing kept on getting better too. Only now I believed in it.

 

You many not have someone like Stan Tomilinson to give you that important burst of self confidence just when you really need it. But here are some games you can play, some tricks designed to convince you, and convince even the most skeptical self-doubting skier that, yes, you can probably ski better and more effortlessly than you think you can. (Thinking is often the problem.)

 

Try this: on a comfortable cruising sort of run, start looking at small features in the snow ahead of you: a pine needle or two, a certain small clump of snow, and tell yourself that you want your ski tips to pass precisely over that small spot. But don’t do anything to guide your skis there. It’s uncanny. Your skis will in fact pass right over the spot you have noticed, every time. And it is true that you are guiding them there, but unconsciously — the way experts do almost everything. Trusting your skis, your feet (and the rest of you) to do what you want without any special instructions. With no focus on technique.

 

You can do this with different turn sizes too. Quickly think about making smaller turns, but don’t think about phantom edging, or more pressure, or flexing your outside leg or any of the dozen moves that can shorten a good turn. Just imagine a shorter turn and your skis will turn shorter. Play with this: shorter, still shorter, longer, then really long. Your input only a kind of a subtle suggestion, a barely conscious desire.

 

The point is to realize, and to prove to yourself, that you have already done the hard work. That you have already taught your body how to ski. That now it won’t betray you. That now, you can just let it happen. And it will happen. Skiing is a richer experience when you no longer have to concentrate on ski technique. This is similar to learning a foreign language. The reason you study French grammar is not so that you can become an expert in French grammar, but so that you can forget French grammar. So that you can sit in a cafe beside the Seine in Paris and tell wonderful stories to that gal (or guy) of your dreams. It’s the same with skiing. I teach my students ski technique in the sincere hope that they can get beyond technique, forget technique once they have got it; and then enjoy something deeper and more personal. Technique is where it all begins but not where it ends. Technique is what we use to get to that magic moment on the mountain where we can totally trust our skis, totally trust ourselves.

 

And just ski.