Welcome to King Pine Video Quick Tips

From getting your winter legs back to how to get a better edge, we'll cover topics that will improve your skills.

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Here are a few additional thoughts and helpful tips from Ski School Director, Craig Niiler:

Each season as we slide our boots on and click in to our skis for the first few times out there is always the challenge of reconnecting with our equipment and remembering what felt so natural when we took our last turns in the spring.

Here are my favorite three skiing drills and tasks that help to reacquaint us with the dynamic balance and movements required to really feel in synch with your skis.

Have you heard of the Hustle?

It’s a dance. Well this skiing task is called The Shuffle. It is somewhat like a dance where it requires constant movement, and you gotta just do it and feel it, no matter how silly it looks. As you stand on the hill begin by simply sliding both feet back and forth like cross country skiing or … well, shuffling. On easy terrain, try to continuously shuffle while skiing through some medium radius turns. It’s not as easy at it sounds. If you find difficulty keeping your groove on during certain parts of each turn, that is an indicator that you are out of balance at that place, usually your hips and core get “stuck” behind your feet, fix this by moving your belly button forward with your skis and towards the inside of your next turn.  To really unlock your body’s ability to balance with your skis more movement and constant movement is the key. So follow the advice of Mark Twain “Dance like no one is watching…”

To wake up those stiff, static legs, constant stepping is a task that enhances flexing and extending of both inside and outside legs. As with the shuffle, constant motions is the key here and and stepping stoppage is an indicator that your out of balance at that moment.

On easy terrain, make those same medium radius turns and step from foot to foot constantly while turning. This helps us to figure out how to ski on either foot at any point in a turn, and it requires once again that we use our ankles and knees to flex and extend our legs, while keeping our hips and belly button (core) moving with our skis.  This drill asks a lot of the muscles in our lower leg, so a bit of calf soreness is a good sign…really!

Elephant Hops are the granddaddy of skiing drills. Park Rats and Racers alike will benefit from the type of movement and accuracy required to perform this task.

Elephant hops are a series of connected extension hops where a skier hops and turns their skis from side to side while keeping the upper body stable and facing down the hill. This drill requires dramatic flexing and extending of your legs, challenging and expanding a your range of motion, it also demands a calm and stable upper body, which is facilitated by an accurate pole plant.

It all comes together when you can develop and energetic hopping and twisting rhythm with your legs, stabilize you upper body with a pole plant, and keep your core area (think belly button) moving down the hill at all times.

Hope to see you on the snow!~