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Ski Tip #2: Fore/Aft Balance

The first and most important basic to proper skiing is Fore/Aft balance. By taking the time on your first run of the day to find out where you are balancing on your feet, you’ll set the tone for the rest of your ski day.

Divide the bottom of your feet into three separate sections: ball, arch and heel. On gentle terrain or in a traverse, skiing at a slow pace, feel where your weight is distributed on the bottom of your feet. To be athletic, in all sports we must be balanced on the balls of our feet, skiing is no different. If you feel the weight on your heels, you’re sitting back. If your thighs burn or tire easily, chances are you fall into the sitting back category.

To correct the problem, stand taller and move your hips forward. If you feel the weight on your arches or balls of your feet, you’re most likely in fairly good balance. Once you find your fore/aft balanced position, it’s important that you ski in this position whether traversing the hill or in the fall line. For example, when you are traversing the hill, it is a flat surface just tilted, but when you’re in the fall line it is steep. If you are perpendicular to your skis on a flat surface, you must be perpendicular to them on a steep surface.

Too often we don’t move forward at the start of the turn, so as we move through the middle (fall line) of the turn we are now sitting back. As you’re starting a turn, try to feel the weight shift to the balls of your feet; this will put you in a great position as you move through the middle of the turn. Yes, we would all rather fall on our behinds versus our faces, but to ski properly we need to be forward, and besides it’s next to impossible to fall over forward because our skis, ski boots and bindings won’t let us.

Tip # 2: BALANCE, BALANCE, BALANCE!!!

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