Fall Into The Turn - Page 2
By Todd Murchison, November 27, 2000

The trick with falling into the turn is learning to estimate exactly how much lean is necessary for any given turn. The faster you go and/or the tighter the turn – the further into the turn you must bank. Many intermediate and advanced skiers have found that they can make a crude parallel turn by adruptly twisting their skis sideways at the start of each turn, this allows them to not have to avoid some of the "falling" feeling. Unfortunately this results in a jerky turn, that does not function well in deep snow and also is very tiring.

Often even advanced skiers have a hard time allowing themselves to move far enough into the turn on the steeps. An expert knows that the steeps are where this movement is most essential to good skiing, at first though this is where it is terrifying to do. You have to give in to gravity, and let it pull you down the hill. The feeling may be scary at first, but later it becomes one of the greatest joys of skiing . . . the sensation of weightlessness for a moment followed by forces built up as you skis finish their arc under you.

Our bodies already know how to do this if you will trust them. When we walk we are essentially moving from one controlled fall into another. We let ourselves fall forward, then we catch ourselves with a foot and then smoothly move into the next controlled fall. On skis though we often suddenly forget this feeling and have regain trust in ourselves and the forces around us.

The scary truth is, to really get good at this you need to really fall a couple of times! You will never really know where the boundary is until you cross it, and if you don’t know where the boundary is you will always live in fear of it. The good news though is that snow is soft, we all fall when we are learning. Try turns of different speed and shape and find those boundaries.

Incidentally, everything I’ve said here is equally applicable to snowboarding, telemarking, monoskiing, dirt biking and even water skiing. Any sport where you are moving forward into turns requires a giving in to gravity.

Giving in to gravity is not giving up, it is the act of embracing gravity and allowing it to make things easier and more fun for you.

Todd Murchison is an Instructor and Instructor trainer, currently living in Vermont. He started giving into gravity after years of fighting it . . . and losing.

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