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 instructional clip, Tom Gellie demonstrates a bump‑skiing technique that emphasizes staying on the balls of the feet with the heels lifted (“floating”). He explains that as a bump hits, the floating heel drops, allowing the impact to be absorbed through the ankle and reducing shin pressure that occurs when skiers approach bumps flat‑footed on their heels. The visual cue of repeatedly saying “heels floating” reinforces the body position, which helps keep the hips up and forward for better control on uneven terrain.

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.