How to Ski - What you need to know for your first day || REI

I'm robbing barns with the professional ski instructors of America Alpine team maybe your beginner skier or maybe you've decided it's time to learn in any case I'm teamed up here with REI to share some tips with you on how to make it the best experience possible here's how to ski first you're gonna need to know how to put your gear on we've made a video for that check out the link below for the way to do that in the most easy way possible beyond that we're gonna start to cover things like your basic stance you want to have while you're sliding on your skis and linking some wedge turns right now I'd like to talk about the stance you want to have while your skis are sliding down the hill essentially if you stand with your feet just a comfortable width apart weight is equal on both feet and just give yourself a little jump in the air just a small little jump up position that you land in is a pretty great skier since my shins are tilted forward this meeting my ankles are flexed my arms are forward and out to the side so I can use them to help me balance similar to if I was gonna walk across a log over a stream I'd want to carry my arms wide like this to help me with balance that position boom shoulders a little bit in front of my hips that's how I want to ski down the hill so if I click into my skis again repeat that little jump shins forward hands out shoulders in front of my hips I'm good to go one of the first things you're gonna want to master while you're learning how to ski is making a wedge basically that means making a triangle shape with your skis as we do that we just want to let our legs open up as we turn our toes in again to form a triangle shape the bigger my triangle the slower I'm gonna go so it's gonna be important to practice kind of a smallish triangle as well as the biggest triangle one way I like to do it again is just to jump up legs open up toes turn in do that from the side again my same basic stance but in a triangle if I put my skis on I'm gonna let my legs open up my knees relaxed out to the side and the toes turn in making a triangle shape with my skis and again if I just make a little bit of a triangle I'll just control my skis and glide down the slope if I open a little bit bigger into a bigger triangle I'll actually stop myself a braking wedge it's called so if I slide up here to the top of the hill get myself in a great basic stance as I slide straight little-by-little nice and patiently I slide my skis open into a triangle or what we call a wedge don't be afraid to do this a bunch of times mastering this wedge is really gonna build you up for success later on once you feel comfortable moving around on the flats and your basic stance and making a wedge now it's time to up the ante a little bit and figure out how to climb up the hill and come down a little bit more of a slope so let's figure out how to do that together one way to climb up the hill is to do what's called sidestepping in order to sidestep I've got to keep my skis parallel and take small steps making sure they always stay sideways to the hill keeping that bottom ski tipped up on its side instead of on the bottom is gonna help me dig the edge of the ski in so I can push off of it and take nice small steps to get up the hill so as I'm slide stepping up the hill you can see the skinny little lines that my skis leave in the snow that tells me that my skis on its side and not flat on the bottom part that'll get me up the hill every single time another way to walk up the hill which is my favorite is what's called herring boning and with a herring bone I basically put my skis in a reverse triangle or reverse wedge position fronts of my skis are splayed way open and my legs are nice and wide open I'll let my knees just kind of relax let my knees relax towards the inside so I can kind of use the edges of my skis a little bit to help me push up the hill in order to do that I've got to face up the hill again as I herring bone or a duck walk some people call it you can see the skinny little lines from the edges of my skis as they sort of dig into the snow so I feel like this slope is pretty good it's just a little bit steeper than where I was gliding down practicing my first wedges this is just a little bit steeper but first of all I got to get myself turned around so that I'm in balance before I even start in order to do that teeny little steps take your time take a thousand steps versus taking only a few steps and risk tripping yourself up little teeny steps once you get yourself about across the hill go ahead and put yourself in a triangle as you continue to step your skis around that way before you even start to slide you're in balance you're in a triangle give yourself a little push again that basic stance opening up your skis into a triangle as you slide when it's time to stop go ahead and increase the size of your triangle just a little bit so again the tendency is to walk up the hill too high as you're climbing up here make sure you take little small steps so that each time you come down you feel like you're in balance as you keep practicing this over and over and over again make sure you feel really comfortable before you move on to the next step we know how to move around on the flats climb up the hill make a wedge going straight our next task is to figure out how to change direction so we're gonna get ourselves pointed down the hill a little bit of a triangle not so big necessarily and it's gonna steer my skis over to one side keeping in a triangle the entire time I basically use the movement of turning my thighs turning my legs twisting my legs to steer my wedge over to one side similarly to how you might steer your car throughout a turn or steer a bicycle throughout a turn it's the same concept but I've got to use this twisting movement of my thigh and legs and feet do you get the triangle to turn over to one side it's okay as you're making a direction change to allow a little bit more weight to go to one ski but mostly we want to concentrate on turn the legs turn the legs steer the skis a little bit more weight maybe so from turning to the right it's okay to have a teeny bit more weight on my left ski from turning to the left it's okay to have a teeny bit more weight on the right ski but I don't want to worry about having big movement side to side with my body stay balanced steer your skis by turning your legs here's what it looks like again a little bit of a triangle nice basic balance stance use my legs to twist my skis over to the side steer that triangle a little teeny bit more weight on that left ski there's a direction change for you gang really important to try that don't worry about making a really huge turn just a little deviation from a straight line is a great place to start practice it to the right of munch practice it to the left a bunch keep climbing up again get really good at this all right so here's what it looks like to make a turn to the left a bit of a triangle twist those legs to steer those skis little teeny bit more weight on this right ski boom now is when it really starts to become fun we're gonna try to link together some wedge turns so while I'm doing that I'm gonna let my skis I'm gonna steer them over to one side and then kind of take a second and being almost a neutral stance gliding straight for a little bit before I start to twist and steer my skis back to the other side again what's important is not being in a hurry not trying to make really sharp turns and staying in the triangle looks something like this again making sure I'm in a triangle great basic stance steer my skis by twisting my legs neutral spot again making sure I'm in a triangle twist my legs steer my triangle over to the side teeny bit more weight on this left ski back into a neutral position again start to twist my legs in the opposite direction a little bit more weight on this right ski keep my basic stance with my shins tilted forwards and each time I want to make a turn I'm patient twist both legs to steer my way to steer that triangle feel those skis just gliding over the snow if you need to slow down a little bit just scoop that turn a little bit more up the hill linking wedge turns that's skiing and that's fun with those skills you have right now of being able to control your speed by making wedge turns you're gonna be able to ski on any green run any place in the world any mountain take note as I was making those turns I was letting my skis come across the hill to control my speed and not making a big triangle keep that in mind as you practice and practice and practice you can't do enough of those the more you practice the better right you'll get and the more fun you're gonna have the professional ski instructors of America and REI hope you come out and take a lesson look forward to seeing you out there

Channel: REI

Views: 781,221

Rating: 4.9095411 out of 5

Keywords: rei, outdoors, sporting goods, adventure, skiing, snowsports, how to ski, skiing how to, beginner skiing, skiing for beginners, ski technique, how to start skiing, beginner ski technique, skiing technique, alpine skiing, snow skiing

Id: n-UBie4Ioqo

Length: 9min 31sec (571 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 28 2019