What To Do During The Long Dry Summer?

Posted on 2012/09/02 by brook

What to do during the long, dry Summer?

Well, of course, there are all those wonderful Summer activities. Still, some of us just don’t know when to give up, yes? My last turns were taken June 23 on Hiram Peak. I picked my way down a 20 turn patch, twice, then walked down to catch 10 more on what remained on the steeper bit above Highland Lake. The end.

I’m sure I could have found more snow in California. I could have hiked all the way in to Leavitt Peak or up on Mt. Lassen. In August, I played the 4 & 20 Blackbird Festival in Weed, CA. As I passed Mt. Shasta, the leftover snow was calling, for sure. But I didn’t have skis with me, so, no turns.

Still, my Spring adventures did reward me with more information about the technical changes that I started working through at the Bear Valley Telemark Festival at the end of March. After the perfect corn snow starts to wither under the intensifying sun, sun cups develop. It can be challenging to ski well developed sun cups.

Well developed sun cups

Even if the snow is relatively soft, the skis bounce around on the edges of the cups. If the cups are big enough, my skis have even bounced from cup edge to edge. I have found it especially difficult to get from one turn to the next. My skis will bounce around, getting knocked so that each ski is going in a different direction. And these effects are most especially pronounced between turns, that delicate moment when the skis are light and being rolled from one edge to the next. Those dips in the snow will throw my skis around, willy nilly.

In the past, I’ve passed on skiing well cupped snow (as in the image, above). But not any more! Victory! Success! Free heel fun!

If you’ve been following my telemark turn lead change adventure, you’ll understand that dramatic changes have occurred in my telemark skiing since I started this blog. I’m chronicling my journey, here. Readers get my discoveries once I have come to understand them enough to explain.

I continued exploring my new lead change technique from mid-April through my last turns towards the end of June. I skied every weekend at least one day. During those runs, I ran into Spring snow conditions from frozen solid to mush, smooth to crumbly to (ugh!) well cupped. And here’s what I discovered.

An old trick becomes new again.

In modern skiing on shaped skis, telemark or parallel, all one need do to shift from one turn to the next is to roll the skis onto the new edge. This is ever more efficient than the old days with longer, straighter skis. In those days, it was “down-up-down”, with strong emphasis on the unweighting of the skis. Those straighter puppies would hook if you didn’t move them while they were really light.

Today, such gymnastics aren’t necessary so long as the snow is relatively consistent or well groomed. If a skier, expecially at speed, reaches down hill to start the turn and let’s his/her body follow, the skis will roll over to a new edge. The trick is to get into the angulated form (the ‘C’) as soon as the skis are on the new edge. Voilà, new turn starts, no big unweight required.

That said, there are conditions that benefit from unweighting and even turning the skis while light. Watch great skiers. The do come up between turns, at least a little bit.

And that’s what I added to defeat those sun cups baking into the California late Spring snow fields: a big unweight. My working theory is that the force of coming back down hard on my edge right at the start of the turn pushes into the snow with enough force such that the cups uneveness doesn’t have a chance to work the skis. And then, since I’m on edge right from the start of the turn (no sliding), I cut right through. It’s a theory. More importantly, it works.

Sequence demonstrates starting turn with inner ski

I’m edging strongly to finish my turn. At the same time, I reach downhill with my pole to start the next.
I allow the pole to bring my body up and off my skis while also projecting me a bit downhill towards my next turn. This is something I learned when I was a kid in alpine racing. You pass your pole and that automatically begins to raise the body off the skis.
My skis are flat; I’m already starting to roll into the next turn. Note that my back ski from the last turn is still in back; While my stance has collapsed, I haven’t really begun to change lead skis. And also note how erect I am.
The new turn is begun. You can see that I’ve edged the new inside ski quite a bit. I’m already starting to angulate into the new turn though I haven’t reached the fall line yet (the camera is directly downhill from me). Interestingly, my outside ski, still trailing, is still flat on the snow and going in a different direction. But since I have all my weight focused onto the inner ski, this “mistake” doesn’t actually cause any problems. That inside ski is already turning hard. The outside is just along for the ride at this moment.
Both skis are now on edge and parallel. The outside ski has moved forward just a bit; it’s in motion. My body is angulated into the new turn. And, I’m finally in the fall line.
You can see a plume from the inner ski. But there isn’t one from the outer (now, lead) ski. That’s because that outer ski still doesn’t have a lot of weight on it; it’s just beginning to come into play. Finally, I begin to get the magic of telemark: both skis working for me.
And, I’m just about at the end of the turn. Both skis are turning, both are edged. I’m reaching out to start the next turn.

