Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

Hi All
This is my third season doing tele (although not full time). I have taken a few lessons at our local hill, but they are just group clinics. I can make a reasonable left turn, but when I try to turn right, my forward ski turns almost across the hill, with the back ski heading right at it. I can't seem to get them close together. I feel it is an issue with the downhill ski, rather than the uphill ski. I am starting to wonder if there is an issue with my alignment and if some type of boot adjustment is necessary (I do realize it is not all the equipment's fault). Not even sure if tele boots can have alignment work. Does this sound like anything in particular that I should be working on? I know practice is key, but I'm almost getting spooked to keep at it for fear of crossing the skis.
Thanks folks!
Jeff

Hi Jeff and welcome. It's possible you have a crooked binding so check that your boot heels are centered on the ski. More than likely though the problem is that you don't have enough weight on the rear ski. Getting centered is the first skill you need to learn. I recommend practicing on a low angle slope where you don't have to worry about slowing down and overemphasize weighting the rear ski.

Check out the Wiki on the telemark stance: http://www.telemarktalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1709

I agree with LAA: It sounds like you are not balanced correctly, specifically, it sounds like the age-old problem with not enough weight on the rear ski. Also try to keep in mind the little toe-big toe pressure thing. It can help you edge your skis correctly.

X3
The only thing I would add is perhaps a little drill. Ski schools have drills to exaggerate a particular point, to help the muscles feel. Since you most likely are not weighting the rear foot properly, go a a low angle slope you can easily handle and concentrate on rear foot weighting. Initiate with the lead foot, but make that rear foot control that turn. Perhaps you start doing it turning left, and really pressuring that left foot since you are better that way. Then move on to the right side.
Good luck!

Just wanted to add this link to the famous Urmas monomark video:

The drill he shows can really help you get that initial 'feel' of distributing your weight equally on both skis.

Everything every other commenter sez plus... Without seeing it it is hard to say, but it sounds like your problem starts at turn initiation and then compounds into a scenario where not only you don't have enough weight on the inside ski but you also haven't found its edge, meaning the ski is swimming flat in an uncontrollable and possibly even dangerous pseudo tele wedge turn.

Generally, telemark skiers fall into two distinct categories, those who on a basic level figured it out and the world opens up and those who haven't yet but will. The jump is pretty abrupt, and happens with an "ah ha!" moment. Suddenly you get the feel of it. My opinion is that once you get it you got it, it will take you down any slope, and the rest is a matter of taste, style and familiarity with conditions. Except for moguls; moguls are another world.

I attached a video called "the Seven Deadly Flaws," and I would bet a penny that you are at least suffering from #1 on the list: i.e. moving the rear ski back when trying to get in a telemark, which is akin to doing a backwards step back into a lunge position, which will screw up your turn from the very start. I disagree somewhat with his description of the lead transfer, i.e. he says it is a "weight transfer." I think he is explaining it too well at a micro moment level. Same goes for his advice to move the lead ski forward. In reality, it is a very nuanced two ski movement, this and that depending on the moment, but when trying to get a grasp for the turn your focus should be on the shuffle. Beyond that your body just learns and it becomes automatic and then you can focus on tip pressure etc. To give you an idea, I can ski pretty badass without ever paying mind to my tip pressure, it just happens, but as a good skier I like to occasionally work on my tip pressure technique because I turn even better when that focus goes well and no matter how good you get you can always technically get better feel. But it is a very subtle thing; too subtle I think for a beginner just trying to get a good tele down. But basically as for proper, see my 5th paragraph. I'll try to explain it well.

Second, I would also bet from your problems that you are "poodling," meaning you have that rear foot way back there, a common beginner issue, which you defaulted to for stability but gives you no way to properly weight it and edge it even if you want to, which makes it in turn swim around aimlessly and not turn in unison with the other ski.

