Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 107
groomed hard-pack ice
powder crud
bumps
---common snow conditions---
---Notice that some snows make a clean slate to see tracks;
and witness that steep powder is skidded, not carved
---All good snow is pure white, even green snow.
In a snow storm or extremely flat light,
all snow conditions are something you might have to feel more than see.
Hi-lite this next sentence with a yellow marker:
CAUTION: Stay away from yellow snow.
. . . Now, finally, let's look at the third primary variable for
defining comfort zone, the task or turn you opt for on a particular
slope in a particular snow condition. Being more the how side of
skiing, the task is the most misunderstood and overused variable of
the three. (And, lately, turning has also become a quite-abused
variable, with the innocent students not aware of it.) The prerequi-
site for skiing ten sharp rhythmically linked S-turns . . . is doing one
long C-shaped turn well-finished; generally the prerequisite for
skiing fast is skiing slow; and, further, the prerequisite for skiing
parallel is skiing with converging ski-tips in a wedge. Starting a
turn with a stem, or half-a-wedge, on long skis in heavy crud on an
advanced run is not to be confused with a full wedge on short skis
on bunny-hill hard-pack. One of the great things about not getting
stuck parallel all the time . . . is that stemming a ski promotes inde-
pendent-leg action, which is never a bad idea and often a good
one. (---With the advent of double-easy half-radius 'shaped skis,'
108 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
PSIA has put a stigma on stemming and lost too much of its inde-
pendent-leg action in an effort to make the turning twice-the-radius
again and therefore double-difficult. What they've done with many
"Official" ski techniques is the equivalent to telling people to walk
by hopping instead of using one leg and then the other.)
Unfortunately, many skiers and some teachers feel there is
only one way to ski each classic condition---this is a main misun-
derstanding. Actually, there is only one way to ski: be yourself, ski
at your own level concerning slope, snow, and task, and you will
progress as a skier. And, remember: we turn left so that we can
turn right; we turn right so that we can turn left; and we are here to
ski down mountains, not across them. And realize, the less you
know, the more you might be capable of taking things out of con-
text: about the time you think you've got it figured out, we good ski
instructors can throw another cog-wheel in the system and turn
things around the other way again. It's dangerous to think that
everything's always in black-n-white, because there's also white-n-
black, and there are a lot of grays (---instructors who don't like
laying the truth all out on the table are yellow). One thing I want to
get across in this book: it's a good idea to have a plan for learning
things in the order of difficulty, with hardly any problems; the
minute you try to learn too much too soon, that's when you will
have problems and confusion (---throw an inexperienced ski in-
structor in to the mix, or an old Yes-Man who plays the politics,
and the student can really have problems . . . and never reach their
full potential).
I have to admit on of my biggest pet peeves is when a student
on the chair-lift witnesses what they consider to be "a good skier
with his feet together," usually on intermediate hard-pack: that
skier is almost restricted to intermediate hard-pack because he
knows he'll fall down on the steep, on the flat, on the ice, and in the
moguls---we might as well all go to Deer Valley and put ketchup
on our steaks. Further, skiers with their feet locked together usu-
ally cannot do much other than a medium-radius turn: their big
turns are often nothing more than medium turns with traverses in
between, and then the tight little turns required to make more turns
from A to B mean a functional spreading of the feet, which their
ego won't allow. (Okay, this sad Stein Erickson Syndrome was
more common for decades up to the late 1990s, but it's still too
common. Now, in 2010, while more skiers may have their feet a bit
more apart, they still have a dysfunctional problem of not getting
the message of independent-leg action: they still ski too fast with
Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 109
medium to large turns on intermediate hard-pack and try to carve
when it's not feasible anymore on the steeper parts---and, worse,
they're told to carve on two skis equally rather than on one efficient
one,---so they end up doing a big mediocre skid, rather than
something that will teach them rhythmic speed control for the
steep-n-narrow.) This high percentage of folks who only have one-
size turn in their repertoire and whose speed is affected more by
the steepness than by their own decision-making are victims of not
knowing what all their options are (---now it's as if a lot of people
think they are only allowed to do the radius-number stamped on
their 'shaped skis.'). They haven't been getting all the nutrients
they need in their ski diet, and this is the reason I offer about
twelve tasks for the beginner, twelve tasks for the intermediates,
and about twenty-four tasks for advanced skiers---that's a good
variety of about forty-eight tasks to master from beginner to expert.
. . . Okay, we've got our plan for staying in our comfort-zone:
we've got our three main slope classifications; we've got our five
most-common snow conditions; and, in the next chapter, we will
delve into each of the tasks in four-dozen common possible tasks
or turns we need