I’ll note that there’s one huge mistake in this sequence. I’m going to have to break my habit of skiing on my back foot’s toes. “On the ball of the back foot, the ball”. Next year! Watch this space.

Here’s the sequence of turns as I made them:

Lead Change on Sun Cups Turn Sequence

cheers,

/brook

Back Seat Pressure

Posted on 2012/01/03 by brook

“Sit on the back ski”.

Have you been told this or read it somewhere?

In my experience, this is good advice; yes that’s how it works. But, it’s a gross over-simplification.

To pressure the back ski correctly requires a few other things to be in place. And, to do this in isolation of other factors takes the skier out of the dynamic process that takes advantage of the physics of the turning ski.

The best description of the telemark turn process that I’ve heard so far is in Unparalleled Productions’ telemark instruction video, “Free Time”. Additionally, for those with a more analytical bent, some scientifc analysis has been done on the pressuring techniques of Telemark Demo Team skier, Jimmy Ludlow.

In “Free Time”, pressure is described as moving from front ski to back. It is a “smooth” process, not a sudden jerk, or slam. The timing of the process is dependent upon the type of turn that is intended: quick “check” turns, vs. short-radius, fall-line turns, vs. long radius carvers. Each of these has a different pressure rhythm and gradient to it.

The “Free Time” skiers describe the process as “moving pressure from front ski to back ski”. In fact, one of the points made in the video is that over pressuring the back ski, especially very early in the turn, will result in a side-slip instead of a carve. “Carve” here meaning a controlled arc. This is in line with the following statement:

“Generally, it is desirable to start the pure carving action early in the turn. This will be possible only when the skier can establish “early pressure” with the dominant ski(s)….The skilled skier will do this while maintaining sufficient ankle bend to provide enough tip pressure so as to lead the carving ski(s) into the turn.
~Adapted from the U.S. National Ski Team’s Technical Statement

I was riding a lift at Mount Rose on a cold, overcast, blustery, hard packed day. I chanced to sit next to a professional telemark racer who was also free skiing the mountain. We got to talking and he said something like, “you definitely have to drive with the front foot in this snow.”

Still, even in light of all this sage wisdom, I actually don’t think of the process as starting on my front ski.

I don’t know. Maybe that’s what’s scientifically happening? I don’t have the equipment that was put into Jimmy Ludow’s boots to allow me to analyze my precise patterns. Instead, I have to rely on my senses, on my somatic experience. And my senses don’t scream “front ski” at the start of my turn. I’m feeling for both skis, and specifically, “feeling for edges”.

What I experience is that both skis begin turning in response to the return of my weight after I’ved changed edges and lead ski (up shuffle).

In fact, I used to start my turn entirely with the front ski. The back ski is flopped down behind the front ski after the turn is well along. This manouveur does accomplish a quick change of direction. But I experience turning on the front ski as instability. When I observe other skiers using this technique, I see them slide with the skis across the fall line, an uncontrolled slide. Not at all what I want in my skiing.

So when should one apply pressure to that back ski?

