The "mental game" of skiing

[Wade]

I've played golf for a long time at a decent level. With two young children, I haven't played much the last few years, but this year we moved to the burbs and joined a country club and I got to play a lot more.

The first half of the season was a bit of a struggle, but it turned around when I read a book about the mental side of the game. I knew this stuff, but I guess I had forgotten. I had been focusing on the mechanics of my swing and trying to make them perfect when I was playing. I was thinking about trying to do a few things correctly, and when I got them all right, I'd generally make a good swing.

The book reminded me that the time to think about and practice this stuff was on the range, not the course. On the course, I should focus only on sending the ball to the target, and trust that my swing would do that. It took a few weeks to properly adjust my thinking, but by focusing only on the target, I just about had my old game back. I went from routinely shooting low 80s to mid 70s. I won a couple of tournaments, and had a great end to the year.

In my skiing, I know I have a similar issue. By nature, I'm an analytical person, and during a run I know I spend time thinking about what ski I'm pressuring, where my hands are, where my body is facing, where my weight is, etc. Those are all things that are important to me skiing well, but after my golf season, I'm wondering if I'm going about this incorrectly.

Should I be focusing on those things only during drills, or during time on the hill I designate as skills practice? Should I be focusing on something else (line?) when I'm "just skiing" if I real want to ski well? Or maybe what I was doing in the golf course only applies to ball sports.

Anyway, I guess that's my long winded way of asking whether there is a way to have an effective "mental game" in skiing in the same way as other sports?

 

[Bill Talbot]

Mental game?

I have no idea, I just SKI.

 

[Philpug]

I have the occasional "I just don't have it today" day. Mentally just not there. Depending on the situation, if I am out with some friends or if it is a "work" day..I will try to ski through it. If it is just Tricia and me and depending how she feels, we might not try to fight it and just take off and hit our favorite AYCE Sushi place.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Sounds like you are talking about focus, narrow or wide.
Narrow focus for me means thinking about any piece (or pieces) of the technical puzzle as a part of the whole, and working on that to get it better.
Wide focus for me means choosing how to ski the terrain in front of me... how to ski the run as a sensation-filled experience.
Thanks for reminding me that these two are both important. I've only had a half day on snow so far; ski legs and ski mind are not yet back in play.

 

[AmyPJ]

I have the occasional "I just don't have it today" day. Mentally just not there. Depending on the situation, if I am out with some friends or if it is a "work" day..I will try to ski through it. If it is just Tricia and me and depending how she feels, we might not try to fight it and just take off and hit our favorite AYCE Sushi place.

Yeah, smart to know when to quit...last season I was NOT feeling it on the drive up to the hill, but it was my friend's birthday so decided a couple runs would be OK. We all know how THAT turned out!

Season passes are great for knowing when to quit and quitting when that time comes.

To the OP, I work on skills and form every single time I ski. Yes, I overthink and yes, I have a lot of work to do!

 

[dean_spirito]

I think it is nice to be able to analyze movements and sensations when I'm skiing. But I also think it is important to be able to shut my brain off and just ski from time to time. Each mindset has its time and place. If I'm attempting to make some sort of change in my technique, I tend to slow down and focus on those changes. If it's a powder day or I'm just in the mood to freeski, I focus on having fun. Sometimes I ski the best when I'm focusing on having fun.

 

[Johnny V.]

That's it! There are times to work on stuff and times to just ski. If I'm skiing trees in a foot of new snow, I ain't thinking technique, I'm looking for lines and thinking (if not yelling) YEAH! Likewise if I'm doing big high speed turns on a groomer I'm enjoying the sensation and the moment, not how I got there and what I can improve.

In most cases nobody is paying us to ski, so you've gotta have fun otherwise why bother!

 

[Monique]

Some days I'm "on", and I laugh off everything from equipment issues to falls, and I have a great time. Other days I'm "off," and every minor setback feels like the end of the world.

I'm with @Philpug - there are some days when it's better to just pack it in. I try not to, but there was one particular day last spring when I was actually in tears because of a difference between expectation and reality - and the instructor I was skiing with said she'd seen a mutual friend at the T-Bar who seemed like she was about to head out, too. The friend and I and my husband went out for a late lunch and drinks, and then my husband dropped our tipsy selves off at the other end of Breck for some retail therapy. We walked back up Main Street (I think ... things are a bit fuzzy) and finished off the evening with multiple rounds of free shots of cinnamon whisky at the Quandry with a bunch of our skier friends - none of whom gave us guff about aborting.

But if I could find a way to be "on" mentally more often, that would be pretty amazing.

 

[Pat AKA mustski]

I think when we feel "off" mentally, it's just our body demanding a break. I have nothing to base that on other than suddenly, for no reason, my whole form is off no matter what I do. It's best to avoid the famous last words: "I was just taking one last run."

 

[Monique]

I think when we feel "off" mentally, it's just our body demanding a break. I have nothing to base that on other than suddenly, for no reason, my whole form is off no matter what I do. It's best to avoid the famous last words: "I was just taking one last run."

Sometimes - but sometimes, "off" comes from an incident or specific fear, and there's a fine line between respecting your discomfort and allowing your discomfort to keep you from getting back to the things you love.

 

[McEl]

I was looking for the thread by Mr. Heishman about the Ultimate Way to Take Up
Skiing and Progress Quickly in which I was planning to make a post, and the topic seems to fit here, so, here it is.

