Warren Miller, but you never see a perhaps more important altur-
native like Skid Magazine.) To get down out of a stagnant traverse
requires a new level of thinking; you don't want to be merely a par-
allel skier, or a paradoxical skier, you want to be a paradigm skier,
a model skier seeing and understanding each of a million turns in
36 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
its own unique context. . . . That reminds me: I need to get a pair of
dimes and epoxy them to my ski tips.
Turn Phases--- It's comforting to know that any given turn
can be broken down into three phases: the initiation phase, the pa-
tient middle phase, and the finishing phase. Whenever encounter-
ing a new slope or a new snow condition, the diligent student
should opt for one good turn from start to finish, focusing on the
three phases of a thorough turn, from smart to finish. The impa-
tient student has the prerogative to do ten crappy turns en-route to
a big face-plant. The better we perform our turns, the more it will
be true that the initiation phase is one millimeter away from the
finishing phase of the last turn---for confused students, this be-
comes a kitchen-or-the-egg dilemma. It's a given that gravity
causes us to pick up speed while skiing: when learning to control
speed while skiing on a new slope or in a new snow, you want
your speed increases to be in the middle phase of your turn, not at
the end; otherwise, you'll be starting new turns dangerously too
fast---let the experienced hard-core racers be the ones deliberately
trying to accelerate out of the finishing phase . . . and then fighting
to stay in the course if they do it too well.
Usually, learning a new slope or snow condition requires the
student to make a commitment to the inside edge of the uphill ski
before a turn can get started. "Weight on the downhill ski," again,
is one of the most damaging directives of all time, keeping millions
from being able to ever start a new turn---I dare you to stand on an
intermediate slope and start a turn without standing on your uphill
ski first. "Weight on the downhill ski," while fine words for trav-
ersing, will not help us start new turns---we're here to ski down
mountains, remember, not across them. One thing that gets lost in
the shuffle for too many learning skiers: they don't realize how pa-
tient the middle phase should often be, as this is the phase where
you need to have faith and not rush your movements as momen-
tum builds; a patient middle phase gives you something to work
with in order to have a strong finish, which sets you up for a good
start on the next turn.
I don't want to bother you with turn linkage here right away,
because there are a lot of times when the student needs to just pay
attention to one good turn from beginning to end, any time there is
a new slope or snow condition. If you can't do one good turn
somewhere, what makes you think you can do ten in a row? When
the student masters one good turn, then I will offer them the con-
cept of linkage and all its Gary details.
Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 37
Turn Size-n-Shape--- What is easier? Big turns? or little? . . .
Long turns? or short? . . . Wide turns? or narrow? . . . Again, while
we don't want to get into the bad habit of running our horse back to
the barn, we are here to ski down mountains and not across them,
so I personally find very little use for wide turns, which are nothing
more than linked traverses, which are stagnant and undynamic and
generally done only when you have to for logistics purposes. Oh,
we might have to traverse across a new slope or snow condition
sometimes to figure out our turn initiation, but generally the easy
turn to make has a big round C-shape anatomy plenty long down
the mountain . . . and well-finished. Further, we must learn to deal
with centrifugal force and get a feel that our turns are three-dimen-
sional, not just two dimensional, requiring a deeper understanding
than just left or right. A scared student, having trouble even start-
ing a turn, will get terribly impatient and opt for a more difficult
sharper turn impossible to finish. A beginner's straight-running A-
shaped wedge is left-n-right turning at the same time, and his very
first real turn may be a hundred-yard-long parenthesis---if that's
too difficult, we must stick with a straight wedge for awhile. . . . In
other words, we go to a new slope or snow condition in search of
one good turn, smart, patient, and finished---quality comes first,
quantity and/or speed comes later.
Let me say it again: this manual is about skiing all slopes and
snow conditions, which means doing the easy task of one big easy
C-shape well-finished in each new slope or snow, as speed and
rhythm can be worked on when we're ready; it's a good idea to
have at least three turn sizes in your repertoire, but the big turn is
usually the easiest one to finish, not the tight turn. Sharp hasty
turns with long traverses in between are not the same as big turns.