One solution is the “peanut butter spread”. It can be very useful to begin to pressure both skis as they are moving away from each other; timing the pressuring to just after the feet have passed during the lead ski change. This is described in Allen & Mikes Really Cool Telemark Tips book as “spread peanut butter”. This isn’t carving. In fact, it’s a controlled slide that rapidly creates a direction change because the slide is happening to both skis at once. Though each ski is sliding in a different direction (one forward, one backwards), still, both skis are edged together, so they both turn in the same direction. The skis have to be on the “new” edge; that is, the new turn has already started before one can perform a “spread” garland like this.

In soft snow, as in skiing in powder, I find that this a great technique for getting the turn started. Performing a spread may even be sufficient when powder is deep or turn radius is short.

Useful as it may be, the “spread” is not a required part of the turn. It’s a handy technique to apply. I think spreading makes a strong turn beginning, adding an extra oomph to get the skis into the new direction. But it’s not the whole turn. I want to carve. And, I don’t use a spreading garland at all for my big radius, long carved turns.

Even more to the point, I have found using only a spreading motion is entirely insufficient on steeper slopes. There’s just too much sliding for me. I’m not strong enough to absorb that much gravity comfortably (though I’ve seen plenty of stronger skiers who can). I need a more controlled turn. This is even more critical for me when I’m in the trees, where any amount of uncontrolled slide might smack me into something I want to ski around. But then, I’m a very careful tree skier.

The control I seek can be gained through a process of putting more pressure on the back ski as the turn progresses. Let me explain what works for me.

There are two basic forms of the pressure gradient: quick, for short radius turns, and steady for long carvers.

First, I find that I cannot easily pressure my back ski unless my posture is quite erect. Posture is my key for my ability to deliver power to my back ski¹.

Try standing in a telemark position off-snow. Experiement with where your hips are, front to back until you feel that your weight is evenly distributed between your legs. Move your hips forward and back to feel the weight shift, then come to center.

Now, let your back roll into a little bit of a forward curve, like a very mild slouch. Let your shoulders drop and roll forward a little. The small of your back will be more or less straight, even slightly rolled forward. Let your hips crack so that your chest is a little forward, perhaps above your forward knee. This is actually a fairly typical parallel skiing stance, “soft shoulder, athletic stance” as I’ve heard it described. Doing this, I feel no dramatic shift in my weight distribution, if my hips are centered between my feet. My weight seems to be evenly distributed. I used to telemark like this, and it worked fine, except it was hard to get caving weight on my back ski when gravity forces were stronger.

Now, straighten your spine and shoulders into a very upright posture, as though standing to attention. Don’t change your legs. Do you feel it? Immediately, I can feel extra weight on my back foot. It’s like magic. The upright posture easily allows me to put extra pressure on the rear foot. From this position, I find it trivial and efficient to vary the amount of pressure on my rear foot from “light” to bearing down. I can make this variance without changing the relationship of my hips to my legs. I imagine that this is what “sit on the back foot” means.

Let me explain how I put my posture and weighting to use on skis.

After I’ve changed lead skis, I will start to feel my weight return to both skis. The skis will start to turn. I should have already started to angulate (making the ‘C’ with your body). I shift my attention to my back ski. At all times, I try to keep my posture more erect than I typically might when parallel skiing.

After I’ve shuffled to change lead skis, which involves having the skis light and unweighted, my weight comes back down onto the skis. I concentrate on being centered, front to back. As I feel the skis bite in and start to turn, as they begin to react to the pressure of my weight, I begin to gradually apply more weight to the back ski.

How much weight on the back ski and how quickly?

I believe that each movement on skis should always be a process. Understanding this takes somatic awareness. I’m not saying that it can’t be fast. The pressure can be applied quickly, just not all at once. I ease into it. I first practiced this slowly until I got the feel. Then I could speed it up for faster, fall-line turns.

If I’m going to carve a long turn, I keep the pressure steady at the carving arc that I want to follow until I’m ready to finish the turn. If it’s a short swing, then the back leg weighting gradually increases until the skis bite.

