Does skiing really start from the feet? Here's my personal philosophy
Look at your mark, and your skis will follow...
It's a moment I will never forget. I was 14 years old and desperate to learn how to jump a 180 on skis. I could already ski switch smoothly then. So, I briefly asked my coach for tips. At that time, I was training every week with the junior racing team on an outdoor track called Yeti Ski in Anderlecht, Brussels. Not on real snow, but on plastic. An artificial ski track, in other words. There was a medium ramp in the middle of the slope.
Here's what my coach had to say: just take the jump with confidence and then look behind you, your skis will follow. Enthusiastic but also a bit nervous, I skied straight towards the ramp. I flexed my legs for a moment to get a nice pop out of my skis, braced myself for the jump, and as I whizzed through the air I turned my head to the left and glanced over my left shoulder. My skis turned 180 degrees in the air as if by themselves, and I felt the adrenaline rush through my blood as they found contact with the slope again. I had just jumped my first 180! And landed it too. I was stoked! Next stop: jumping a 360...
Some ski coaches insist that skiing should always start from the feet. Others say that skiing starts from the hip. Personally, I have a different philosophy. For me, skiing starts from your eyes.
It's as simple as anything: look at something and your skis will follow. Wanna ski short turns where your torso stays in the fall line? Focus on a point in the distance, start out right above that mark, and keep looking at it as you ski your short turns.
Want to jump a 360? Jump, and look over your shoulder, and keep looking until you see the landing again...
Wanna ski straight to the apres ski bar? Then focus your gaze on it, and let the skis do the rest…
Look up and over your shoulder throughout jumping a 360…
Where we focus our gaze as skiers is related to a concept called anticipation. The main property of anticipation is to provoke counter, a body position in which our body is positioned down at the end of a turn, while our skis are still turning underneath. This creates a rotation around the torso at the level of the spine. As a result, the torso is rotated opposite to the direction the skis are turning.Â
Through anticipation, you can radically reorient your skis if necessary when entering a new turn. When we aim to turn the skis quickly and aggressively at the beginning of a turn, we use a lot of anticipation right at the end of the turn.
The focus of our gaze has important implications for the behaviour of our skis. Anticipation plays a key role in this.
It has been scientifically proven that slalom skiers who have mastered anticipation race faster times. By constantly looking beyond just the next gate and setting their gaze ahead, their line improves, and their run becomes a more flowing one. Counter can further enhance the tilt of the whole ski, with the tail also becoming more performant and cutting more into the snow.
The majority of turns also benefit from a bit of counter to further pronate the outside foot.  Pronation is the tilting of the foot and is part of the natural movement that helps your lower leg absorb shocks. In overpronation, you tilt too much, in underpronation too little. Pronation directs pressure to the side of the big toe of the foot at your outside ski, and that's the point where we want our pressure to be. If you feel even the slightest counterpressure, you are already generating pronation.
Carving requires a big edge angle, thus also a lot of pronation. A large edge angle with a high amount of pronation challenges your lateral balance. Through counter, it becomes easier to control this dynamic balance.
Counter is always a dynamic movement, not a static posture. The moment when you have maximum counter usually occurs at the end of each turn.
How to functionally create counter? It starts from your gaze. It is a good, functional habit when race carving not to look at the point where your skis are currently facing at the end of each turn, but already at the spot where you want to manipulate the skis towards.
We don't ski from the feet, nor from the hip... We ski with our eyes.
Look at your mark and your skis will follow…
Totally agree. The body always follows the head ( eyes ) looking where you want to go. I find for most of my students this is all the rotation needed to start turning.