Kick Turns are an important way of being able to change direction whilst ascending on ski-touring or split boarding gear. They are great fun and they will allow you to explore more difficult terrain. I absolutely love this topic, so I'm going to break down Kick Turns step by step, as well as give you a few different techniques which are applicable to different scenarios. And I'll also cover some of the common mistakes. Now, firstly, I recommend that you do not kick until you have to. If the slope is not too steep to step your turns around gradually, stepping your turns around gradually is more energy efficient. So to be honest, kick turns are a pretty challenging uphill, twisty lunge maneuver, and learning them is a risk to your knees. Be honest with yourself about your ability and your flexibility. Take it easy and be aware that your skis are locked into touring mode and won't come off in a fall. Don't go falling over in a twist because you can definitely tweak a ligament and make sure that you're warmed up and stretched out before you get started. That said, if you are aware of the risks and you are willing to give them a go. Here's my step by step breakdown of solid kick turns. Step one is to make a solid platform with your bottom ski. Step two is to twist the upper body to face up the hill and to plant the pole. So my up-hill pole goes just by the tail of my uphill ski and my downhill pole goes here. Now, step three is to step the top leg around. Now I'm going to bring it forwards and then windscreen wiper it around so it faces in the other direction. Step four is to correct the tail. Very often this tail is going to be on top of your downhill ski, so you can use the basket of your pole to correct the tail. Make sure that it is not on top of your other ski. Step five is to check your stance width. Now, the closer together that your feet are, the less effort the turn is going to be, but the more flexible you need to be in order to achieve that, the further apart your stance, the more effort it's going to be. It's going to be a much bigger uphill lunge. If you've got the flexibility, then a closer stance width is going to make the turn less effort. Step seven is to replant this pole. So I'm going to bring it around up and over and plant it high up the slope. So it's out of the way of my skis. Make sure, you stomp your uphill ski into a solid platform, and then step eight is to transfer the weight onto the uphill ski and to kick the tail of the downhill ski away from you, allowing you to easily bring it round. And then step number nine, step forward, carry on and enjoy your day There are a few different techniques which are relevant to people of different levels of flexibility to different gradients of how steep the slope you're on is, and also to the size of the skis that you're using. Now, the main way that the kick turn varies for people is to do with the first step. Now, the windscreen wiper method can be a little bit more physically demanding and it's a bit more demanding on your flexibility. A slightly easier way is when you step the top ski instead of bringing it forward and around. You actually start by bringing it backwards and down, and then you can bring it up here. Now, this normally is going to take a little bit more correcting with the basket of the pole in order to bring it into the right position. And then once you've done that, you can step round and carry on. Now, the advantage of this method is that it's actually a bit less effort to take the first step backwards and around that way. Than it is to take the first step forwards and windscreen wipe it round. Now, if you've got shorter skis or you're a split boarder, for example, you might find it easier to do more of a 90 degree kick turn. To do this, you plant your first foot pointing a bit more diagonally up the hill and then your second step is more of a 90 degree turn. Now this is more difficult for longer skis because your stance width must be at least a tail's length away. But if you have shorter skis, you can do a 90 degree turn, can transfer the weight and bring the top ski in. As you can see, this certainly doesn't work for me very well. And you'll also find that it's quite limiting on how steep the slope you can be on is, because as you get to steeper terrain, you're going to need to stomp the downhill ski more horizontally across the slope to avoid it slipping away. If you're doing a 90 degree turn, then you're going to be going directly up the hill and that's just not going to work very well. And then finally, skiers, who are maybe a bit more athletic and powerful and in more of a hurry might just go for a bigger lunge, spend less time faffing correcting the tail and just get it done. So these types of turns that we've discussed so far in this video, we have been making our turn whilst facing up the hill. Sometimes you might find it a bit easier to make your turn whilst facing down the hill. Perhaps it's a particularly steep slope, for example. So make sure you get your skis horizontal across the slope and we're just going to do the same in reverse whilst facing down the valley. And then we can carry on up. So I'm going to give you four common mistakes to watch out for. First one is to do with your poles. If you don't get your poles in the right place, then they can get in the way and block you as you're trying to do your turn. So make sure that you correctly place your poles so that they are out of the way of your skis, allowing you to do the turn without them getting in the way. Now, the second common mistake is to not make a sufficiently solid platform with your bottom ski, and that will move when you try to take your step. Sometimes you might not stomp it correctly, or you might put it pointing a bit too far up the hill, and then it's going to slip away from you whilst you're trying to do your turn and leave you in a pretty awkward situation. That said, it's also important to make sure that you stomp the top ski before you transfer your weight onto that one, because we don't want this ski to start sliding away when we're in this position, because you can also get yourself into a bit of a tangle And the fourth common mistake is to get the tip of your ski stuck in the snow when you're taking the step. So if this happens, this ski can get stuck here and be very difficult to bring it round and you can get into a pickle if this is not a very stable platform to be standing on. If this does happen, you can bring the ski back, let the tail drop away, you can kick the tail away if you want to, and then the ski will pivot round nicely. So that's some of my tips for kick turns. I'm aware that my demos are not perfect and certain things may work for certain people. You might have different ideas about what is more efficient or what suits more flexible or less flexible skiers. If you do, please put them in the comments so we can have a read below as there are no black and white, right or wrongs with these techniques. But I hope these tips to help you to develop your kick turn and to apply certain techniques to certain scenarios. And that doing so allows you to explore more difficult terrain and to reap the rewards that comes with it.