As I experience it, skis don’t bite from pressure alone. At the end of my turn, I’m also steering a tighter turn with my feet. I feel the pressure to the inside of the turn with my feet and ankles. And, of course, I’m edging more through increasing angulation. These 3 activities are happening at the same time, in concert with each other:

back leg pressure
tighter steering
increased edging

The combination of these 3 processes together causes the skis to turn more extremely, which causes a noticiable bite, grip, a slow down of the skis. This bite is the end of the turn, or more precisely, the finish of the turn. This is the “check” that slows my speed and gives me control, even on the steepest slope.

If I want a very fast check turn, then I perform this pressured, steered edge as soon as I feel my new edges in the snow ². Again, I try not to slam my skis. I let the ski check itself in response to steered, edged pressure.

When I feel the skis bite into the snow, that’s the end of the turn. The skis seem to grip the snow as though of their own volition. It’s a function I believe of effective edging, pressuring, and steering, as I’ve tried to explain, above. Control does not result from slamming down onto the ski. That causes a slide, not the tight finish for which I’m looking. And, of course, the finishing “check” is the beginning of the next turn, as I reach out and down to plant my pole. Which naturally and organically causes me to release my edges in preparation for the next turn.

cheers

/brook

Footnotes

I discovered this posture trick quite accidentally after taking a parallel powder lesson (free heel, but parallel turns) with Kami at Mountain Adventure Seminars (MAS). Kami stressed maintaining an upright posture in the powder. She called it, “engaging the small of your back”. 2 months later, I was in some very dense Spring powder in Colorado. Having some trouble, I remembered the upright stance. Suddenly I was able to power through not only the untracked powder, but through the mashed potatoes left behind by the other skiers. I had a serious “aha!” moment where the relationship between posture and my back ski clicked.
I probably won’t hit the check as hard as I might at the end of a fast, long radius turn, or as I might in a series of fall-line, short radius turns on a steep pitch.

Taming The Wild Lead Change

Posted on 2011/11/11 by brook

What’s the big deal with changing leads for a telemark turn? You just push the new lead ski out in front and then start turning, right?

Wrong!

(or maybe, sort of “wrong”, kind’a maybe?)

Here’s an alternate reality: Start the turn, then let the feet change after the turn begins.

And then, there’s, “keep the feet moving dynamically throughout the turn”.

I have heard each of these explanations; I have tried them all. While each approach may work under some circumstances to produce a particular type of turn, none of these statements really matches my experience when my turns are “in the pocket”, really working well turn to turn, dynamic through different terrain and snow and through various radii.

Further, from my experimentation and experience, lead change timing is an important contributor to the kind of turn that is intended. It turns out that the lead change has a profound influence upon the remainder of the turn. And while I do find the lead change to be a dynamic process, it’s a lot more subtle than these pat maxims imply.

Let me walk through what I think is taking place in my common everyday, garden variety, fall-line, medium sized telemark turns. Then, I’ll note adjustments that I make to achieve other effects.

According to the skiers in Unparalled Production’s “Free Time“, the lead change happens while the skis are between turns, while they are “unweighted”, that is, not being actively pressured. In fact, I would argue that one cannot change lead skis gracefully unless the skis are unweighted, what I call the “up-shuffle”.

A telemark lead change: previous turn finish to new turn edge

Under no circumstances are my feet “in continuous motion” front to back throughout the turn, as Urmas Franosch suggests in his teaching videos. There are periods of foot movement. And, there are periods of relatively stasis between my feet. Moving the feet or not is related to what is happening at that moment of the turn.

During the pressure part of the turn, there is often very little, if any, front to back movement. Naturally, during lead change, there’s supposed to be movement. But there are subtle movements between my feet in response to other factors. I think that these foot movement responses are also important. I’m not always thinking about my feet.

One of the most productive exercises for telemarkers is practicing the “up-shuffle“, practicing unweighting and shuffling the feet front to back, changing which ski is leading and which is following. This basic motion has to feel natural and easy. One of the mistakes that I see beginners make is attempting to change leads without accompanying this with a slight “up” motion. It’s simple physics: it’s easier to move something when we’re not standing on it! This is especially true if your not lunging down into what you’re standing on.

