Basic GS (and ski) rules

After watching Ligety's well-deserved victory in Giant Slalom, a few basic skiing principles finally dawned on me. They are three of them:

1. Anticipate your turns well ahead of time.
2. Always be smooth on your skis.
3. Avoid ruts and other unfriendly obstacles.

While number one is a rule every alpine competitors knows to well, it's hard to make it a permanent rule and turn it into a natural instinct. Yet, that's where we should focus most of our training. If we can stay ahead of the curve, we'll always be fine. I we start playing catch-up we are self-destructing.

Number two also is a no-brainer. If we can be smooth at all time, we'll waste far less energy, we'll end up being more nimble and we'll look stunning beautiful on skis. 

Number three is much harder to master, because, most of the time, we don't control it. Racers need to start in ruts before earning the privilege of racing on a manicured surface, the rest of us are at the whim of mother nature, the bad choices we make in picking runs or the variable nature of snow.

So I would suggest that this latter quality will come naturally after we have mastered the first two. This said, skiing is limpidly simple. Apply these steps and you'll ski like a god.