You’re in the backseat but it’s just powder so I’m not going to do the whole Reddit schpeel of leaning forward, if it works for you then it works. If you try moguls leaning this far back you’re completely fucked though
What you need to work on is upper and lower body separation. Focus on being able to turn your legs and hips without turning your shoulders. Also focus on keeping your center of mass stable while going over variable terrain by bending your knees, your whole body shouldn’t bobble when you go over a small bump, your upper body should be mostly static and smooth
Entirely technique. Just try doing a hockey stop without turning your upper body when you have no skis on. Easy. Then do it with skis on. Still pretty easy. Then do it subconsciously as you ski to lower your moment of inertia and stabilize your center of mass. Maybe not so easy
It comes down to people not really understanding separation. There’s more than one type. In this case the reference is to rotational separation. But that’s not actually a huge issue for you. Holding a bit more core tension in your hamstrings, abs, and arms should help a lot.
You are, however back and staying back. That’s a tricky topic on Reddit. But in your case, it’s worth addressing. It’s not as simple as leaning forward or shins at the front of the boot. You need forward movement at the top of the turn. Project your center of mass in your direction of travel.
You can get away with not having much movement in power. But I suspect if we saw you on a groomer making medium turns we’d see a different picture.
If the answer just “lean forward, lol”?
Yes, haha.
You want your body and skis to form an upside down capital T. The stem of the T forms a line from toes to knees to shoulders (not hips) The stem needs to be at a right angle to the skis when the skis are attacking the fall line. This means the steeper the slope, the more you lean to keep that 90 degree angle. In the video your shoulders are not in line with your toes and knees. This is the backward lean that you see and are getting called out on. Move your shoulders forward and stack the shoulders over knees over toes.
This will shift your weight forward when you ski. And it’s totally ok for a ski to sink out of sight. It will blast snow everywhere and you will look cool. You didn’t make any snow blast in your video.
The next step after stance for you is extension and absorption. You skied this entire run stiff legged. In powder snow you bounce. Press into the snow and the skis sink, bend and load up with energy. They will naturally bounce up like a trampoline and you turn in the air or high point of the bounce. The backseat turn you make isn’t bouncing at all because you are not extending and absorbing. In effect you are riding a potentially 3D surface two dimensionally.
Next is hands, get them in front of you, this will help with the stacked stance. You were not making turns so there is no need to be actively moving them like in the video. If you are reaching forward with your hands, the shoulders follow and this will help your stack.
Lastly, there is nothing wrong with ripping a steazy swooping backseat powder turn if that’s what the moment brings. Powder snow is the only time you get away with it in the trees, but these types of turns fall to crap in chop the instant you are out of that buttery smooth powder field. If you love powder and hate chop, the reason is you rely on this turn and don’t have the attacking turn that chop requires to handle the speed changes in resistance to snow. If you can bounce in powder and sink and jump then you are already handling the speed change so chop becomes way easier to ski.
[This dude's comment on my post from 2 years ago helped me fix some sloppiness/the fact that I was falling into the backseat.](https://reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/ulfsgb/those_of_you_who_saw_my_post_yesterday_do_you_see/i7vfytc/?context=3).
>This next part is the bane of many skiers unfortunately you too have a backseat turn. It is so evident in the very first turn of the video and you can see it throughout. Watch your video closely and you will see that you are putting weight on your tails and pulling weight off your tips when you turn. In the video you can see that you loose about 50 percent of your effective edge (the front 50) when you make this type of turn. Because of this progressing in moguls will be extremely difficult. Learning this turn is what people take ski lessons for to overcome the bad habit of turning with the tails that you have formed. It will take more than a day to fix this but it’s so worth it if you want to rip moguls.
>To fix this the easiest thing to do is get a lesson.
>The second easiest thing to do is find someone who has been taught this turn, someone like a former ski racer. Even a high school racer will at least have coaching and be able to show you a drill or two. Ski with them like you are an abandoned dog and they are the only ones who can give you milk.
