Why your inside leg is the engineer of your turns
High-level skiing is all about active execution with the inside leg...
“You ski ON your outside ski, but you ski WITH your inside ski...”
The quote above doesn't come from me, but from the Italian Maestro di Sci Valerio Malfato. And he’s definitely onto something here…
Personally, I think high-level skiing is all about active execution with the inside leg. I like to focus on the inside half of my body doing the most important movements.
Best-selling ski author Harald Harb was the first to present this vision on skiing in his books 'Anyone can be an expert skier' and 'Essentials of skiing'. During my time in Japan I met many skilled Japanese demo skiers who were also experimenting with it.
Let me elaborate on how this works. The outside ski is of course still the dominant balancing foot, but from your inside foot you are going to shape the curve of your turn. By flexing the inside leg from the knee joint and rolling the inside foot further in, you can easily start to manipulate the edge angle of your skis.
Here's how I like to phrase this: the outside leg is your stabilizer, your inside leg the manipulator. The inside leg is always in control: it determines the radius of your turns with its amplitude. Are you flexing the inside leg deeply and actively? Then your skis will turn shorter and sharper.
By consistently unloading the inside ski, you create bigger edge angles on every turn. So to move from apex to apex for each turn, we have to work mainly with the inside leg.
The balance should always be mainly on the outside ski (so work on your counterbalance and a progressive, natural angulation there too) but the inside ski should remain light. Light as a feather…
In a nutshell:
Outside leg = stabilizer.
Inside leg = manipulator.
Enjoy shredding!
