Gammes are fast skis, so speed control is necessary, when going downhill. You often skid the Gammes because it cuts down speed. Skidding also helps to make tighter turns with their 14 mm sidecut.
You can do the first drill at home on a carpet. I would learn most others in an open, moderate slope, with some powder, but not much more than a foot deep. When snow is hard, even a green piste might be too much for learning.
Drill 1: Telemark stance
In a telemark stance, you should feel pressure on shins of both legs, and the rear ski ball of foot.
Drill 2: Tele shuffle (tele dance)
In tele shuffle, you test the telemark stance and shift sides, while going downhill. It is a great drill even when you can already link turns because it helps to get rear ski pressuring right.
"If I could go back, I would have spent 10 hours on it instead of the maybe 10 minutes I put into it. I think it could have shaved 10 years off of my learning curve."
- lowangle al
Drill 3: Striding into a telemark
According to Paul Parker, telemark originated from a classic cross-country stride. The drawing below is from Parker's book.
Parker writes that in a telemark turn, you stride with your feet only. For this part, a telemark stride is different from XC skiing and walking strides. You don't swing your arms, but keep them relaxed in front of you.
1. Neutral position
2. Tele shuffle in direction fall line
3. Pressure the inner rear edge of your front ski until you start to turn.
4. Move weight evenly to both feet.
5. Neutral position / stop
Putting pressure on the inner rear edge of the front ski helps especially in powder.
"To make stiff cross country skis turn, you want to weight the heel of your front ski. That way the tail of the outside ski will skid toward the new direction you want to glide in. Once your outside ski is pointing where you want to go, move your inside ski alongside it, and weigh both skis evenly again."
- riel
Drill 4: Wedging into a telemark
Parker's other approach to learning tele is a wedge tele.
1. Wedge with your outer ski (half wedge).
2. Bring your inner ski (rear ski) and rear leg to a tele stance.
On hardpack, a wedge tele was easier to learn than a stride tele. The wedge cuts down speed at the moment, when you move through fall line.
Drill 5: Linking turns (garland)
At first, it is good to stop after each turn. Later on, you can start a new turn after each one ends. This was the third and last drill I practiced from Parker’s book.
- On an easier part of your slope, try linking some stride or wedge teles down the hill.
- Sink into a telemark position, while at the same time you steer the front foot, knee and ski.
- Steer your front foot more to make a tighter turn and slow down, steer less to speed up.
- On a gentle slope you will feel as though you are walking "pigeon-toed" from one tele to the next.
Drill 6. Edging & rear ski weighing
In a telemark turn, especially rear ski edging helps to turn. It helps to maintain control on hard snow.
"Concentrate on edging. Work the inside edge of your outside ski, and the outside edge of your inside ski."
- lowangle al
"Visualize your rear foot pinky (little toe) putting pressure on the outside edge."
- Johnny
"Get a feeling for the back ski and front ski edges, mainly how the back foot creates edging that helps the turn. The edges relate to your little toe on the back foot and big toe on the lead."
- oldschool
Note: Instructors speak about little toe. However, you should pressure a ball of foot."Concentrate on rear foot weighting. Initiate with the lead foot, but make that rear foot control that turn."
- lowangle al
Drill 7: Counterbalancing
This is an alpine video, but binding type does not matter much for upper body movements. Also in XCD, keep your look and chest facing downhill.
"Practice keeping your upper body facing downhill and quiet, without exaggerated movements."
– teledance
Drill 8. Weighting and unweighting
When you start to go a little faster, weighting and unweighting create rhythm and flow. Also in slower turns, weighting and unweighting are at work.
1. Unweighting
— Neutral position
— Legs are relaxed.
— Weight is on both skis.
— Skis are flat on snow.
— Ski tips point downhill.
2. Weighting
— Pressure the inner rear edge of the front ski.
— When you start to turn, pressure the rear ski outer edge with your ball of foot, while still edging the front ski, too.
3. Unweighting
— Neutral position
— Change lead ski & repeat.
"Keep moving vertically. When you get the the low point of your drop, start rising into the next phase."
- zonca
"If you want to squash the camber out of those Gammes to carve with the middle of your ski, you will need to do a lot of unweighting. Unweighting is important because it results in weighting."