But herein also lies another trap. In skiing, we never want to lose our “skier’s” stance. Good skiers don’t stand up all the way, stiff kneed. They move from lower to higher within a range that keeps the skier’s knees flexible and hips loose, and the skier’s center of gravity lower than a standing position.

For telemarking, it’s the same, though for many of us, the stance is a little bit lower than for parallel skiing. And, of course, there’s the classic telemark argument about how low to go.

My comfort zone stance is from athletic to modestly low. Your mileage will likely differ. Just don’t stand up, legs straight and then expect your skiing to work. My advice would be to start with your knees at least somewhat athletically flexed and go down from there as needed. I like dry land work for getting a somatic feel for what’s right for one’s body. Bottom line: I can’t ski if my knees aren’t bent.

So, flexed into a telemark position, one comes up a little and at the same time (during the up motion) one changes lead ski. That’s the “up-shuffle”. In “Free Time” they highlight the connection between unweighting and lead change.

Just before the lead change, there’s a fore/back movement that happens organically. I haven’t read about this anywhere, so I’d like to explain it. One’s back foot naturally closes stance when edges are released after the pressure of the last turn. This is a very subtle discovery that I’ve made.

At the end of a turn, one’s feet are as far apart as they’re going to get at any point in the turn.

A telemark turn finish

This may be due to executing a spreading turn. Or, the feet may move just a little more apart in response to extra back foot pressure having been applied at the turn finish. Either way, generally, the lowest a skier will go and the furthest apart the feet is at the end of a turn.

Then, the skier has to release the ski edges. This is usually done with a some upwards motion. Simply planting a pole will cause the body to move upwards at least a little (see picture 3, above). This is the “unweight” that we’re not supposed to talk about now that we have “carving” technique. But I don’t know how else to describe it.

Interestingly, I find that the very act of releasing edges will also cause my feet to move towards each other. There’s not much friction on skis at this point. In response, one’s legs move to a more neutral relationship. I think that this is both natural and advantageous – it’s the way it’s supposed to happen. Why no one else talks about this, I don’t know.

Back foot organically returns to neutral upon edge release. Note that skis are no longer on edge.

That is, when I release my edges, my feet naturally move towards each other. I believe, (but don’t know for certain) that my back foot releases to a more neutral stance. I don’t have to think about this movement; it’s not intentional. The movement just happens as a response to releasing the muscles. This makes the up shuffle easier to execute. One’s feet have moved to a more neutral relationship. From this neutral stance, it doesn’t take much effort to move the feet past each other. I want to stress that in my opinion the lead change phase takes place only until the feet just pass. Whether one moves fully into the next telemark position depends upon what kind of turn is intended.

Aaron Perlman from the Northstar telemark school is a proponent of dropping what will be the back foot backwards, a sort of “moon-walk” approach. I did it that way for a while. But I feel it has no advantages, as long as one isn’t trying to push the front foot forward into a static, old-school telemark position. As long as the feet are dynamic, I think both feet can move.

If I want to use a spreading technique (as in a garland), moving both feet in opposite directions gives me a lot more power than just moving the back foot. Plus, moving both feet, it’s easier for me to keep my weight centered. I think that centered weight is key to a strong telemark. When I only move the next back foot, I have a tendency to balance on the front foot during a portion of the movement. That means skiing on one ski for a while, which I find is less stable; balancing on one ski loses one of the main advantages of the telemark turn: skiing on both skis’ edges at the same time.

What’s the timing of the lead change?

Timing depends.

For a series of short turns straight down the fall line, my lead change timing happens gradually after the finish of the last turn. The lead change happens while the skis are light and moving towards or crossing the fall line. I try for the smoothest, most graceful transitions from one part of the turn to the next. I up shuffle rather slowly, letting gravity and the forces that were built up in my body through the last turn power my skis towards the next. While these forces are acting on me, I change my lead ski. All of this happens during this light, unweighted moment.

