Feel Your Feet

Overview: Enhancing your skiing performance begins with feeling the pressure and sensations under your feet during each turn. This heightened awareness fosters improved balance, precise edge control, adaptability to changing terrain, and overall confidence, supported by off-slope exercises, proper equipment fit, and specific skiing drills.

Feel your Feet

Feeling your feet while skiing will significantly improve your performance on the slopes and in a race course.

1. You will feel pressure under the inside of the ball of the foot when you start a new turn by flexing the outside ankle towards the big toe. This is the first step in creating edge angle on the new outside ski.
2. Pressure will move to the arch of the foot when the outside stacked leg is rolled inwards even though the outside ankle continues to be flexed forward. Applying pressure against the middle part of the ski will cause the ski to bend, carve and accelerate.

Image created by ARM using ChatGPT version 4 by OpenAI.

Watch Janus Hecht, using the CARV system, demonstrate the importance of feeling the pressure under your feet and how the Shuffle Drill will help develop foot awareness.

Video by CARV

Ski Zenit Ski School of Switzerland uses the Pivot Slip Drill to demonstrate how pressure on the feet move from the big toe to the pinky toe.

Video by Beat the Clock

A heightened awareness of your feet provides a range of benefits that contribute to better skiing technique and control:

1. Improved Balance and Stability: Heightened awareness of your feet enables precise weight distribution between skis, enhancing overall stability and confidence on various terrains.
2. Enhanced Edge Control: Sensing your feet helps engage ski edges accurately, crucial for controlled carving turns, resulting in smoother and more controlled skiing.
3. Adaptability and Confidence: Real-time feedback from your feet allows quick adjustments to terrain changes, enhancing your ability to initiate turns effectively and boosting overall skiing confidence and flow.

Develop and Refine

• Be Aware: While skiing, actively focus your attention on the sensations in your feet. Tune into the pressure, movement, and feedback you receive from them as you make your way down the slopes.
• Off-Slope Exercises: Engage in exercises that strengthen and improve the flexibility of your feet. This physical preparation translates directly to your on-snow performance, helping you better manipulate your skis. To view exercises to develop your awareness, strength, mobility and balance of your feet; Click below.

Foot Exercises

• Proper Equipment Fit: Ensure your ski boots are well-fitted and provide adequate support. Ill-fitting boots can impede your ability to feel your feet and respond to their feedback effectively.
• Specific Skiing Drills: Incorporate drills into your skiing practice that emphasize balance, edge control, and turning while placing a conscious focus on feeling your feet. This deliberate practice will help refine your connection with your feet.

Key Takeaways

1. Improved Balance and Stability: Heightened awareness of your feet enables precise weight distribution between skis, enhancing overall stability and confidence on various terrains.
2. Enhanced Edge Control: Sensing your feet helps engage ski edges accurately, crucial for controlled carving turns, resulting in smoother and more controlled skiing.
3. Adaptability and Confidence: Real-time feedback from your feet allows quick adjustments to terrain changes, enhancing your ability to initiate turns effectively and boosting overall skiing confidence and flow.

Suggested Learning Modules

Return to Flex, Roll, Stack and Press

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