Lateral Movement By Michael Rogan

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Create and maintain dramatic edge angles with your skis by adjusting the angles of your body. It's all about how you get there.

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Lateral alignment—a fundamental skill that keeps you balanced as you shift your skis from one set of edges to the other—plays a much bigger role in modern skiing than it did in the straight-ski era. In instructor-speak, we talk about “getting to the inside” of a turn by moving not only forward and backward (see October’s Turning Points) but also side to side. However, what’s important is not that you get to the inside of a turn to edge your skis but how you get there. Lateral edging movements come in two forms, inclination and angulation, and how you use each affects your lateral alignment and balance.

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Incorrect: A Sequence of Trouble

[ A ] Excessive inclination—leaning your entire body to the inside of a turn for too long—keeps your upper body following your ski tips, which are carving up the hill, not down it in the direction of the next turn.

[ B ] If all of your weight is still on your uphill leg because your entire body is tipped into the hill as you cross the fall line, your downhill ski will begin to diverge. It’ll be too late, not to mention too difficult, to make subtle adjustments with your feet and ankles to release your edges.

[ C ] Tossing your head and shoulders down the hill in a rushed effort to start your new turn is ineffective. It takes too long for the lateral movement message to travel down your body to your skis. It’ll be a struggle to engage your new edges at the start of the new turn, let alone doing so in unison or in balance.

[ D ] Even if you manage to get your skis on edge by tipping your whole body to the inside, your lateral alignment will be far out of whack, and the sequence of trouble will continue.

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On the hill

The amount and degree of lateral movements you make will vary with the terrain and your speed, but all of your lateral movements should follow the same kinetic sequence, starting with the joints closest to your skis—your feet and ankles—and moving up your body. Inclination and angulation both play important roles in skiing, but you have to apply them in the right proportions to maintain lateral balance. Slow Turns When you’re moving slowly and making long-radius turns on gentle terrain, the forces acting on you are relatively weak, so this full-body inclination is manageable. It creates straight, graceful body lines that swoop and flow from turn to turn. Remember, edging movements should still start with your ankles, not your head or shoulders.

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Fast Turns

As your speed and the slope angle increase, inclination at the start of the turn should evolve into angulation through the middle and finish. The more your lower body tips in one direction, the more your upper body should tip in the other direction to create dramatic complementary angles that allow you to remain balanced as forces increase.

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Short Turns

When your turns get short, quickness and agility matter. Your lateral movements don’t have time to travel all the way up the kinetic chain. They have to happen mostly in your lower body. As your feet, ankles and knees make quick lateral adjustments to tip your skis from edge to edge, your hips and shoulders act as stabilizers.

snowspring

These are great shots.