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HOW TO DEVELOP BALANCE ON SKIS Can you put on a sock while standing on one foot? And likewise while standing on the other foot? If so, you may be ready to ski. Objectives of skiing in a balanced stance are two-fold: 1) You will have more options to move into slightly out-of-balance positions to cause the skis to perform as you wish in special situations, and 2) because you will be able to use the skis more to cause your turns rather than your muscles, you will have more strength to effect the most efficient movements, and you will also be able to ski more hours in the day, more days in the ski vacation, more weeks in the ski year, and more years in the ski lifetime. Muscle tone and practice are where balance come from. Body mechanisms such as inner ear devices may also play a role, but we pretty much have to use what we already possess within that area. Skiers can exercise off the slopes to tone muscles. They can do daily chores like putting on socks while standing on one foot. Or they can walk a rail or stand on one foot on the top of a short post. There are also balance boards which consist of a slotted drum and a board with a rail that slides along the slot as the drum rolls and the skier stands atop the board. To learn balance on skis while on a slope, however, will probably require some special exercises and a degree of "I can do it" commitment. Humans have a natural tendency to seek the vertical position. But to be balanced against the forces of a ski turn, a skier often must be oriented off the vertical. Many skiers must be coached and coaxed into this new feeling. One simple tip, however, is to keep the eyes up so that landscape elements (trees, horizons, posts) give references to where horizontal and vertical lie. Looking up also helps you see where you are going and gives you more time to plan your course and reactions. (One instructor asked for a bottle of wine every time a student looked down, and was owed probably a freight-car load by winter's end, although he didn't collect any.) Lightly touching or dragging a ski pole along the snow surface, like an antenna, can also give a feel for slope angles and one's positioning. Of course, skiers wishing to improve balance should not push beyond the upper limit of their comfort zones. That is usually counter-productive and results in substitution of moves that presently seem more comfortable than the ones that need to be learned. Instead, pick slopes that are not so steep as to inhibit making the needed moves. Then practice on similar terrain until ready to try the next degree. Eventually on really steep slopes, the needed move seems like a dive down the hill to get into the balanced position. One student called the turn so effected a religious turn; "It takes faith," he said, "to move into the scary position so the skis will turn. But it works!" Explain how proprioceptive feeling relates to balance.
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