Tips for first-time skiers (and instructors of first-time skiers) (2024)

February 1999Skiing is not a sport for everyone, there are many who simply won't enjoyit. However, many people who try skiing once and then never againwere not given a fair chance, because they were broughtby a "friend" who probably made no serious effort to give them the basicinformation they needed to avoid being miserable.

Here then is a list of advice for a new skier. It canalso be used by would-be instructors to help you give a novice the bestpossible skiing experience.

Expectations

As a beginner, you should have reasonable expectations about your firstday out. Hopefully, many of the things below will give you a better ideaof what to expect. But there are some important basics to be prepared for.

You will fall down. A lot.
It is hard to get up, and this can be embarassing.
There will be six-year-olds skiing circles around you, and thisis infuriating.
You will be alternately bored and terrified, and not very often inbetween. Too slow and too fast are right next to each other for beginners.

The good news is that after the first day or two, most of these problems goaway. And even on the first couple of days, you can still find a lot ofspace for enjoyment, but that depends on a host of other important details.How good or bad your first day is dependson understanding and following the advice below.

Boots

The biggest complaint of the complete novice is cold feet. Or sore feet.Or cut off circulation. This is because the boots you are using don'tfit. It is very important to get boots that fit, and not easy to do.

Boots should allow you to wiggle your toes. If you can't wiggle your toes,then your feet will be cold. But, boots should notallow you to turn yourfoot side-to-side within the boot. If you can turn your foot inside theboot, you won't have a chance to control your skis.

Of course, getting exactly between those two parameters generally requiresyour own boots, and a custom fit, so as a compromise, maybe you can wiggleyour toes, but with effort. Or maybe your foot moves side-to-side, butonly slightly. Try several pairs of boots your first time - not every bootmarked the same size is actually the same size (even if they are the samebrand and model). This extra effort will be annoying, but worth it.

Better yet, rent your equipment from a ski shop a day in advance ofyour first ski experience. You won't feel rushed, and they should havea wider variety of boots to let you try, as well as much better adviceabout fit.

Socks

Properly fitting ski boots are warm. Very warm. Completely warm. DoNOTwhere very thick socks, or more than one pair of socks inside your boots.If you are too stuffed with socks, you'll lose circulation and your feetwill be cold (again, make sure you can wiggle your toes).

If you didn't rent your boots in advance, finding a good fit will be aproblem. Socks can help here. Bring twopairs of socks for your first outing, a thin pair, and a medium-thickpair. Then choose the socks based on how the boots seem to be fitting.You may even find you wear a thin sock on one foot and a thicker sock onthe other, because the boots won't match exactly.

Clothing

Do NOT wear jeans, or sweatpants. You will be falling down in snow,and even if it is cold enough to be dry snow, some of it will stick to youand melt. If you get wet, it's over. There's no chance to stay warm.

At least wear shells (nylon waterproof pants with no padding or insulation).But I recommend thick ski pants for beginners. This is for the paddingmore than for the cold. A beginner will fall enough that even if the snowis soft, they may get bruised without padding. The ski pants will alsohelp keep your butt warm on the lift.

Similarly, your jacket should also be waterproof. It doesn't matter howheavy it is. Just wear layers. That way you can add or remove layers asneeded. I also recommend a zippered jacket, not a pullover. If you canopen the jacket when you're hot, then you won't sweat too much (if yousweat too much, and then get cold, you'll never be warm again).

Gloves must also be waterproof. If they are lightweight gloves, you'llprobably want a liner. If gloves are too tight, it will reduce circulationand your hands will be cold. Some heaver gloves may start tight, and thenopen up as the insulation stretches. I've found that using liners for afew minutes to start, and then removing them can stretch gloves open so thatthey are warmer.

Keeping Warm

Keeping warm isn't hard. Make sure you read the sections on boots, socks,and clothes above. Aside from this, to keep warm you have to wearright amount of clothing, and keep moving.

