How to Ski Powder | 3 Common Mistakes & How to Fix Them

Hey guys, we're out in the backcountry in Laax today and we're gonna teach you how to correct the three most common mistakes people do when skiing powder. This is important because if you correct them you can have a wicked time skiing. You'll be slashing things, skiing fast, slash more things, jump off some stuff, yeah. But before you do that make sure you check the avalanche bulletin and have the correct avalanche safety equipment. So let's get started. Common mistake number one, leaning back too much. This is quite a problem because you are gonna drain your energy and your fun because it's really exhausting skiing like this or like this. What you want to do, string yourself up and then relax down in the ski boots. This is a nice position to ski powder. So what I want to show you now is if you're leaning back the ski is gonna really sink down at the tail and it's really hard to turn with the tail in the snow. That's one of the reasons why it's so important to have a good position, bring the weight forward between the turns because then the tail is going to come out of the snow and you can then easily skid around. That makes sense right? So to fix this problem of having the tails in the snow my favorite exercise to do is to find a nice mellow pitch where you can try the pumping drill. So what you would do is bend a little bit by the ankles, knees and hip down and then you come up and pump again and then you'll rebound off the bottom of the snowpack, come up and then you can more easily turn on top of the snow. There's another reason why you may be leaning back when skiing powder and it can be because you're skiing too slow. When you're slow you sink. Think about water skiing, you need speed to float on top of the snow as well and if you're skiing really fast the snow acts almost like a normal slope so you can use basically the same technique you're using when you're just carving down a slope. The last reason you may be leaning back too much when skiing powder could be because you have unsuitable skis and I use this as the last reason because it's probably not the skis fault because a skier with good technique can ski on most gear but it's not so fun if you're skiing on center mountain park skis they just submarine into the snow, some carving skis also not so fun. So the kind of skis I would recommend for you is a rocket ski maybe somewhere between 95 to 110 millimeters under the foot. What I'm saying that is this ski for example is 120 and it's pretty difficult to handle for beginner to intermediate skiers. You've got to be a pretty strong skier and the rocker is this. You see how the skis are having the nose starts already here and then goes up and it helps the skis float and also drift around easier in the turns. So I really recommend this kind of skis when you want to get into powder skiing. Common mistake number three is that you finish a turn. Let's imagine I finish it now and you keep looking up the hill. This is a common mistake and it can often be due to a lack of core strength. So tighten that stomach, stay nice and steady and project the upper body rather down the hill than ever going across the skis and up it because then the tails can get stuck and you fall with head down the mountain. All right over rotation with a crash there you go and then you go and that wasn't such a good thing like well honestly some people do over rotate that badly and it does lead to crashes so you gotta fix it. To fix this rotation problem keep a firm core, try to keep both your hands in the front, try to never drop a hand behind you because that could set off a rotation that you don't want. Try to keep them here nice in the front where you can see them. Do this for a whole run and once you've got it down I think you could start trying some pole plants. The pole plant also helps you to counteract this over rotation movement by projecting your body down the mountain on a small flick of the wrist. It's all you need. Common mistake number three is skiing with your feet too wide. This is a problem because you so easily can put too much weight on one ski then you can sink down and then the snow grabs the foot in the ski and pulls it back and it can spin you around into a crash. But this is luckily a pretty simple thing to fix. First you can look at your own tracks, see how wide they are looking and then you can bring them together so you make just one track in the snow and see how this feels. Maybe it feels better for you. And the second fix for this is that you exaggerate this a lot for a whole run. You put the skis extremely close together, try to keep them there for the whole run and the point of this is that then when you do the next run you relax again. You're hopefully having your feet slightly closer than you had before. My favorite way of fixing this problem is I put on some 1980s music, go send it, feet close and just smash it. Hey thank you for watching, you know give it a like or subscribe if you want to, you know. And if learning from a video is not enough for you, I also host camps for adults where we mostly practice freestyle skiing. But if there's powder we also tend to go freeriding a bit and basically do a couple of them every year. And last part, check out this playlist here where we have our best powder skiing tutorials. See you next time, ciao. I'm gonna do some turns now.