After my feet have changed position, I feel for the new edge to begin to arc in the snow. By the point where I feel my new edge make contact, I will be more or less in my new telemark position. If my feet aren’t far enough apart for me to get some weight onto my back foot, then I do a little “spreading of peanut butter” to open my feet up. Then I begin the process of edging and pressuring through to the finish of the turn. The whole thing happens as a slow motion dance, even though the turns are short and actually happening rather quickly. It’s almost as though I’ve slowed time down. There’s a natural rhythm that I fall into.

For long, cruising carved turns, I like to get the lead change over early so that I’m in my next telemark position from where I can get the skis on edge as soon as possible and pressure them steadily through the arc of the turn. I use almost the same timing as old-school telemark. I release my edges with a pole plant, up-shuffle quickly, and then settle into the new turn. Through this whole process, I will have not yet gone into the fall line. The lead change will occur right out of the finish of the last turn. I’m already edged and pressuring my new turn while still in the the arc of the last turn. By the time I hit the fall line again, I’m well into my new turn. In these long turns, my lead change happens very early, at the very beginning of the turn; it happens very quickly in order to maximize the amount of time I’m on edge and making an arc.

There’s one more lead change timing that I use. When I’m in snow about which I’m unsure, when I’m testing the slope, where the snow is harder, or where I want more precision in my turn initiation, I increase the delay before the lead change. I consciously begin my turn with a pronounced monomark. Remembering what I wrote above, that my feet will have returned to a more neutral position organically, I let the skis start sliding into the new arc and the new edge while still leaving my feet unchanged.

I find that there are a couple of advantages to this timing:

increased early edge control
more movement for a spreading turn

Starting the turn from the old telemark position will knock me on my rear in deep, heavier snow. For one thing, turning with the skis in a monomark presents a lot of extra ski length to power through heavy snow. With the skis offset in a telemark position, the ski edge being initiated into the new turn is a lot longer than the length of one ski alone. And, this position isn’t as stable while the skis are light. If one of my skis gets pushed out of parallel while it’s light and slipping into the new turn, I suddenly have my skis going in 2 directions. Yikes!

An attempt to monomark in heavy snow: note skis are going in different directions

So I use this technique when on harder or very packed snow only. Still, delaying the lead change does have its uses.

cheers

/brook

So You Want To Telemark…

Posted on 2011/10/14 by brook

So you want to carve telemark turns through untracked powder, quite possibly in some remote backcountry bowl, huh?

The sane person might ask, “Whatever for?”

However, we’ll leave questions of sanity to the psychologists and proceed down my chosen slope. I’m here to tell you, there are turns after learning.

Up front, let me echo the obvious: I encourage you to take a lesson from a certified (PSIA or equivalent) telemark ski instructor. I have. There’s always something new to learn, something that takes my skiing up another notch.

And, if you don’t ski at all, I strongly suggest not trying to start with a telemark turn¹. The telemark assumes quite a few learned skills on skis. There is a method that takes a beginner from the snowplow to a telemark. I’m not describing that method here, as I have no experience with it.

What follows is Brook’s beginning telemark technique². Many thanks to Aaron Perlman of Northstar and to Urmas Franosch of Mammoth Mountain, who’s videos I will use to help explain.

There are three techniques that, when put together in the following order will get you turning smoothly and in control:

The monomark for turn initiation
The up-shuffle to unweight, change edges, and shift lead ski
The telemark garland to turn the skis

There are refinements to each of these steps. And likely, without additional skills, these three won’t get you down a 35º slope in tight control (though you may be able to muscle down with bigger, slidey turns?)

With which technique do you start? I suggest that you pick the skill that makes use of the skiing skills you already have. A strong parallel skier might be most comfortable with telemark garlands, while a skier who needs more help with initiating turns might want to start with the up-shuffle. Free-style skiers might prefer starting with the monomark? It doesn’t really matter, so long as you are more or less comfortable with each of these.

