Tom Gellie teaches the retraction-extension turn drill, a low-stance technique that uses lateral leg movement to increase edge angle and conserve energy. The drill reshapes how you transition and shape turns across varying speeds and terrain.
You're about to watch me practicing in a couple of different ways a drill called a retraction extension turn. And so this drill is amazing at changing the way you think and feel the transition and even the shaping phase of the turn through here by staying really low and changing your movements to being more lateral in the legs. It takes a lot of practice, but I can teach you how to do this via my videos on bigpictureskiing.com. And trust me, this is going to be one of the biggest breakthroughs you'll ever have in your skiing, is learning to make a lot more lateral motions with your legs to create a lot more edge angle, utilize the ski design to help you turn, and conserve energy from turn to turn so you end up skiing more dynamically and convert downhill speed into across-the-hill speed. So enjoy the rest of this video and realize that I'm going at different speeds using different terrain and dipping in and out of an exercise where I'm more in a snowplow to help me work on the feelings and movements needed to make more of a retraction-extension style turn.
There's a rise up to the surface. I can feel it on my face. Have I found it out too late? Can it even break my fall? Bad dreams just keep returning. Maybe one day I'll be safe. back down. I just want to touch back down. So soon, won't be long until we touch back down. I just want to touch back down.
Most skiers overlook how they use their poles. Try these five pointers next time you’re skiing.