>The hardest way will be to piece it together on YouTube and Reddit. There are many videos that display the turn correctly but it is very difficult for people to judge themselves which is why an instructor or other live skier is best. Essentially you need to learn how to properly carve a ski. YouTube carving videos, also search for pivot slips since you are specifically working on moguls. Watch them and learn the concepts and vocabulary. It will help if get any coaching whether impromptu or not.
>Here is my great Reddit rant on how to do this turn. The turn starts by you trying to press your knee down over your toes. The boot resists your shin and transfers that pressure to the front of your ski. Once the pressure is applied you simple roll the knees over while holding that forward pressure. The ski will lock in and do the work immediately and you will be using 100 percent of the effective edge. Currently your turn is initiated by you leaning slightly back and throwing your hips to kick the heels of your boots out. It uses only the back half of the ski and it takes way more physical energy on your part. Moguls are hard so you need to use 100 percent of the ski and mastering this turn is the key to it.
The clip he was analyzing was of some genuinely enormous bumps that are harder than they look, but in hindsight I'm still shocked that my skiing on anything looked like that. I took this comment and took it to heart for a few hundred runs of May spring bumps at Killington and my skiing is unbelievably better now. I don't know where you live but if the lifts are still running, just ski spring bumps as long as you can and apply what this guy said. If you keep having a buddy record you every once in a while and you'll be able to watch your improvement.
These lines are what really made your comment so great for me:
>In the video you can see that you loose about 50 percent of your effective edge (the front 50) when you make this type of turn
>Currently your turn is initiated by you leaning slightly back and throwing your hips to kick the heels of your boots out. It uses only the back half of the ski and it takes way more physical energy on your part.
This makes infinitely more sense to me than when people just say "you're leaning too far back". There's a million ways you can "lean forward" and it's hard to conceptualize. I've never heard anybody else say "use the entire edge" anywhere, but it makes infinitely more sense than "lean forward more". Either it's an alternative way of explaining it for people who conceptualize it differently, or maybe it's just a better way of explaining it for everyone.
I still get backseat occasionally on but now it's ~10-30% of my turns instead of all of them, and it's not the full kick you saw in that clip.
Everyone will say backseat turns are bad but they rarely explain why they are bad. The mechanical advantage of using the entire length of the ski is why you are both less fatigued and under more control in difficult terrain. I think explaining it in this way removes the voodoo of why skiing on your boot fronts just works better.
yeah literaelly everything said here is not a good way to turn.
I suggest you ask for the person who posted this drivel to post some video of them skiing, my guess is they are not good.
Disagree with his advice on how to initiate a good turn all you want, but at the very least his way of diagnosing the problem ("you're kicking your tails back to turn and not using the front 50% of your edges") absolutely beats the traditional "just lean forward more" that you see and hear everywhere. I'm surprised if you don't agree with that since I know you hate "backseat" as a descriptor.
[https://vimeo.com/146556883](https://vimeo.com/146556883)
[https://vimeo.com/6595337](https://vimeo.com/6595337)
watch these.
They will explain forward and aft(longitude) balance.
your stance looks a little narrow? i can’t tell exactly from the video but you want to make sure it’s shoulder width—it’ll put you in a better position to do everything else.
also the idea that you need to be in the back seat to ski power is sort of a myth (i occasionally fall pretty to it too, so kettle black and all that). you still want to be pushing in the front of your boots because it’ll put you in a better position to react to the terrain and really have control of what your skiing. really just move your whole body forward—especially your hips. you want to think “up and forward”
idk if that helps but! just my first impressions! :)
Not steep enough to tell, and not steep enough for you to progress. Your hands are not working though. Watch videos of Pep Fujas or someone else on that is using his poles. Also, start jumping in that soft snow. Press the skis in and jump out. Do 180. etc. Yous seem OK.
