Easing into Carving with Garlands

Modern skis are designed to carve. In other words, to turn with minimal or no skidding. Commonly, novice and intermediate skiers like to throw in a hip check or shoulder toss in order to get their skis around faster. Normally, that's because

1. They don't know how to get a turn started without skidding their skis a bit.
2. They get nervous when they're looking straight down the hill and they like to hurry through that part.

Since practicing garlands addresses both of those questions, ski instructors love them.

What's a Garland?

A garland is nothing more than a series of partial turns that you do as you traverse across the trail. Basically, rather than bringing it all the way around, you ski across the hill and point downhill just a little until you start to gain speed, and then start turning back up the hill to kill that speed. So you're basically traversing, but with little turns built in.

What's the Point? How Do I Do It?

Garlands are often the next step in building towards a carved turn after sideslipping. Once you are able to sideslip and let your tips drop and come back up, you're ready to try garlands. In this case, just start sliding across the hill and then, as you do in the sideslip, flatten your skis just a bit and shift your weight slightly forward and downhill. The tips drop just like in the sideslip, but this time you let yourself pick up a little forward speed. Then engage the edges again, but gently, just grabbing a bit with the edges and letting the ski come back to pointing uphill.

I often tell people to try not to turn. Banish that thought from your head! Instead, just try to tip the skis on edge by pushing your knees slightly into the hill. Resist the temptation to push the tails of the skis downhill. Since modern skis are designed to turn, the ski will come around on its own time. Don't rush.

Then What?

Now that you feel pretty comfortable with your small garlands, start making them bigger and bigger until you're pointed almost straight downhill before you pull out of it. At this point, you actually have all the components of a nice carved turn. To make the last step to carving, the main thing most skiers need is patience. When they find themselves in the middle of the turn, pointed straight down hill, they try to hurry the turn and get the ski back out of the fallline.