Hey there, Jens here again. Today we are going to look at the 3 most common mistakes people
do when doing parallel turns. This could be mistakes such as turning the skis too quickly
or tipping into the turn or lastly, sitting back too much. Maybe you recognise one of these three.
We are going to learn how to fix these 3 mistakes together with my favourite ski
instructor here in LAAX, Ed. Let's go and see him. Oh, Hey Jens, how´s it going? I'm glad
to have you here. Let's look at some common mistakes, shall we? Let´s get into it.
So what´s the most common mistake you see in your job here? I don´t know if it´s the most common, but one I see
all the time, is people trying to rush the turn. So turning the skis too quickly around
the turn to go across the slope before the next turn. So how can we fix this? Nice and
simple, I just want you to think about making every turn a nice round C-shape. Don´t forget
the skis have to travel down the slope a little bit. It should be roughly the same
distance as the amount you're travelling across the slope. Is there a way to self-check, or help yourself improve this?
If you're skiing with a friend, try following them if they're a little bit better than you.
Just try to stick in their tracks. Another really useful way, you can try counting in your head.
That gives you something to time your turns to, so it will be 1, 2, 3, turn for example. You start at the beginning of the turn
and count? When should you end the counting? It depends on the size of your turns,
but generally 3 or 4 seconds. Alright. That's not what I meant. You start
at the beginning of one turn and you count 1, 2, 3 and that turn is finished.
Yeah. Then you start the next turn. Exactly. So think of it as 1 second going across the slope,
1 second going down and 1 second coming across the slope again. Alright. So if you have listened
to these tips from Ed, I hope that your turn shape is pretty nice by now. So what's the next
common mistake? Another one I see quite often, quite often it leads on from the last point
we said, I see a lot of people leaning too far back. Alright, how can we fix this problem?
Hopefully, we're already starting to fix it. If we get a nice round turn shape, it makes
it much easier for us to stay balanced and in the correct position on the skis. Alright.
One of the most important things we can do here, I want you to think that your legs are your shock
absorbers. They're going to absorb all the pressure and the forces that build-up at the
end of the turn. So you mean if you don´t absorb these forces, that will lead to you
leaning back. Exactly! Because you have to absorb it somehow. Yes. If you don't,
you´ll feel your bodyweight go back, you might feel it gets really tiring in your thighs
and in your quads. And at the end of the day, you're knackered. You want to bend through all of the joints in your body, ok?
Even though your feet are in your ski boots, you can still bend them a little bit, get a bit of support from your ski boots.
Also in your knees, also in your hips. Yeah. Be careful though, I don't want
you to do too much in any of these joints. Especially, another one we see all the time, people exaggerate, lean forwards and
their bum goes, they stick their bum out behind them. Not helpful. The weight stays back exactly where it was before.
So we want a nice, centred, balanced posture over your feet, just flexing forward through. Good,
any other tips for fixing this? Yeah, so even if you noticed you're leaning a little bit
back at the end of the turn, don't worry, but before you start the next turn, really think,
OK, I've got to get forwards and get into the next turn. So think of bringing your hips from back here, forwards
over your skis in the direction where you want to go. Fixing that leaning back problem
can be quite frustrating but oh so important. So once you fix this, there's another, similar
problem that I´d like you to tell us about. Yeah so, as you get more confident, pick up
more speed, start skiing on slightly steeper slopes, really often I see people starting
to lean into the slope. Alright, so how can we fix this problem of leaning into the slope?
A good thing to think of is always trying to stay balanced on the outside ski and projecting
your weight forwards and down the slope, because that's where you want to go. Do you have
another tip to avoid this? Yes, don´t forget, we mentioned it in one of the previous
videos, don't forget your pole plant. That really helps to bring your body forwards over the skis
and get it into the right position going into a turn. It´s really going to help once it
gets a little bit steeper. Right Jens, while we're stood just here, I want you to lean into
the slope. Yes, use your poles to support you. Good, now I want you to try to balance on that downhill ski and see if you can lift up
the other one. Yes, that's not very easy. What would happen if you took your pole away? Yeah I would
fall over. I don't want to do that. It's only snow. What we want to try and do, so we want to find a way
where we can stay balanced on that ski. So again, start leaning into the slope, but this
time bring your shoulders and your body back over your skis, so that you can stand on
that downhill ski. Yeah. If you're doing it well and you've got good balance, you should be
able to lift up that inside ski. Should we try that while we're skiing? Yeah lets try
it. Let's give it a go. Alrighty, let's see if we can pick up the inside ski as we are
going around the turn. It's going to be pretty tricky to start with. So I just want you to
try and do it between turns as we are going across the slope. So we do a bit of a traverse in
between the turns now. Not necessarily any more than we would do normally, but we are
just going to lift up the ski for that amount of time. Just quick, just shortly. One thing
to help, instead of trying to lift the whole ski up, is to try to keep the tip, the front
of the ski in the snow. It's going to help keep your weight a little bit forwards. Then, eventually,
hopefully, the goal is that we will be able to keep that ski lifted up the whole way around
the turn. Alrighty. Should we give it a go? Yes! Hey thanks, Ed for sharing. No worries.
Perfect. It can be difficult to learn how to ski so one video is maybe not enough, so its a good
idea to see a guy like Ed to really sort out your skiing and I think it would be great
if you would also try out skiing powder, for example, we've got some videos about that and
we've got a ton of videos about freestyle skiing over at our website https://www.stompittutorials.com where
we really bring beginner freestylers from knowing nothing to doing 360s, box slides
and much more. Stay tuned, subscribe and you will be notified when we drop the next video.