Telemark Talk / Telemark Tips Forum

I have had a couple days on lift served with my Annums, T4s, and hardwires.

Things have progressed well for me, I have been doing beginner and intermediate trails with telemark turns.

However, I have noticed a huge difference in my ability turning right or left. When I turn right I always feel in control and have no problem getting the right amount of weight on my right foot, When I turn left I feel very different. I have to really focus and it never feels natural. I feel like I am weighting too much and turning too sharp or not enough and not turning.

Has anyone experienced this feeling? Any magic exercises to remedy this?

I have the same feeling. Same side too. Probably the common way.

What I try to do to feel more comfortable going left is start off turning left. The first of a sequence is always the hardest, and I always want to go right first.

I also exaggerate my movements a little bit. I feel like I try to get lower going left and edge my skis more. In reality, I'm probably doing the same or less than the right, I just have to force it more.

The one other thing I can think of is to do garlands in that direction. You need a real ski hill to do these, but essentially you do a long traverse, go down a little, and then edge and come back up. To work on your left, you'd do a left traverse and just tend right to pick up speed and then edge left and turn left up the hill. In this way you never do a right turn and just practice feeling your edges for one direction. I'd say traverse with skis parallel and go into your tele as you turn, this will work in your transition as well, although it's not actually the same.

There's probably other stuff, but off the top of my head those are the things I would do or do. I've never done the garland thing, but I should.

Yes, normal. For me it was left turns awesome, right turns terrible.

I would recommend either (edit: this is what helped me with this problem-- results not guaranteed):

No Poles-- hands on joysticks pointed down the fall line, shoulders square to the fall line-- think headlights on shoulders pointed down the mountain

and/or

Holding poles as you would a lunch tray, perpendicular to fall line, and repeat the shoulder exercise.

Be disciplined about quiet upper body that is square to the fall line!

Tip 35, 66, 74 and later, 21 in Allen & Mike's Telemark Tips book should help with this.

Best Rx is to have someone qualified take a look at your skiing... Do not hesitate: take a lesson... You'll be glad.

I took the same approaches as MkeK but in the opposite direction. Garlands especially built up my confidence early on. I'm curious if those of us who are more comfortable turning left are goofy footers on boards, water skis, etc. as it just occurred to me that a left turn is right foot forward, just like I do on water skis, skateboards and snowboards. Coincidence? But garlands I think helped me the most - on older 10th Mtns, pins and Asolos so similar but skinnier...

Tnevins. I am on a similar set up as yours with the exception of S-112's instead of the Annums. I went out with my son today skiing easy intermediate terrain. I found myself a little weak on some turns with my back foot (left) making left turns. The tele turn is really about the back foot (IMO). I think it would make sense that a right handed person would have more trouble with the left foot.
On groomed you may want to try moving your lead foot back as you unweight and move your new lead foot forward. If you ski where there are some good telemark instructors by all means take a lesson. I would also add that I believe my S-112 handles hard snow better than your Annum, and neither are really good hard snow skis. You could probably ski a more torsionally rigid ski without issue, skiing off your front foot. I look at this as an opportunity to work on my form. When you make nice turns with these skis on hard bases, you know you are doing it right.
Just curious, does anybody ski a Vector on frozen bases at the ski hill (resort)? I was wondering if they were better on hard snow. I would think that it would be a much more torsionally rigid ski, but I have not skied it so I am not sure.

I think most people have this issue. I felt the same when I snowboarded. Never really noticed it Alpine skiing, but I guess I do sometimes get a different sensation of balance if I traverse something steep left vs right. Definitely feel stronger with weight on my right foot.

Rodbelan wrote:Best Rx is to have someone qualified take a look at your skiing... Do not hesitate: take a lesson... You'll be glad.

Fewer and fewer instructors out there....so difficult to find good ones, or ones that have schedules that are frequent enough to get during my own time. I asked at my local hill for instruction and I quote almost verbatim: "Well, we had a great instructor but he moved away, but we have this other guy...call a few days in advance and we'll see if he's available." Inspiring! Can't wait!

Thank you everyone for the responses.

I will practice with the mentioned techniques. Thinking about it now I definitely turn my shoulders too much when turning left. I actually swing a lot when turning left. I will keep my shoulders from swinging next time and I am sure that will help.

This forum and the people here are very helpful! Thanks again!

Hey - I thought of something else to look into but I haven't quite figured out the details.

Try balancing on your left (or weak side) leg only on the ball of your foot. This simulates kind of how you feel when in a tele. I know for sure it's far easier for me to do this on my right than my left.

There must be some exercise you can do to strengthen your muscles and improve your stability in this stance but I'm not quite sure on that part... any ideas? I'm sure a PT could tell you in like two seconds.