Hey guys,
today we're going to have a look at how to drop on skis, one of my absolute favorite things to do because
it never gets old. What I mean is
I never stop being a little bit scared, that is so nice. Before we carry on into this video
check out our avalanche safety video. This could save your life.
Don't be nonchalant. Check it out and learn much more about avalanches.
So let's learn how to drop on skis.
Okay,
first things first, before you even start thinking about dropping stuff on skis, there are much easier
places to learn how to jump. Go to the terrain park,
try some jumps or just from the side of the slope back onto the slope. The important thing here,
is that you ski with a nice position,
you know, string yourself up, sink down in the ski boots and then when you jump, fully extend your legs. And that means that
the hip is moving forward and it's going to tilt you forwards too.
Mega important, especially when you're scared,
because then people absorb things and they land really back seated and it's terrible, terrible, terrible. Don't do that.
I see it so often, honestly.
It's the biggest common mistake in jumping of all, not a full pop, maybe even absorb it, it's oh.
Don't get me started. Anyway, so that's jumping, jump fully. So, you know, you tilt a bit forwards and then you learn how to
adapt this forward tails
more or less or to nothing. You can still bring the hip forwards and send that energy straight up without tilting.
Do you understand me? It's important that you acknowledge this. The biggest problem with dropping cliffs is fear and why are people scared of things?
Generally, it's a fear of the unknown.
How high is it going to be? Right on the side, have a look, maybe ski around it.
Check the landing. Like, is the landing going to be steep enough?
Deep enough? Once I just thought I knew the drop, because I'd been there, like, last season. That's not good enough.
I launched off it. I just popped, I was ready to have a great time. As I popped, I see this rock
pointing like this towards me, and I dropped
at a decent amount of speed, 3, 4 meters, land into the tip of the rock and snow, knee myself in the eye, black eye,
broken goggles, that was boring.
After that, I got less stupid again, as one does but I guess you need to do your own mistakes.
But you can try to listen to me at least. When you're dropping, it's nice if you have proper freeride skis,
depending on, you know, where you're dropping your stuff.
I'm skiing a pair of scrapper 115s, Jeremie Heitz is shredding these bad boys in the Freeride World Tour.
This is the back mounted, you know, you can really land forwards and that's important when you drop cliffs. Anyway, first things first,
once you've done your homework, you've tried some jumps, you're making sure that you're fully jumping. Let's hit our first drop.
Make sure that you can see the landing and it's small, the smaller the better.
And it could be like, the edge of the side of a slope that drops off quickly,
you could try dropping off that. It may be a small wind lip,
that's avalanche-safe. The same things are important as when jumping, how much speed you need,
how steep is the landing or the take-off.
So if it's a flat
drop with a steep landing, you obviously will need to lean forward. So nice little pops and you dip forwards,
and I stomp it.
And by each attempt you do, you can grab a little bit more speed, send it a little bit further,
thus dropping a little bit more. And it's important that you increase the size and the speed slowly.
It's one way of reducing the fear.
So generally speaking,
pop hard,
try to adapt the pop and the forward - backwards
tail to land more or less perpendicular to your landing. When you land,
I would recommend you to land
like you would ski.
Bit of an aggressive stance, feel the shin pressure,
this is pretty much all I do in the landing. If I drop big or it's
they have a little bit, the timing is a little off,
I end up sitting back and then often it's really heavy to stand up again.
And then you can mess up your skiing and crash.
So I'd really recommend you do this,
like forward absorption kind of landing.
Now someone was a bit backseat, it's a little bit more
stomper, stomp with our minds.
And then once you start hitting bigger drops where it's actually a rock,
you know, the rock face is not always vertical that you can have no speed and then drop.
It can often look like this,
make sure you're aware of this
so you know how much speed you need to clear the whole cliff. And also be aware if the landing
starts straightaway or if it has a bit of a gap and it's a wall, you could hit, smash into that super line.
But sometimes if there's like a wind lip or something
you don't want to put too much pressure on, maybe you want to absorb it.
You may think I'm full of shit now after we've been talking about the popping so much, but absorbing
it's a legit technique too. Just the fact that most people do it the wrong way.
In the same way as a ski racer absorbs a roller at like 120 kilometres an hour.
You know, so I could bend my legs here but not bended in this way
where I sit back, that's where I am a bit back seated. But I like, pull them up at the same time,
go forwards without the body. Really commit so that we can go from this position on top of the top
to perpendicular to the landing.
Let's see if I can do it here. In this direction,
we go up here.
A slight rotation will be sweet.
One of the best places to drop is close to restaurants,
where there's a lot of people so you can maybe get some people to cheer for you, clap your paws together and be like woah
crazy.
Because that's what dropping is all about, isn't it? Is there something we missed?
Oh yeah,
Back slapping. Some people, or some
when they drop huge, then they're absorbing it so much in the legs that they're laying down on the back.
I hate this. Because I get a binding up my bum.
So there seems to be quite a lot of folks out that likes it.
So, most important thing here is just that you keep your arms forwards because if you pull them out to the sides,
a lot of power grabbing your arms, pulling them back. It can really hurt your shoulders.
I just don't drop that big that I have to back slap. Yeah, there it is. That's how you drop on skis.
I hope you learn it. I hope you enjoy it because it's really fun.
Check out our full playlist with our other how-to-ski powder videos.
Have a good one. See you in the next video. Ciao.