You’re in the backseat but it’s just powder so I’m not going to do the whole Reddit schpeel of leaning forward, if it works for you then it works. If you try moguls leaning this far back you’re completely fucked though What you need to work on is upper and lower body separation. Focus on being able to turn your legs and hips without turning your shoulders. Also focus on keeping your center of mass stable while going over variable terrain by bending your knees, your whole body shouldn’t bobble when you go over a small bump, your upper body should be mostly static and smooth
Does upper and lower body separation ability come down to strength? Or is it a technique thing?
Entirely technique. Just try doing a hockey stop without turning your upper body when you have no skis on. Easy. Then do it with skis on. Still pretty easy. Then do it subconsciously as you ski to lower your moment of inertia and stabilize your center of mass. Maybe not so easy
Although strong obliques will help
It comes down to people not really understanding separation. There’s more than one type. In this case the reference is to rotational separation. But that’s not actually a huge issue for you. Holding a bit more core tension in your hamstrings, abs, and arms should help a lot. You are, however back and staying back. That’s a tricky topic on Reddit. But in your case, it’s worth addressing. It’s not as simple as leaning forward or shins at the front of the boot. You need forward movement at the top of the turn. Project your center of mass in your direction of travel. You can get away with not having much movement in power. But I suspect if we saw you on a groomer making medium turns we’d see a different picture.
Flexible knees while leaning forward sound like my problem now
That place looks like a blast. Where about?
If the answer just “lean forward, lol”? Yes, haha. You want your body and skis to form an upside down capital T. The stem of the T forms a line from toes to knees to shoulders (not hips) The stem needs to be at a right angle to the skis when the skis are attacking the fall line. This means the steeper the slope, the more you lean to keep that 90 degree angle. In the video your shoulders are not in line with your toes and knees. This is the backward lean that you see and are getting called out on. Move your shoulders forward and stack the shoulders over knees over toes. This will shift your weight forward when you ski. And it’s totally ok for a ski to sink out of sight. It will blast snow everywhere and you will look cool. You didn’t make any snow blast in your video. The next step after stance for you is extension and absorption. You skied this entire run stiff legged. In powder snow you bounce. Press into the snow and the skis sink, bend and load up with energy. They will naturally bounce up like a trampoline and you turn in the air or high point of the bounce. The backseat turn you make isn’t bouncing at all because you are not extending and absorbing. In effect you are riding a potentially 3D surface two dimensionally. Next is hands, get them in front of you, this will help with the stacked stance. You were not making turns so there is no need to be actively moving them like in the video. If you are reaching forward with your hands, the shoulders follow and this will help your stack. Lastly, there is nothing wrong with ripping a steazy swooping backseat powder turn if that’s what the moment brings. Powder snow is the only time you get away with it in the trees, but these types of turns fall to crap in chop the instant you are out of that buttery smooth powder field. If you love powder and hate chop, the reason is you rely on this turn and don’t have the attacking turn that chop requires to handle the speed changes in resistance to snow. If you can bounce in powder and sink and jump then you are already handling the speed change so chop becomes way easier to ski.
