An Easier Way to Make a Wedge

Challenge to ski instructors:  Now that most of us are back on the snow for the 2011-2012 season, let’s bump up our game so that the new crop of never-ever skiers will have a successful time in their learn-to-ski lesson.

Let’s change the way we teach a wedge turn.  The conventional wedge uses our outside leg to initiate the turn:  our left leg/ski turns right, so we turn right; our right leg/ski turns left to make a left turn.  Most of the time this works well for our students.  After all, it is skiing’s most basic rotary movement.  Except for one minor point . . .

If the learning hill is too steep, or the student is going too fast, or their muscle strength isn’t up to par, the student opens that wedge so wide it may as well be the wing span of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.  An exaggeration maybe, but we all know that this huge wedge is awkward, exhausting, and completely ineffective.  Plus it also jams up the uphill leg so that our never-ever skier is contorted like a pretzel.

An easier way to make a wedge. Use the inside leg to initiate the turn.  Your student turns the left leg/ski to turn left, and the right leg/ski to turn right.  And no trying to remember opposite sides of the body here either.  Plus the skier’s body aligns itself more naturally to the snow so the “other” leg follows much more easily than in our conventional wedge.

Now all you need to do is . . .  Coach them to contract the appropriate thigh muscle to provide some added turning power.  Right leg, right turn—contract the right thigh; left leg, left turn—contract the left thigh.

Then watch them ski!