I would practice this (and have!) on a beginner slope that offers no challenge to your current skiing ability.

Monomark

This turn is with the skis in a telemark position, but you don’t change lead skis while turning to each side. Pick a ski, right or left, with which to start. The monomark requires you to keep that same position and turn to each side. In one direction the front leg is downhill and the back leg is uphill. That’s the “normal” telemark turning side. Without changing leads, in a monomark turn, you shift to the other edge of the skis and turn such that the downhill ski will be the back ski and the uphill ski will be the front. This is a bit like an extreme parallel position.

There are several important skills taught through the monomark. First, it gives one confidence that the skis will turn on either edge. That alone is worth the practice, just in case you mess up your lead shift. It’s a confidence builder.

More importantly, the monomark teaches the body to let go of the end of the telemark turn and to start the next turn before changing leads. It’s a timing aid. A good telemark should release the last turn’s edges and begin to flatten the skis before changing lead skis. Doing so is a stronger turn initiation. Plus, as we’ll see from the up-shuffle and the garland, you will get a lot more turning power by making use of the lead change and garland. If you’ve shifted your back foot too far back early in the turn, a lot of the power and stability in the telemark is lost. Essentially, don’t shift your feet before unweighting. Never push the front foot forward right at the end of your last turn, i.e., as the start of your next turn.

Finally, the monomark helps balance and stability. It can’t be done if the skier’s too low, nor standing all the way up, e.g., with the center of gravity too high and knees no longer athletically bent.

Up-shuffle

Instead of “shuffle“, as I’ve heard teachers name this manouveur, I call it the “up-shuffle”.

That’s because even in well packed powder, there’s still must be a bit of release of the pressure (“weight”) in order that one’s skis flatten so that they will stop turning, allowing the skis to roll onto a different edge. And, heavier, deeper, slopped, chopped snow, requires more unweight in order to free the skis from the last edge so that they can be put into a new turn³. Think of this as a little hop motion. It’s not a jump.

The shuffle will happen fluidly and easily with two conditions:

The skier’s weight is centered between the skis
The shuffle is accomplished by letting the legs push up a little and then starting the shuffle while the skis are “light”, have no weight on them

To accomplish the lead change, one can move both feet at the same time. Or, the alternate style is to let the front foot drop backwards⁴.

Finding that place where one’s weight is between feet can be practiced off the snow. On snow or off, put one foot in front of the other, bend your knees into an athletic stance and move your torso forward and back. Like a telemark, your front foot must be flat, while the back heel is raised. Move your weight back and forth. Find the mid-point stance. That’s your telemark stance. That’s your shuffle stance.

Now push up a little to release your weight (not really a jump, a quick push upwards, a slight hop). As your weight comes off of your feet (unweighting), move your feet until they pass. Most likley, you’ll need to also let your knees collapse a little as you go up in order to overcome friction. This is true even on snow, much more true in socks on a slippery floor surface where there is more friction. Let your feet stay in contact with the surface, even when they are light and moving.

Try to be very conscious of both the release of your weight and its return. I feel this most in my feet, whether I feel like they are making contact with the surface on which I’m standing or not (momentarily). This weight release and return are very important for timing.

I’ve watched Aaron Perlman ski a flat runout shuffling over and over again. It is great practice for the lead change. In fact, it is the lead change (only without the rest of the turn). After starting the turn with a monomark, one up-shuffles. As the lead changes, the skis will come down onto the new edge, hopefully with the new back foot having just passed the front foot and no more!

Garland

Telemark garlands⁵ build skills for turning the skis. To create a telemark garland, Aaron Perlman talks about dropping the back foot backwards, moon walk style. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. This form of the technique will deliver a strong garland.

However, Allen & Mikes Really Cool Telemark Tips book encourages the skier to “spread peanut butter”. I take this to mean using both feet to push away from each other and into the snow. Doing so delivers turning power from both skis at once, doubling the turning power of the garland.