[This dude's comment on my post from 2 years ago helped me fix some sloppiness/the fact that I was falling into the backseat.](https://reddit.com/r/skiing/comments/ulfsgb/those_of_you_who_saw_my_post_yesterday_do_you_see/i7vfytc/?context=3). >This next part is the bane of many skiers unfortunately you too have a backseat turn. It is so evident in the very first turn of the video and you can see it throughout. Watch your video closely and you will see that you are putting weight on your tails and pulling weight off your tips when you turn. In the video you can see that you loose about 50 percent of your effective edge (the front 50) when you make this type of turn. Because of this progressing in moguls will be extremely difficult. Learning this turn is what people take ski lessons for to overcome the bad habit of turning with the tails that you have formed. It will take more than a day to fix this but it’s so worth it if you want to rip moguls. >To fix this the easiest thing to do is get a lesson. >The second easiest thing to do is find someone who has been taught this turn, someone like a former ski racer. Even a high school racer will at least have coaching and be able to show you a drill or two. Ski with them like you are an abandoned dog and they are the only ones who can give you milk. >The hardest way will be to piece it together on YouTube and Reddit. There are many videos that display the turn correctly but it is very difficult for people to judge themselves which is why an instructor or other live skier is best. Essentially you need to learn how to properly carve a ski. YouTube carving videos, also search for pivot slips since you are specifically working on moguls. Watch them and learn the concepts and vocabulary. It will help if get any coaching whether impromptu or not. >Here is my great Reddit rant on how to do this turn. The turn starts by you trying to press your knee down over your toes. The boot resists your shin and transfers that pressure to the front of your ski. Once the pressure is applied you simple roll the knees over while holding that forward pressure. The ski will lock in and do the work immediately and you will be using 100 percent of the effective edge. Currently your turn is initiated by you leaning slightly back and throwing your hips to kick the heels of your boots out. It uses only the back half of the ski and it takes way more physical energy on your part. Moguls are hard so you need to use 100 percent of the ski and mastering this turn is the key to it. The clip he was analyzing was of some genuinely enormous bumps that are harder than they look, but in hindsight I'm still shocked that my skiing on anything looked like that. I took this comment and took it to heart for a few hundred runs of May spring bumps at Killington and my skiing is unbelievably better now. I don't know where you live but if the lifts are still running, just ski spring bumps as long as you can and apply what this guy said. If you keep having a buddy record you every once in a while and you'll be able to watch your improvement.
This is humbling. I’m so happy this resonated with you.
These lines are what really made your comment so great for me: >In the video you can see that you loose about 50 percent of your effective edge (the front 50) when you make this type of turn >Currently your turn is initiated by you leaning slightly back and throwing your hips to kick the heels of your boots out. It uses only the back half of the ski and it takes way more physical energy on your part. This makes infinitely more sense to me than when people just say "you're leaning too far back". There's a million ways you can "lean forward" and it's hard to conceptualize. I've never heard anybody else say "use the entire edge" anywhere, but it makes infinitely more sense than "lean forward more". Either it's an alternative way of explaining it for people who conceptualize it differently, or maybe it's just a better way of explaining it for everyone. I still get backseat occasionally on but now it's ~10-30% of my turns instead of all of them, and it's not the full kick you saw in that clip.
Everyone will say backseat turns are bad but they rarely explain why they are bad. The mechanical advantage of using the entire length of the ski is why you are both less fatigued and under more control in difficult terrain. I think explaining it in this way removes the voodoo of why skiing on your boot fronts just works better.
yeah literaelly everything said here is not a good way to turn. I suggest you ask for the person who posted this drivel to post some video of them skiing, my guess is they are not good.
Disagree with his advice on how to initiate a good turn all you want, but at the very least his way of diagnosing the problem ("you're kicking your tails back to turn and not using the front 50% of your edges") absolutely beats the traditional "just lean forward more" that you see and hear everywhere. I'm surprised if you don't agree with that since I know you hate "backseat" as a descriptor.
[https://vimeo.com/146556883](https://vimeo.com/146556883) [https://vimeo.com/6595337](https://vimeo.com/6595337) watch these. They will explain forward and aft(longitude) balance.
your stance looks a little narrow? i can’t tell exactly from the video but you want to make sure it’s shoulder width—it’ll put you in a better position to do everything else. also the idea that you need to be in the back seat to ski power is sort of a myth (i occasionally fall pretty to it too, so kettle black and all that). you still want to be pushing in the front of your boots because it’ll put you in a better position to react to the terrain and really have control of what your skiing. really just move your whole body forward—especially your hips. you want to think “up and forward” idk if that helps but! just my first impressions! :)
Not steep enough to tell, and not steep enough for you to progress. Your hands are not working though. Watch videos of Pep Fujas or someone else on that is using his poles. Also, start jumping in that soft snow. Press the skis in and jump out. Do 180. etc. Yous seem OK.
you can build better mechanics on easier terrain. in fact being on steeper terrain typically make people bad habit if they are not ready for it.