Snow plow turns

Purpose of the turn / exercise:

• Understanding the basic principles of steering and turning skis
• Training and keeping basic ski position
• Speed riding control
• Moving the weight from over one ski to over the other
• Vertical movement
• Setting skis on edge

Terrain:

• Moderately steep slope

Description:

Snow plow turn is one of the fundamental elements in teaching skiing. When done properly, it will allow us to understand how skis actually work and turn, and it also will allow us to control the speed. Snow plow turns are made at such a slow speed so that we are able to perceive all our movement and instructions of the instructor riding next to us or ahead of us. 

Phases of the performance: We perform turn's initiation on the skis facing across a gently graded slope. Our skis are in the snow plow position - we keep tips of the skis close together and tails of the skis at a greater distance from one another – if we look at a skier from the front, the skis reminds you the shape of "arrow". We keep skis in this position throughout our riding.

We start the snow plow turn with a gradual pressing the outside ski and setting this ski on the inside edge; we fluently shift our centre of gravity down, our knees are forward and inside the formed turn. The inside ski is lightened.

We perform the next turn at the passing from the fall line into the horizontal line. We fluently lighten the outside ski and gradually press the inside ski. The inside ski which rotates into the next turn in transitional phase becomes the outside ski.

The most common errors:

• High speed of a skier
• Inappropriately chosen terrain for training
• Skis are too close together (imperfect keeping of the plow position)
• Lifting the inside ski