Tom GellieBig Picture Skiing Pty Ltd · Coach/Director

Bump skiing secret 🤫 The floating heels helps me absorb and keep my hips up and forward #skitips

7 Mar 2024 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

0:50

In this short instructional segment, Tom Gellie demonstrates a bump‑skiing technique that emphasizes keeping the heels lifted (floating) while the skier is on the balls of the feet and toes. As a bump is encountered, the floating heel drops, allowing the impact to be absorbed through ankle flexion rather than landing flat‑footed. This method reduces shin pressure, improves shock absorption, and helps maintain the hips in a higher, forward‑leaning position, which is contrasted with the common mistake of approaching bumps flat‑footed on the heels.

Chapters

As I approach a bump like this, I'm going to stand more on the balls of my feet and my toes, and my heels are going to be floating. So I'm up like this. It feels sort of precarious, but notice what is going to happen is the bump comes in, heels floating, the bump pushes into me, my heel drops down. The difference with what you are probably doing is you are already coming in flat-footed on your heels. You might have shin pressure, but you are missing the little bit of absorption I have by being not flat-footed, but here, heels floating. Heels floating, heels floating, heels floating.