Tom GellieBig Picture Skiing Pty Ltd · Coach/Director

Olympian taught her kids to focus on feel vs form when skiing and now they are close to making WC

17 Jun 2025 · 2 min

Watch on YouTube

1:44

In this interview, an Olympian skier explains how she taught her young children to ski by emphasizing feel rather than formal technique. From ages two and a half, she let them ski by skidding—using controlled, directed slides instead of traditional snowplow turns—to develop precise speed and direction control. She describes three foundational components of this approach: twist (turning the skis), push (edge engagement and snow displacement in deeper or slushy snow), and edge (varying edge angles from shallow to steep). By mastering skidding, the children could navigate bumps, steep chutes, and off‑piste terrain early on, laying a foundation that later transitions into carving and race‑ready edge control. The Olympian highlights that this feel‑based method builds natural adaptability and confidence, positioning her kids close to World Cup competition.

Chapters

I remember skiing couloirs with the boys when they were 7, but we never felt worried about them because they had so much control. We didn't really force snowplows and things. We did a lot of skidding. So they were 2 and a half, 3 years old, and we would skid around the mountain, falling leaf skills, almost like the big mountain guys.
Yeah.
That's right, exactly. For the first season, he didn't bother turning. He didn't actually think he needed to turn. Now and then I'd say, Zach, you can turn if you want, and you go, why? Why should I turn? I'm quite happy doing this. But that skidding and that precision and control of where they wanted to get to with their directed skids meant that we could ski bumps. We could very quickly ski like little steep chutes off-piste. If you teach them to skid, you can go anywhere, and carving and all that, that comes later.
So you ask skid, uh, what were the 3 things?
Yes, twist, push, edge. Okay, so twisting is just turning, twisting is turning your skis, and then adding the skid to control it. So descent, so controlling your speed and your direction with that skid. Pushing was when we were in deeper off-piste or in slush, you know, is getting that edge and pushing the ski. This snow displacement that Phil talks about a lot, yes, pushing that snow. And then of course edge, you know, that being able to vary the edge, you know, that for a ski racer is huge as well. So you're not just stuck on one edge angle, you need to be able to have 70 degrees, you need 10 degrees, and you need the whole shebang in between.
Yes.
So of course, when the boys were young, they were not thinking, am I skiing with a 10 or a 70-degree angle? But they were just naturally developing that.