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Garlands

Garlands

This drill is a follow-on to the straight traverse in the previous drill, and will further perfect abilities in managing your edges. The name comes from the shape of the tracks left in the snow, which should resemble a tinsel garland looping from branch to branch on a Christmas tree. It will clearly demonstrate the effects of engaging and releasing the ski edges.

As with the straight traverse drill, be careful where you do this drill! Choose an isolated, little used location and pay close attention to people approaching you from above.

Start facing across the hill in a basic athletic stance with feet and skis parallel, shoulder width apart. Point the skis at an angle downhill to start moving and immediately angulate your body (knees and hips uphill with upper body bending downhill over the downhill ski) to fully engage your edges. This is a railroad tracks turn, only across the hill in a traverse rather than straight down a gentle slope as in the earlier drill. Your skis should immediately begin a smooth turn up the hill. If you hold this position, you will gradually turn up the hill and slow to a stop, at which point you will begin sliding backwards down your tracks. Just step down to a position across the hill to stop. This forms the lower loop of the garland.

Next, start the same way, but as your skis begin to come across then up the hill and start to slow, reduce the angulation (stand up) to release your edges as in the side slip drill. Let your skis skid downhill as you continue across the hill. This forms the top of the garland shape.

To complete the garland, simply re-angulate to reengage the edges to again start curving up the hill. Continue alternating between angulating to move up the hill and flattening the skis to slide down the hill as many times as you have room for. Look back at your tracks and you should see a series of loops – the garland. Of course, do this drill in both directions.

As you perfect these garlands, you should gain a clear feel for how to manage your edging to achieve the desired results. You will use this knowledge in perfecting your turns. One important aspect of this drill may be a little obscure. Notice that if you are in an appropriate athletic stance on your skis, with your knees forward and pressing into the cuffs of your boots so that your weight is slightly forward on your skis, you should notice that the tips of your skis tend to move downhill somewhat more than the rest of the skis as they slip. This is similar to the side slip drill, where if your weight is slightly forward, the front of the skis tend to slide forward and the tips tend to slide down faster than the rest of the ski. This was a problem when trying to do a straight slip down the hill, but will prove to be a big advantage in future drills and exercises. It will be of particular importance to those just learning to make a parallel turn.

We will combine this skill with other skills in future drills to do exactly that: perfect a carved parallel turn!

Videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGqLpxOQT3Q

This video addresses more than garlands.  Look for garlands in the early part of the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh51e8Qm6Zo

In this one, look for the garlands in between the turns.