Let me tell a little (true) story. It was a perfect Colorado powder day at Aspen Highlands a few years ago, with maybe 8 inches of fresh new snow. As I rode up the lift with the lady who had signed up for a private lesson, I asked her what was on her mind for today. "Well," she said, "I feel like I ski pretty well on groomed corduroy, with a lot of confidence even on the steeper blue pitches. But when we get powder like this..."
"Let me guess," I interrupted her, "your skis feel 'stuck' when you ski powder, like you can't turn them, right?"
"YES!" she replied. "Yes! That's exactly it!" She looked so relieved and excited, like she'd finally found the magician who could unlock the secrets of skiing powder for her. "Is there a cure for that?"
"No, there is no cure for that," I said. And the air went completely out of her, and all her enthusiasm vanished as she realized that she'd probably just completely wasted her money. I thought maybe she was going to hit me, or push me off the chair, or jump off herself!
"The only difference between you and me," I continued, "is that I LIKE my skis to feel 'stuck.'"
'Stuck' is the sensation of skis not skidding sideways, but holding the road, gliding forward and shaping my turn. 'Stuck' is what I almost always want my skis to do when I tip them on edge. 'Stuck' and gripping is what it is so hard to get our skis to do on ice sometimes. It was clear from this brief conversation, without even seeing her ski yet, that my student was a defensive braker, that on those groomed runs, she felt confident only because it is easy to twist the skis sideways into a skid on groomed snow, and once skidding, that skid is predictable and easy to control. But it is, indeed, hard to twist those skis sideways in powder (which is why they feel 'stuck'), and if you work hard enough and succeed, skis moving sideways in powder are very UNpredictable--especially if the powder is at all heavy, or if it has a few tracks in it already. As I described earlier (post #52 on page 3 of this thread), skiing powder is much easier if you keep your skis moving forward through it, moving the direction they're pointed, rather than sideways.
But if your habit is to ski defensively, using your skis and edges primarily as brakes to scrub off speed by skidding sideways, you will quickly find that those habits and techniques don't work well in powder. Groomed "hero snow" forgives these defensive habits. Powder (and moreso, crud) does not! Expert skiers habitually glide, slice, and carve turns when they can, keeping their skis moving the direction they're pointed as much as possible (although they certainly brake when they need to). It's why their skiing can appear so effortless and elegant, and it is why so many here in this thread advocate skiing the "same way" in powder as on groomed snow. If you ski offensively, using tactics and line to minimize the need to brake, using your edges to grip (to keep your skis 'stuck' to the road and not skidding sideways), your technique will work at least as well in powder. As several have suggested above, when skis are slicing through the snow and carving turns, there is little need to "bounce" or unweight them (unweighting makes it easier to twist your skis sideways into a skid--if you aren't trying to do that, there is no need to unweight or "bounce").
However, for the majority of recreational skiers whose habits are defensive, powder snow will, indeed, reveal the deficiencies in your technique. It isn't that you should do the "same thing" in powder that you do on groomed snow, it is that you may need to transform your groomer technique to one that will work in powder! (And powder's opposite--ice--which also benefits from not pushing or twisting skis into a braking skid.) So the advice simply to "not bounce" is questionable or, at least, perhaps oversimplified. You may need to transform your defensive technique and tactics (where unweighting may be helpful, and bouncing in powder may actually be the only thing that works) into offensive technique and tactics. It is a fundamental paradigm shift to the expert skier's way of thinking that may not be easy to accomplish in new and challenging conditions. But once you make this shift--to "wanting" your skis to 'stick'--you will find that powder suddenly gets easy, ice becomes possible and even enjoyable, and even your groomed snow skiing gets more fun, more effortless, with the intoxicating sensations of gliding and floating and flying. It's a whole new world!
And so, as the chairlift ride continued, we started discussing what I have long described as the expert skier's paradigm of "skiing the slow line fast," of thinking of turns not as "slow" thoughts but as "GO!" thoughts--turning to "go that way," not to "stop going this way," and of using turns not to control speed, but to eliminate the need to control speed. She was intrigued. Intent dictates technique, so it was not that her technique or skills were "wrong"--it was just that they were solutions to the wrong problem. Changing the intent brought out the offensive movements and ski performance of gliding, slicing, and carving--and skiing powder got suddenly easy, almost a foregone conclusion as soon as she realized that 'stuck' skis holding the line and slicing forward through the snow were actually a good thing. We did not need so much to learn new skills as simply to re-purpose the skills she already possessed. She didn't learn to get her skis "unstuck" from the deep snow, or to get better at what she was trying to do--she learned to do something entirely different.
It is the best-kept secret in skiing, that turns are not for speed control but for direction control. But it takes powder, crud, ice, or other challenging conditions to discover how really important that secret is. Experts don't make it look so effortless just because they're so much more skilled at what they do--it's more because what they do is fundamentally different from what most skiers do. Discover that transformation--start thinking like an expert--and everything, including (especially) powder--will get much easier and even more fun!
Best regards,
Bob
. Everybody. Just. Go.Skiing.