Really think of it like this: the telemark is a 2 ski turn, and so all the forces you subject on the downhill ski to get it turning you need to try and produce on the inside ski to also get it to bend and by that turn. The thing that turns skis is their tips and then once settling their ability to bend convexly, which creates the arc. That takes a lot of weighting and pressure. I think a new telemarker should focus on this: 2 ski equally unweighted during lead exchange (depending on degree and/of type of turn: i.e long vs short radius) and then the 2 ski weighted settled telemark for ultimate edge engagement against the slope and side-slide as you move through the turn to its completion/finish. A lot of folks who struggle with the telemark concept fail to grasp that the lead exchange is a fairly equalized shuffle move, fast or slow depending on the length of desired turn, a turn that starts without necessarily biasing a particular ski as one does alpining, and that is the key point. Unlike an alpine turn the telemark two ski shuffle IS the mode for edge exchange from one side to the other, one turn into the next. Instead less able telemarkers generally try to "get into a telemark" AFTER they initiate their turn by moving the inside foot back, sometimes picking the ski tail up to do so, which kinda works well enough to make you think you got it, but you really are far off, and that maligned idea rear foot drop back consequently means it (one ski) is unweighted precisely when it should already be well weighted, directed, on edge and increasingly gaining edge angle as you move into a perpendicular position to the fall line, shedding speed or even carving without shedding speed to suit your desire/turn's needs. Any unweighting of the skis to aid initiation when using telemarks is like said above, meaning a 2 ski operation, where both skis go from weighting to unweighting during the shuffle, and then back to coordinated weighting after the shuffle. Compared to alpine, telemarks require a vastly greater balancing of the weighting of skis and vigilance towards that end concerning your turns. You don't blunt instrument your way through a good telemark. It is a surgical turn. That is the cool thing.

To see what kind of forces you should feel, and the position you should try to feel that you're in, at home, on carpet put your boots and skis on and shuffle without moving aft or fwd. Once in a telemark try to pick up your lead ski with your rear knee dropped. Not the way you will ski it, that would be back seat, but it should give you a clue to the muscles and whole body positioning you need to use. If you can't momentarily lift that front ski both tip and tail together then your default position is all wrong. In other words if you can't rear foot bias enough off the ball of the foot to raise your lead ski you'll know your stance is too splayed out "poodled."

Because you say that your downhill ski turns hard into the slope, all the mentioned above can cause that, together or separately, especially if you turn your shoulders into the hill rather than trying to keep them more square to the fall line via hip rotation. I see a lot of struggling telemarkers stiffened and squared up to the direction they are going rather than the direction that they WILL want to go. And so they turn themselves into the slope. A lot of the turn when tightened up and at speed is accomplished by unweighting the edges with the hips counter rotated. The shoulders and head should be trying to face where you will ahead want to go. As you unweight a hard edge that counter-rotation literally automatically uncoils you into your next turn and the skis come around by themselves during the shuffle.

Always press into the finish of your turns. Light in, press out. Press equals pressure. Long turn equals slow pressure buildup (sinking in) and easy release of edges to finish (patient, balanced turns). Tight turn is quick pressure build-up (diving in) and a abrupt release at the finish (more explosive, against the forces). Pretty simple.

Ultimately you will know that you have a pretty good concept of the turn when you can hockey stop it both sides. I personally would encourage anyone trying to learn the turn to get out on a bunny hill and practice tele hockey stops. You'll never pull it off if your idea of a telemark turn is off. You should be able to spray the hell out of your buddies stopping on a groomer.

Good advice here. While you're digesting it, remember as a learner one side turn is always better than the other. When I was learning, my good turn would switch back and forth form one side to the other as I got better, and I would tell one leg to teach the other one what it had learned.

teleclub wrote:Good advice here. While you're digesting it, remember as a learner one side turn is always better than the other. When I was learning, my good turn would switch back and forth form one side to the other as I got better, and I would tell one leg to teach the other one what it had learned.

Well said...

Harris,

Thank you very much for the detailed posts regarding technique- very valuable. Planning on reading this again more closely during my coffee break after class this morning!

I do not come from any ski scene- so often terms and slang are lost on me..

What do you mean when you speak of a "shuffle"?
Gareth

Transition?