Skiing skills
19 skills, beginner to advanced. 17 of them you can film on a phone and get measured. No fake scores.
Skills by level
You can film17 of 19 skills
Beginner 5
- Athletic Stance & BalanceEverything in skiing starts with the ATHLETIC STANCE — a balanced, ready position you'll return to on every run. Think of how you'd stand if someone were about to throw you a ball: ankles, knees, and hips softly FLEXED, weight CENTERED over the middle of your feet, hands forward and in view, eyes looking down the…
- The Wedge (Pizza)The WEDGE — also called the 'pizza' or snowplow — is the first real skiing skill and the one you'll lean on most in your early days. From your athletic stance, you push your heels apart so the ski TIPS stay close together and the TAILS spread wide, making a triangle (a slice of pizza).
- Stay Forward (Fore/Aft Balance)If there's ONE habit that separates control from chaos in skiing, it's staying FORWARD — keeping your weight centered with your shins pressing into the boot tongues, never leaning back into the 'backseat.' When you lean back, your ski tips lighten and wander, your legs can't absorb the terrain, you tire quickly,…
- Wedge Turns & LinkingOnce you can hold a wedge, you learn to TURN with it — and then to link turns into a smooth path down the slope. A wedge turn is simple: from your pizza, you gently put more weight on ONE ski — the OUTSIDE ski of the turn — and you steer toward the other direction.
- Stopping & Speed ControlKnowing you can STOP — reliably, on demand — is what turns fear into confidence on the slope. As a beginner you have two main tools.
Intermediate 5
- Parallel TurnsThe PARALLEL TURN is the gateway to real skiing — the moment your skis stop making a pizza and start working together, staying parallel (about hip-width apart) all the way through the turn. Instead of pushing into a wedge, you initiate by RELEASING your old edges, letting both skis flatten and start to drift, then…
- Edging Basics (Knee & Ankle Roll)EDGING is how a ski actually turns: tip the ski onto its metal edge and the edge bites the snow, and the ski's built-in curved shape (its sidecut) wants to bend into an arc. The key insight is that edging starts from the GROUND UP — from your FEET, ankles, and knees, not from your hips or shoulders.
- Pole Plant & RhythmOnce you're skiing parallel, the POLE PLANT becomes the metronome of your turns — a light touch of the downhill pole tip to the snow that TRIGGERS and TIMES each turn and gives your skiing rhythm. You plant the DOWNHILL (inside) pole slightly forward and to the side, with your arm gently bent, right AS you change…
- Flexion & ExtensionSmooth, advanced skiing has a breathing quality to it — the body FLEXING down and EXTENDING up in rhythm with each turn. The idea: you EXTEND (gently straighten the legs) to release your edges and start a new turn, lightening the skis, then FLEX (bend the legs, absorbing) as you move through the turn and pressure…
- Traversing & SideslippingTRAVERSING and SIDESLIPPING are the quiet workhorses of mountain skiing — the skills that let you cross a slope, scout a steep pitch, and control exactly where you go. A TRAVERSE is skiing across the slope (not down the fall line) with your skis parallel and tipped slightly onto their UPHILL edges to hold a line;…
Advanced 5
- Carving (Railroad Tracks)CARVING is the holy grail of groomed-run skiing — turns so clean the skis leave two thin parallel lines in the snow, like railroad tracks, with almost no sideways skid. The principle: you tip the skis high enough onto their edges that the ski's sidecut (its curved shape) bends into an arc, and then you let the SKI…
- Hip Angulation & InclinationTo carve at high edge angles without falling over, expert skiers blend two moves: INCLINATION and ANGULATION. INCLINATION is leaning the whole body INTO the turn — like a motorcycle leaning into a corner — which gets the skis onto edge but, used alone, makes you 'bank' and lose pressure on the outside ski.
- Upper/Lower Body SeparationSEPARATION — sometimes called counter or anticipation — is the quiet-upper-body, busy-legs quality that defines polished skiing, and it's the key to quick, rhythmic turns. The idea: your LEGS turn beneath you while your UPPER BODY stays relatively quiet and facing DOWN THE SLOPE (toward the fall line), rather than…
- Short-Radius TurnsSHORT-RADIUS TURNS — quick, rhythmic, slalom-like turns linked in a narrow corridor — are how experts control speed on steep or tight terrain and show off crisp leg action. The key is SEPARATION (which you've learned): the legs turn rapidly beneath a quiet upper body that stays facing down the fall line, while a…
- Bumps & MogulsMOGUL skiing looks like aggressive bouncing, but elite bump technique is the opposite: smooth ABSORPTION, not impact. Each mogul has three phases — the approach, the ABSORB (flex) as you rise over the crest, and the EXTEND as you drop into the trough.
Insane 4
- Dynamic High-Edge CarvingDYNAMIC HIGH-EDGE CARVING is expert carving turned up to its limit — the railroad-track turn at speed, with such high edge angles that an advanced skier's hip can nearly brush the snow. It demands everything you've built working together: a powerful blend of inclination and HIP ANGULATION to reach extreme edge…
- Steeps & Variable TerrainSTEEP and VARIABLE terrain — pitches where a fall would slide, snow that changes from firm to soft to crud turn by turn — is where expert MECHANICS matter most, even though the judgment of reading that terrain is its own skill (covered honestly in a separate lesson). The body mechanics: on steeps you make…
- Terrain, Line & Conditions ReadingReading the mountain — choosing your LINE through a bump field or down a steep, judging where the snow is firm versus soft versus wind-loaded, picking a safe route in changing light and traffic — is what separates a skier who survives big terrain from one who merely has good turns. But this is perception and…
- Knee Safety & ACL PreventionThe knee is the signature site of serious ski injury — the knee accounts for roughly a third of all ski injuries, and the ACL is the most common severe one, with women at notably higher risk. The good news: the highest-value prevention is something you've trained throughout these lessons — STAYING FORWARD, out of…