- lowangle al
"Have both skis first equally unweighted during lead ski change. When you then move through a turn, have both skis weighted in a tele stance."
- Harris
"A tight turn means quick pressure build-up (diving in) and an abrupt release at the finish (explosive, against the forces). A long turn equals slow pressure build-up (sinking in) and an easy release of edges (patient, balanced turns)."
- Harris
Drill 9: center of balance
Balance is a dynamic thing here because situations change fast.
"As far as being centered, you are constantly moving to maintain it. When you have it you are stable, when you lose it you are not."
- lowangle al
"50/50 [front and rear ski weighting] is really what you should be looking for when doing tele turns. That's the idea behind seeing both skis as one big plank."
- Johnny
"It is having too much weight on one leg that burns muscles out. If you can keep your skis fairly equally weighted and maintain it throughout the day you will get a lot more mileage out of your legs. Then strength and fitness are less of an issue."
- lowangle al
Drill 10: Ice hockey stop
You can do a hockey stop either in a tele stance or in a parallel.
"Try always to stop with your weak turn, and to make it pretty and solid. We naturally stop with our strong side, working on the other helps immensely."
- teledance
"Hockey stop by turning parallel throwing ice to a stop. This skill allows anybody to zig across any face in control. Slide off, build some slow speed, turn into the fall line, and come to a stop."
- teleman
"With my lightest setup, things clicked when I could do a hockey stop and feel the ball of the foot pushing. From there I could alter how much pressure to put depending on the turn."
- montrealer
Drill 11: Parallel turns
A parallel turn may be easier to do than a tele in narrow places, on hard snow and at higher speeds.
A stem turn, also known as a wedge christie, is an easier version of a parallel turn. You start the wedge christie like in a wedge tele, but then move on to a parallel turn. Alternatively, you can start a parallel turn with a step.
There is a point when snow gets hard enough that I switch to parallel turns. Telemark is a soft snow turn. One problem for a beginner is to know when NOT to try tele turns.
– lowangle al
Note: In the above video, skier is on Gammes and NNN-BC Fischer Transnordic boots. As Stephen said, "attire is optional". So are wedge and step starts... I guess you need good unweighting for a full parallel."I have enjoyed skiing hardpack with my Gammes more than overly soft stuff. On hard stuff, you can really catapult out of turns [with parallel turns]."
– mikael.oh
Accessories
I have used light blue wax (Rex) for XCD at all temperatures. Even in crud, the blue has worked alright. Remains of old wax have often been enough because I have skied XCD only after snowfalls. Newly fallen snow is sticky, so you find grip easily. Also, when you go downhill, stuck snow wears out.
Besides the blue wax, 30 mm mohair x-skins have worked, too. In faster snow, the x-skins cut down speed, and help with climbing. Yet I have used my x-skins only once in ~15 XCD sessions. Some skins may make tele turns unpredictable, but the 30 mm mohairs have felt like wax.
I would suggest matching NNN-BC flexors to boot stiffness. If you have stiff boots, a stiff red flexor may make your boots work like XC boots do. The red flexors help especially in XCD on hard snow.
With a too soft flexor, only the flexor gives in, when you lift a heel. Then your boot mostly pivots around the binding metal bar, like an alpine touring boot. When a flexor and a boot flex similarly, it is easier to make the boot sole bend, and to pressure the ball of foot.
Picked up the red flexors this year, and they are a quick and easy upgrade for downhill control. I wouldn't say they add power so much as help encourage/remind you to keep the ball of the foot down. Don't love the feel for kick and glide, and steeper skinning can be uncomfortable.
- John_XCD
When I had my Ingstad's set up for NNN-BC I used the reds. They worked really nice for turns, and were snappy on climbs. That being said, this was consolidated snow use only, I did not use them in fresh deep snow for climbing (but downhill yes, much fun), so no experience there. But otherwise, snappy kick up, nice control down.
- Woodserson
More?
Feel free to share below! Different points of view and tips are welcome. Especially when something is wrong above, comments and corrections will be helpful. I would apprecciate some new drills, too.
Their skiing looks weightless.