Again, I am utterly amazed at how often I can say "go long and
finished," and students will misconstrue, "we thought you said
make wider turns," which tend to become tight last-resort turns
done in desperation near the trees on the side of the run. If a stu-
dent cannot go long enough down the mountain for an easy C-
shaped turn, he is probably on too steep of a slope---and it is safer
to argue this point in a book inside by the fireplace than out on the
slope. But maybe it's not the size-n-shape of the Good Turn so
much as the spirit in which it is rendered.
Turn-Linkage--- Now, one good turn deserves another.
There comes a time, when one has mastered one good turn at a
time on a new slope or in a new snow, to start carrying the energy
from the finish of the last turn into the start of the new turn---
38 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
rhythmically linked S-turns instead of isolated one-at-a-time C-
turns. Again, turning is the task all skiers have to work on, from
beginner to expert: each new slope, each new snow condition . . .
should require one good turn, not ten; each familiar slope, each
familiar snow condition then requires ten good turns, not just one.
And a medium- or large-radius turn is probably easier than the
shorter turns still to come. We turn left . . . so that we can turn
right----take a wild guess why we turn right. Starting a turn from
scratch may be necessary in the beginning, but doing this for a
thousand turns from the top of the tram will wear an advanced
skier out. In other words, eventually, a skier's A-shaped wedge
and C-shaped turns may evolve into some more assertive J-turns to
a stop, and then rhythmically-linked S-turns will come natural,
powder-8s with a partner, maybe even accelerating V-shaped pro-
race skate-steps reminiscent of your first herringbone up the
bunny-hill, . . . but never those frightful wide Z-turns linked only
by stagnant traverses, . . . nor those lazy figure-11s. ---Oh, it's fun
being a man of letters.
Still---and I lay awake at night thinking about this: there are far
too many advanced skiers . . . who have a dead-spot between turns,
a lull in the action, an unintentional traverse, as if they are waiting
for some kind of permission to get rhythmic for a change. This
dead-spot between turns, the same old stagnant traverse, is yet
another manifestation of the gridlock we find today (1990 and 2010)
in corporate business and American Government (see Epilogue as
well as my other ski books). A lot of students actually get stuck
this way because their instructors don't know how to emphasize
the patience and faith that you need in the middle phase; and they
skip the fundamental One Good Turn business of individual C-
shapes; they go too soon to the S's and snow the students under
with too much "how" technique and not enough of just what they
need when-n-where-n-why they need it.
One of my biggest assets as a teacher is my late start (men-
tioned in the Foreword): I had no concept of turn-linkage my whole
first year skiing, then I had to learn things the hard way, making up
for lost time and overcoming a million bad habits; so, whereas in-
structors who started as a young kid . . . take a lot of this key stuff
for granted, I know what is not getting taught by them, and I know
what the students are going through. . . . If you are allowed only
one turn to look at on your skiing laboratory TV screen, make it a
C-shaped turn, but then monkey with the vertical-control knob so
that the finish of the turn goes to the top-half of the screen and the
Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 39
beginning of the turn goes to the bottom-half of the screen---oh,
you need to imagine one of those turn halves to be flipped over,
because obviously you don't want the bottom half of a left turn
starting the top half of a left turn. I guess the minimum we need
for the lab TV screen is two turns, one to the left and one to the
right. When you get one S to look at, focus on the very middle of
that S---that's how you need to focus on turn-linkage.
. . . When we go out on the mountain, the turn per-se will be
dealt with in context, according to the slope steepness, the snow
condition, and skier ability, from beginner to expert. When appro-
priate, we'll do one turn at a time; when appropriate, we'll link
turns several in a row. In all contexts, we'll point out what's desir-
able in each of the three phases of a turn---well, some tasks focus
more on a certain part of a turn, and this will help your skiing be-
come more dynamic and versatile in the end. You won't have to
memorize my 'Periodic Chart' of Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING; you
just need to know how to read it.
Again, one good rule of thumb is this: in linked turns, you
want each turn to be as long as or longer than it is wide; if the turn
is wider than it is long, that means a stagnant traverse between,
and your turns are not linked; so the only time it is okay to have a
traverse between turns . . . is if you are working on one good turn
at a time, which is the prerequisite before good turn-linkage in
many different scenarios, as you'll see.
