An Introduction to Skiing Couloirs: WSSA Ski Techniques and Tactics

So for a lot of people, a lot of skiers, it's a big challenge to try and ski a couloir. A couloir is quite interesting because it really relies on tactics and also technique. We're going to look down here, this is rock and roll couloir in Verbier. As you can see it's quite a steep entrance and a narrow entrance so you've got to be on your game but also it goes into a right hand turn to a much longer couloir. We're going to look at a few areas where you'll get some ideas that will help you if you're in this situation. If you're not sure about the entrance going into couloirs always use as a backup a side slip. You might not use it on your second run but for your first run it could help you avoid things like that skiing over rocks like I just did. Side slipping gives you that approach where you're not going to trip over your edges. Ski it with caution if it's your first time. Once again if you've got to make that turn coming into these environments try and think about tactics that will give you confidence. You know you're only in the very first part of the run. It might be that you come in and you step that ski out and it gets you around a difficult section. So if you get yourself into the guts of the couloir it's very important to think of your technique and how you're skiing it. Remember you can use a pivot turn, you can use a jump turn, you can just use a standard turn as long as it's not getting too fast going down these gradients. So you can see here entry into the couloir, do it with caution. Don't take a risk of charging in, ruin the whole run. You can see there a mix between side slipping and jump turns just to secure that entrance. That's the most important thing to get right at the start of the run. The other thing you can think about also is having a breather from a tactical point of view. If I was taking one of my clients down here I know that there'll be a little bit of anxiety coming into this. They'll be working hard to try and keep in a narrow corridor and I might well use that bank. You can see Ruri from our team over there standing up on it. So going down here just thinking about this side slipping if you need to side slip. Step turn if you need to step turn to get yourself in the guts of it. It might be that you're putting your pivot turn just here and rotate it around and it might be on the ice that you're working a jump turn or two just to get yourself and your confidence level up. As you're coming around it might be that you head across here, take your breather, energies back up, press reset and you're back into the couloir. And as you're skiing it down remember keep the pole plant active. Keep it working for you. Look at the pole plant kick in. Pole plant really helps him with the jump turn. As he comes through pole plant left hand, pole plant right hand, boom. Every time pressing reset on the speed control. Shaving it off. Also remember there's ice underfoot here. As you come through you can really see the body working. All those basic tactics and technique coming into play. So there you can see rock and roll couloir. It is steep but it definitely forces you in to a corridor and you've got to be on your game with your pole plant, core activation. You've also got to be working on your angles to make sure the edges grip and you don't want to be letting the upper body rotate with you around the turn. So make sure your foundation is strong. From a tactics point of view there you can see that we used a little bit of speed control. We scraped off the speed when we heard that ice underfoot. We didn't want to rush into it, take any risk. On our entrance we also used that side slip technique as well. And a step turn in there. As you can see on some of the turns being made a really solid pole plant enabled the body to get off the ground and make that jump turn as well.