On skis, speed is everything

I remember that, when I taught skiing, slow motion demonstrations were the order of the day. I mean that I would show frame-by-frame how a turn mechanically worked and broke it down in its key phases. To achieve that, I had to cheat, steal and perform all sort of tricks to make the turn happen by magic as I was deprived of the momentum I needed to make it really possible. I was in fact showing my students something impossible to replicate. That was 35 years ago. Have things really changed? I don’t think so as I observe American instructors defrauding their clients today in exactly the same manner. All these observations and reminiscences bring me to the crucial corollary that speed is a skier’s best friend. If I ski fast today, it’s not because I’m in a hurry; granted my “turns” are counted, but I’ve become a speed demon simply because I needed all the momentum I could grab from speed instead of relying on my vanishing muscular strength to keep up on the slopes. Sure, shorter skis have helped a great deal in affording lower-speed turns compared to their 204 cm “ancestors”, but still the faster one goes, the easier it gets, and into knee-deep powder, we all can use all the speed and incline we can get. As I say to whoever wants to listen, “in skiing, speed is always your best ally and your closest friend”. Time to ease up on the brakes!