It's funny when you stop to think how simple skiing can be . . .
and how complicated and interesting it can be---but it takes a good
writer to sort this out, not necessarily just a good teacher. When
you think about it, virtually everything we do on a pair of skis con-
stitutes a turn of one kind or another---and there's only two ways
we can go, to the left or to the right; yet, as you start analyzing
things, you start noticing myriad possibilities. Take a look at all the
possible ski tracks out there---here in the illustration are just a few
interesting examples. The more you know what to look for in ski
tracks, the more you start to appreciate them. (It's sad, but many
untaught advanced skiers go for years making only one kind of
track, and they become very bored with skiing---this has been a
huge factor in the proliferation of snow-boarding: these bored un-
taught advanced skiers are brainwashed into singing "Glory, Hal-
lelujah! Snow-Boarding SAVED ME from eturnal damnation and
boredom!" The better experts tend to know how fresh and inter-
esting skiing will always be, and this is why they keep doing it,
instead of getting side-tracked by the next big fad.)
40 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
wedge turns
herringbone
side-slips
high-speed carves
skate-step turns powder turns
---bird's-eye view of various ski tracks---
Being a LawMan in the Ski Industry, it helps if you're a good tracker
---hopefully, you won't have to check how old a skier's droppings are
Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 41
You might have noticed by now that I am a Man of Letters. In
skiing there are several letters and numbers that we can do with
our skis, even a few punctuation marks, and this has everything to
do with turn size-n-shape and turn linkage. Some require more
than one skier, but here is a list:
A, C, J, S, V, X, Y, Z
8, 11, 18, 81, 88, 181, 818, 888
#, $$$, ((, )), (), )(, " ", .
(And there are some more letters I attribute to Terrain Park snow-
boarders, explained in detail in my PROHIBITION book: 'N-trax'
and 'D-trax.' And, with the snow-boarders and 'shaped skis' out on
the slopes, we now have to worry about 'Ox-Bow Incidents.')
Be careful you don't get 'T-boned.'
Ski Equipment---
In the olden days, like the 1930s and '40s, with long heavy
hickory boards and low flimsy leather boots in a few inches of
powder, it seems it took every muscle in your body to get a turn
made, with the Arlberg Technique, where your torso had to turn
more than your skis; nowadays (even 1990 and the '80s and before,
but especially in 2000 and 2010) the skis are practically designed to
turn for you---there's a big reverse in skis and boots from then (the
'30s and '40s) to now (I said this strongly in the '80s, and I say it just
stronger now in 2010). And now (for the last few decades), there's
a reciprocity in ski equipment from the olden days to now: as the
beginner needs gentle skis for slow speeds and flat places on easy
hard-pack groomed snow, and the expert needs beefy equipment
easy for high speeds and/or steep places and variable snow condi-
tions---by the way, the longer skis for an expert's routine higher
speeds on the easier half of the mountain . . . also give him more
braking power on the tougher half of the mountain. Before we
even go out on the mountain to work on our techniques, we might
as well get mounted on equipment for our ability level. A pair of
skis is like a horse: choose a ski with the right conformation for the
job---some are stronger or more hot-blooded than others, but their
disposition is mostly up to you; your boots clicked into the bind-
ings are like a saddle that enables you to stay secure and communi-
cate with your skis, whereas free-heel skiing, cross-country and
telemark, you might say, is like skiing bareback. I still show my
students the exaggerated upper-body rotation of the Arlberg Tech-
nique from time to time, for fun and to exaggerate the juxtaposition
from then to now. And it wasn't against the law to do what you
42 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
had to do in those olden days.)