Ultimate way to take up skiing and progress quickly?

Terminal Intermediate, here, with the following suggestions:

1. Employ a Skiing performance facilitator. Mileage with guidance. (Many have already said that.)


2. After completing a few beginner lessons to hear, see and experience some of the basic movements, read Inner Skiing at least 2 times, each time separated by significant amounts of instruction and practice.

Disregard the occasional dated references to “stem” turns because with short, easy-to-manage shaped skis beginners are not taught “stem” turns as part of their early progressions. Otherwise, references in the book to the physical skiing techniques of “how to ski” appear valid with modern (shaped) skis, but keep in mind that Inner Skiing is to be read for its mental techniques as solutions to one’s psychological struggles; it is not to be read for the technical movements that instructors might be teaching one who is taking up skiing.

3. Skate a lot. Everywhere. Uphill. Downhill. Traversing. While turning. 1000 steps.

4. Pray that the fit of your boots and the competence of your instructor are about equal.

5. Video frequently.

6. Skate a lot.

The principals and guidance of Inner Skiing, Revised Edition, 1997, deal with the psychological impairments to skiing: fear and self-image. Authors Gallwey and Kriegel make the point (paraphrasing now) that human beings are the only species of life that has the capability of interfering with its own growth. The human being tends to block the natural process of improving by doubting his potential. He believes that if he cannot do something right away it is because the potential is not there. What he needs to understand is that improvement is the natural process of helping something already inside himself to emerge.

Because man interferes with his growth, his performance varies a great deal, often falling far below his capabilities. Whether beginner or advanced, the level of a skier’s performance at any given time is the difference between his present capabilities and the extent of his internal mental interference with them. He will ski below his actual physical ability in direct proportion to the extent of his mental interference.

Therefore, in the manner explained in the book explore your already-existing potential to improve, to break through the mental limits you have placed on it. That exploration consists of the experiential Awareness and relaxed concentration that are the focus of the book. From what I have seen, the better instructors and coaches are using many of these principles even if they do not know of the book. Weems Westfeldt’s book Brilliant Skiing, Every Day, is consistent with these principles.

7. And Skate a lot.

McEl

 

[bud heishman]

Because skiing is such a rhythmical continuous activity, I find thinking consciously about more than one or two sensations at a time is difficult. In skiing I find I can take sections or whole turns or a series of turns and focus on sensations I want to feel whether it be pressure distributions, edge angles, intersecting paths of my feet and CoM, etc. I tend to chose only one specific sensation to focus on throughout one run. I for sure, don't focus on a "to do" check list in my mind. This never works. I have to reserve being analytical for when sitting at my computer or riding the chairlift and try to put my thoughts into sensations I want to feel on the snow. I tune into my feet and the pressures and sensations coming from the skis and snow to assess my position over my base of support and trust my body and experience to know what to do. Making small conscious changes and assessing how they affect my balance helps me decide if it feels right or not.

When I am just skiing I let my body talk to my brain rather than my brain to my body. Familiar feelings of pressures, paths, and forces fill my body while my mind is quiet. My body and senses are filling my mind rather than my mind telling my body what to do. I like to teach students to think with their feet but that is just the beginning of becoming more in tune with the whole body and an acute awareness from the neck down while turning off the left brain. Once I stop it's time to analyze.

 

[AmyPJ]

Which explains why simple skill drills can be so effective. I'm going to head up today to work on some of them, see if I can't get my "groove" back.

 

[Tricia]

@Wade I've been thinking about this, along with @bud heishman 's thread T.E.P.P.
I think the mental game comes into play when you begin to realize all of the pieces of the puzzle that come together.

I remember when we were skiing with @Weems Westfeldt and used his sports diamond (which nolo related to her golf game as well)
The four corners are
Power
Purpose
Will
Touch.

Usually you're implementing one of those 4 things when you're skiing. With Bud's TEPP, you're utilizing all of the principles in skiing at once.

 

[Bill Talbot]

For me there is no mental game to skiing, at least the type of skiing I do
It's like breathing (well some of you might even focus on that!)
Never an off day, just days where conditions dictate new approaches or different gear. For me that's fun. I can only think of one day in the last couple decades where I quit early. The snow had the quality of Velcro and would literally stop you in your tracks when you came through that 'zone' on the mountain. I had nuth'n in the quiver for that!

 

[Monique]

I remember when we were skiing with @Weems Westfeldt and used his sports diamond (which nolo related to her golf game as well)
The four corners are
Power
Purpose
Will
Touch.

What does Touch mean in this context?

 

[Tricia]

Touch is the place that Bill talks about in the post above yours
It's when you let go if the power and purpose.....just feel and go

 

[Chris Geib]

I would say it is your feel for and interaction with the snow. Finesse might be another way to describe it. Or the way you bring together power & purpose.

 

[Tricia]

I would say it is your feel for and interaction with the snow. Finesse might be another way to describe it. Or the way you bring together power & purpose.

I like your description

 

[Wade]

@Wade I've been thinking about this, along with @bud heishman 's thread T.E.P.P.
I think the mental game comes into play when you begin to realize all of the pieces of the puzzle that come together.

I remember when we were skiing with @Weems Westfeldt and used his sports diamond (which nolo related to her golf game as well)
The four corners are
Power
Purpose
Will
Touch.

Usually you're implementing one of those 4 things when you're skiing. With Bud's TEPP, you're utilizing all of the principles in skiing at once.

Thanks! I'll give it a read.