Interview with antoine bouvier
Today I'm going to give you some tips and advice to help you progress and improve your skiing experience.
How do you turn better when skiing?
Are you sure of your skiing level and having the right techniques? To found out, Antoine Bouvier, Wedze product engineer and ski and snowboard instructor, explains how to turn well to progress in skiing.
Antoine's tips on video for turning and progressing
1/ The basics: the snowplough
You all know the snowplough? This consists ofconverging yours skis together, with the tips touching and the tails wide apart. The snowploughallows you to brake and control your speed wehn you start learning to ski, and thusevolve safely, and safe for the others too!Start the snowplough in a straight line, to feel the feeling of sliding and control. Then, still in a straight line, try to open "open" and "close" your snowplough successively.By"openingt" your snowplough more, you will slow down.By "closing" your snowplough, you will accelerate.
2/ The snowplough turn
Once you have mastered the direct line snowplough, you will be able to go on to the snowplough turn.
It's very simple: in the snowplough position, look far ahead, initiate your turn and transfer the weight of your body to the outside ski, staying in line with your skis.Naturally the skis will pivot in the direction you want to go.
3/ The parallel ski turn
The following objective will be to turn withboth skis parallel.
To do this, trigger your snowplough turn in the same way, by tilting your body weight on the outside ski. Once you have initiated the turn (when your skis come back across the slope), bring the upstream ski parallel to the downstream ski. Try to do this as early as possible in the turn, until you make a 100% parallel ski turn, from the beginning to the end of the turn.
4/ Vertical movement and planting the pole
To continue to progress, you need to integrate planting the pole in to your turn. At the end of your turn, plant your downstream pole below you, inside your future turn, and start your turn by turning around your pole.This will facilitate lateral balancing and give rhythm to your skiing.
After this, you will combine planting your pole with a vertical movement: bend your knees gradually as you drive into your turn. At the start of your next turn, stand up straighter briefly at the same time as the planting your pole. By doing this it will lighten and promote the pivoting of your skis.
5/ The skidded turn vs the carve turn
The carved turn is the logical evolution to skidded turn. On a gentle slope, at the start of your turn, put your two skis on their edges, via a lateral inclination towards the inside of the turn.Then simply let yourself be driven by the radius of your skis!
Finally, toincrease intensity of your carved turn, strengthen the vertical movement and the lateral tilt, vary the radius of your turns, to make your skiing more dynamic.
Skidded turn
Carved turn
Good to know
The notions that we have just mentioned for skidded turns and carved turns can also be used for snowboarding.
Nothing beats a great slope to test yourself and assess your level. So get started, and experience your skiing sensations to the full!
Antoine bouvier
Wedze product engineer and ski instructor