The lower-level skier you are, the more you can rely on renting
equipment until you know better what your preferences are. But, if
you are going to own anything, it should be the boots and poles
first, before skis-n-bindings. Ski boots are your most personal item,
just like a cowboy's own saddle, and you want a good fit. Ski poles
need to fit you too, both in length and thickness, but they come
pretty cheap anyway, and it's nice to avoid the hassle of renting ill-
fitting bent and mismatched poles. Bindings need to be matched to
the ski-n-skier-ability level, and they generally come already pack-
aged compatible with the skis---when we talk about skis, we often
assume there are bindings already mounted on them. If you don't
already know, the antique bear-trap bindings of the mid-1900s and
before are what made skiing so dangerous way back when, because
they wouldn't let-go of you in an egg-beater fall; but that is ancient
history now. Again, whereas skis are heavy and cumbersome to
cart around, almost like a horse, boots and poles are easy to cart
around from mountain to mountain, much like a wrangler taking
his own saddle and tack to each ranch---some of the best cowboys
and wranglers go their whole life without ever owning their own
horse, but they wouldn't be caught dead without their saddle. The
main problem with renting skis is that the rentals can come in terri-
ble shape sometimes, with dull edges and burrs galore and no wax-
--this is especially true of beginner rental equipment, which may be
lucky to get sharpened and waxed once a year,---but this incon-
venience doesn't last but maybe a few days of your ski life. Once
you get going a bit and are still renting skis, ask for the better-qual-
ity 'demo skis,' which are models rented out to entice you to buy
that particular model; then insist that they be tuned sharp and
waxed with absolutely no burrs----sometimes these used demo skis
are the best skis to buy real cheap at the end of the season or maybe
at the beginning of the following season.
About skis--- Downhill skis are very interesting pieces of
equipment; and, the more you know about them, the more you can
use them to your benefit; they are interesting and sophistocated,
but they are fairly easy to understand, even if you don't care to ski.
(Please bear with me here, as there is a lot to talk about. The more
of a beginner or low-intermediate you are, the more you might
want to come back and re-read this section later, after you have
more of your own knowledge and opinions about skiing.) . . . Even
if you don't ski, you can grasp what I am explaining here, and have
a better understanding of what you are looking at when you watch
Our Bottomless Topic: "How to Turn"---A Preview --- 43
expert skiers or extreme-skiing films or FIS World-Cup Racing or
the Olympics. As you'll see, chances are you can relate how skis
operate . . . to many other things in the world, or something you
may already know something about: alpine snow skis operate
much the same as ice-skates, roller-skates or roller-blades, skate-
boards, water-skis, surf-boards, snow-boards, even air-planes, dirt
bikes, and race-cars, and even steak knives or butter knives. ----I
don't like comparing skis to snow-mobiles or road-bikes unless I
have to, for reasons too hard to explain right now concerning an-
gles and 'digging-in' versus 'not digging-in'---a snowmobile may
'dig in' like a ski, but the snowmobiler has to do road-racer things
to accomplish it, even though the road-racer doesn't 'dig in.' If you
don't understand something, it's better to admit it and continue
scratching your head . . . than to pretend you do understand it and
have a danger of getting it backwards (---God and JC aren't going
to condemn you for questioning things, just the human high priests
are egotistical and childish enough to do that).
Okay, to start, all technology aside, your right ski turns left,
and your left ski turns right---and this has been true since the be-
ginning, because of the way our bones need to be stacked for bal-
ance. Modern skis want to turn for you, if you know how to use
them (like I say, this was originally written in 1990, and it's just
more true now in 2010): when you edge the ski, or angle it in the
snow via the lateral lever that is your ski-boot, the tip and tail en-
gage in the snow first because they are wider than the middle, or
waist; . . . then, when you pressure the ski by standing against it, it
will bend into reverse camber for a carved turn. With edging only,
there may still be daylight under the narrow middle of the ski, so it
is the added ingredient of pressure, via the turning force and your-
self, . . . that ensures that the ski will bend down under your boot
and curl up at the tip and tail. This hour-glass ski shape, also
known as side-cut, is a big factor in how easy it is to decamber the
ski (---'straight skis' are a misnomer because they always did have
shape, and 'shaped skis' just now have more of it). Anyway, this
angled bent ski . . . is a deflecting carving ski: from tip to tail, it
tracks like a freight train from engine to caboose. I might point out
. . . that a decambered ski works pretty much the same as the sharp
blade of an ice-skate, only a skate's blade has its carving curve al-
ready built-in. . . . But the real beauty of a downhill ski is this: not
only will it track tip-to-tail in carving mode like an ice skate, it will
also let you slip or skid the tail around in a track separate from the
tip---this is what gives you your brakes, which is more important
44 --- Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING
than carving in my book This skidding is the same as the impor-
tance of being able to "disengage the heins-quarters," in horse par-
lance.
Also, roller-skates and skate-boards work similar to a carving
ski: when you press and angle them, the wheels underneath have
some freedom to turn the way things are angled. And, a snow-
board works the same as a ski, with it's wider tip and tail, for carv-
ing or skidding, only you're