Parallel Skiing 101 - 4 Drills for Parallel Turns

Every year, around the world, hundreds of thousands of humans attempt to learn to parallel ski. And every year, many of these people make the same old common mistakes. So, if you would like to learn how to make parallel turns on skis, this video is designed to upgrade your understanding so that you have a much better chance of success next time you're out on the slopes. My name's George. I'm a British Level 4 ski instructor based in the European Alps. I've spent 10 years teaching thousands of people how to parallel ski all around the world, but now I'm here in my favourite ski area of all. I've come to the perfect place to learn to parallel ski and condense all the key info into a video tutorial so you can get the best possible head start before your next time on the slopes. So, in this video, I'm going to give you four key insights as well as my four best exercises which help people to learn to parallel ski. Number one, BOTSFOS. And this stands for Balance on the Outer Ski. And the F is there for emphasis. The reason the F is there for emphasis is because this is the most repeated thing that ski instructors have to say again and again and again when teaching people to parallel ski. So, please listen carefully. When making parallel turns, we pretty much balance on one leg at a time. Watch this video of a parallel turn to make sure you understand which is the outer ski. The outer ski is the one furthest away from the centre of the turn. If you want to turn right, balance on your left ski. If you want to turn left, balance on your right ski. If you want to progress from snowplough to parallel turns, you're going to need to be able to take your body weight off the inner ski. So, please take my word for it and balance on the outer ski whilst turning. Too much body weight on the inner ski will result in the awkward inner ski syndrome which is the most common hurdle beginners face on their pathway to parallel skiing. And I'll explain this in depth in another tutorial. Number two is don't lean back. This is the second most repeated thing that ski instructors have to remind their students. If you lean back, it's much more difficult. So, make sure you're balancing over the middle of your skis. Us humans have not evolved with sliding planks attached to the ends of our legs and it is absolutely natural to lean back when they start sliding away from us down a slope. You might feel safer leaning back, but trust me, in order to have control of these skis, you need to balance your body on top of them and not lean back. So, in order to avoid your centre of mass falling behind your feet whilst you're skiing, we need to flex the ankles and push the shins forward into the front of the boots. It's almost like we're trying to get our knees above our toes. You also just try and keep your hands out in front. Keep a little bit of suspension, a little bit of flex at your ankles, your knees and your hips. So, the ideal posture when you see a skier from side on is a sort of zigzag shape, a bit like a lightning bolt. So, you go shin, femur, spine and the spine and the shins are roughly parallel with each other. The thing we want to try and avoid is having the calf muscle squished in the back of the boot because no matter how much you try and lean forwards, if you've got your calf muscles in the back of the boot, you're always going to be in a back seat position. If your body weight is perpendicular to your skis, it is much easier to pivot and turn them in parallel. So, the third thing to be aware of when learning to parallel ski is to think about which way the edges are tilted. Now, we give the edges names to help people understand what we're talking about. So, we've got the big toe edge, which is the edge nearest to your big toe and we've got the little toe edge, which is the edge nearest to your little toe. It's these edges we use to slow down by scraping them across the snow. The key difference between snowplough and parallel lies in which edges you are using. Some people like to remember the motto, big toe, little toe, in order to make parallel turns. So, when we're leaning our skis in the same direction and making parallel turns, this results in the outer ski being balanced on the big toe edge and the inner ski being balanced on the little toe edge, as opposed to the skis being both on the big toe edge like they are when you're making a snowplough. Don't forget, however, you are balancing on the big toe and unweighting the little toe. The fourth thing which helps humans to learn to parallel ski is having a little bit of up and down movement throughout the turn. Making a bit of an up and forward movement at the start of the turn helps to change the weight from the old outer ski to the new outer ski. Then, flexing down onto that outer ski as you go around the turn helps to absorb the forces and make for a smoother ride. So, you can think up to the middle, down on the left ski. Up to the middle, down on the right ski. Up to the middle, down on the left ski. Repeat. Have fun. Okay, so now you have got the four key concepts which help humans to learn to parallel ski, now I'm going to give you the four best exercises which help you to master them. Number one, lifting one ski. This is probably the most effective drill in skiing. In order to botfoss, you need to spend some time practicing lifting the inner ski off the floor. You can start this while standing still. Then, have a go at lifting the inner ski whilst traversing across gentle terrain. Don't worry if you can only hop it up briefly at first, just keep trying. Then you can incorporate this into some turns. First, lifting the uphill ski whilst traversing. Then finally, you can see if you can lift the inner ski as you go around the turn. If you can do this, then parallel skiing will be much easier. Number two, side slipping. Not only is this a safe and slow way to get down if ever you're in tricky situations, but also tilting both skis in the same direction and scraping the edges across the snow is going to help you to crack your parallel turns. Practicing your side slipping at first is going to be pretty frustrating and awkward and kind of scary, but stick with it because the time you spend on this is going to really accelerate your learning curve through beginner to parallel skiing. To practice side slipping, you do need a bit of gradient to the slope. If it's flat, it's actually really difficult. You want something that's a little bit steeper. You're going to be tempted to put your poles in the snow. I've only got one because the camera's on the other. You're going to be really tempted to put your poles in the snow, but try not to because if you slide one ski into your pole, then it's going to trip you up and you'll go down. Keep your poles out of the way. Put your balance and your body weight on the bottom ski. When you want to slide, you're going to just flatten the skis a little bit. Then when you want to stop, you're going to lean them both in the same direction. The most common mistake when you're learning to side slip is this top ski is going to try and go into a snowplow, but do not let it. Make sure both skis are tilting in the same direction. Flatten the skis slightly and then slide. Then both skis in the same direction when you want to stop. Practice this because it's a super important skill and it will help you to parallel turn. Sometimes going across the piece diagonally with little half turns gives learners a feel for using the edges together. Make sure you check up the slope to ensure it is clear first. Then you traverse across the piece and incorporate these half turns so that you head down the slope diagonally. This helps you to take your new side slipping skills and start applying them into making some big toe, little toe parallel turns. The fourth challenge that I find helps people to crack their parallel turns is to try and make some hockey stops. In order to make a parallel stop, you probably need to make a sort of J-shaped turn where you actually go past 90 degrees. Balance on the big toe edge of the bottom ski and scrape it across the snow. Take the weight off the inner ski, but have it tilted onto the little toe edge. These hockey stops are actually more difficult to do than full parallel turns, so practicing them will really help you to progress. Okay, so there you have four key concepts for parallel skiing and the four best exercises to help you get there. I hope that's useful. I've got loads more tutorials helping beginner and intermediate skiers to become advanced. So check them out, take it easy, have fun and enjoy the view.