In order to do a series of garlands the following must be true:

start from a standard traverse position
In order to get both skis onto edge, you must angulate. This is often described as “making a ‘C’ with your body”. Any traverse will always require a little angulation
Both skis must be on edge, the same edge, the edge of the traverse

To execute the garland, the skier either pushes the back foot back (on edge!), or push both feet away from each other (on edge). This will cause the skis to bite into the snow and turn into the hill.

Garlands are practiced in a series along a traverse, all in the same direction of turn, one after another. After garlanding, the skis are allowed to come back to the traverse. Then another garland is executed. Switch sides going back across the slope. Practice until garlands become easy and natural to both sides. (Take two asprins and call me in the morning)

Linking Turns

Okay, you’ve practiced your monomarks to both sides, you’ve up-shuffled along the flats, and you’ve garlanded until you are confident that you can turn your skis to each side. How do you put these together into a series of turns?

Here’s how I learned to link turns and how I practice.

I start from a traverse in telemark position
I check that I’m prepared and that I start from a strong telemark position:

I centre my weight
I make sure that my posture is relatively straight
I make sure that I’m angulated (the ‘C’)
I have a feeling of weight on my back ski

Now, I’m ready for my first turn.

I plant my pole both in front and slightly down hill⁶. As I start to pass my pole, this will cause my skis to begin to release their edges quite naturally without my thinking about it. If your interested, this is called “anticipation“
I start a monomark into the new turn to flatten my skis. I have not changed lead skis yet
When I feel the skis begin to slide, when gravity starts to pull on my skis, I unweight by beginning my lead-change up-shuffle. As my weight comes back down onto my skis, my feet will be in motion, hopefully just passing (but don’t worry about this at first)
I roll both skis onto the new turn edge while they’re still light, before my weight is fully onto the skis and before I intentionally start to weight or pressure the skis, the “arc” of the skis that will make them turn.
I garland into my telemark postion, causing the skis to turn into the new direction.

At this point, on a modest slope, I may be ready for my next turn. That’s all there is. I start the process anew.

However, (and I’ll make a post about the details of this), if I want the turn to continue, I begin to apply more weight to the back ski. This is what is described as “sitting on the back ski”. Weighting is definitely a process. I don’t want to slam onto the back ski; I want to smoothly apply pressure to it. My front ski is already pressured; I don’t worry about it.

Likely, the above series of steps will be sufficient to get you started telemarking and even get you down fairly steep blue to low black runs in control.

I hope this helps you learn quickly and easily?

cheers,

/brook

Footnotes

I suppose that an unusually coordinated athlete might be able to put on a pair of telemark skis and just naturally “get it”. My guess is that this is extremely rare. More than once, the odd alpine skiing Ski Patroller has teased me that “the telemark is too hard”. Let me suggest that if you intend to try telemarking with no previous skiing experience, at least use releasable bindings. I’d hate to hear of someone who read this article then destroyed a knee trying to learn.

This should work for anyone who is at least an intermediate skier and who is adequately coordinated and reasanobly in shape.

I know it’s no longer fashionable to talk about unweighting. But I defy you to find a great skier on a steep slope, or in powder, or in heavy snow who doesn’t unweight her/his skis.

I think that time and weight position are lost in the “drop the front foot back” technique. This technique takes longer. And, since only an unweighted, more or less flat ski can slide easily, this means that the skier must put all her/his weight on one ski while the shift is taking place. Doing so cause the weight to move from center to forward as the unweighted ski is moving backward. I prefer staying in the centre and using both feet. I’ll say more about this in a post about lead changes.

I could not find an existing video of telemark garlands. I’ll try to make one during the Winter

This will naturally increase my angulation if I plant the pole correctly. That is, not by swinging my arm, but keeping the arm relatively stable and using my body to bring the pole forward and downhill

TelemarkTurn.com

My Telemark Journey: a search for a "technical" telemark ski turn

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