First, start out warm. When you go out into the cold, you should be alittle too warm, not quite sweating but close. Then the cold will feelgood to you for the first minute or two. As you start to feel cooler,start moving. The colder you are, the more you should move. When Iget particularly cold, I just push myself around the the flat areas atthe top or bottom of the slope with my poles. Just a minute or two of thisshould be enough to get you very warm, if you are dressed properly.

You may be warm in general but cold in spots. For the toes, wiggle themwhile you are waiting in line. Do the same for the fingers, and alsoflex your wrists. For neck, chin, nose, and especially ears, the rule isto simply keep them covered. If your body is warm but these parts are coldit is almost always because you left them completely bare.

Friends

This is the most important decision you'll make for your first skiingexperience. Find someone who is willing to go to the ski slopes and blowoff a day of their own skiing enjoyment in favor of helping you out.This is hard to do. Find someone with inexhaustible patience. This isalso hard to do. If you are comfortable with the notion, maybe you canjust goby yourself. Better yet, go with someone else who has never skied (andshare the information here with them). They should be someone withsimilar patience and tempermant, as well as similar fitness and athleticability. Misery loves company.

Instruction

If you happen to find that friend who will stick by your side all day andhas inexhaustible patience, you're off to a good start. They also haveto be able to teach you how to ski. Some very goodskiers are completely intuitive, and have no concious idea of how it works.You can find this out in advance byasking them for a dry skiing lesson, in your living room. If they seemconfused or unsure, find someone else. (You will benefitgreatly from a good dry lesson in advance. I'll also try to explain alittle bit of how to ski later on, so you can think it through.)

If your friend is not perfect,I'd recommend paying for a lesson. Group lessons are fine ifyou are naturally athletic, otherwise get a private instructor so you cango at your own pace.

Falling (and getting up)

As I said before, you will fall. If you happen to have any control overyour fall, try to fall uphill. Try to land on your butt. Try to make yourfall like a feet-first baseball slide.

The hard part is getting up. Now theirony here is that the steeper the hill is, the easier it is to get up(because you have less far to go). The problem is that the boots keepyou from flexing your ankles, so you can't get your legs under you verywell.

Get your feet downhill from you, and tuck them as close to your butt asyou can. Then push yourself up onto your feet in a squatting position (usethe poles if you have to) and then stand up. If you have a few frustratingfailures, let your friend or instructor help you up -- you'll get plenty moreopportunities to get up later, and the frustration can be the biggest enemy.

Terrain

It is important to choose a ski resort with a good beginner's area. The bestthing to do is ask ski shops. You can't call the resorts and expect honestanswers. You want wide, not very steep slopes. And more than just one"bunny hill", so you can work your way up gradually.

Conditions

Check ahead for the snow conditions. If they are icy, don't even wasteyour time. Ice is hard packed snow that has melted somewhat on top and thenrefrozen, and will make a beginner fall every time. More importantly, whenyou fall, it will hurt because the ice is hard. A high of 25 theday after a snow storm should produce wonderful skiing conditions.A high of 25 the day after a rain storm should be avoided at all costs.

The Snowplow

The snowplow is the basic technique taught to beginning skiers.Unfortunately it is also a cruel joke, because it's easy to do incorrectly.You'll be told to point your skis towards each other. Predictably,the first thing that happens next is that the skis move towards each other,and cross each other, and you get tangled up and fall down.

What is often not explained very well, and is hard to do regardless, is totilt your skis inwards towards each other. To do this,you have to pull your knees together, and continuallypush your feet apart. If that doesn't make sense, think of the bow of a boat:the sides are angled in towards each other (i.e. towards the bottom of theboat), and they push the water apart.Of course, you can't possible tilt your skis nearly as much the sides ofa boat, but without some tilt, you won't have any control over your speed,or your direction -- you'll skid sideways, do the splits, and cross yourskis. My suggestion is that you work with someone that knows what they'redoing before you hit the slopes, so you can at least have a basic notionof how to proceed once you're on snow.

Stopping

You should also know the reason why you have to snowplow. It controls yourspeed. As your skis become more parallel, you go faster. The more yousnowplow, the more you are pushing your skis sideways across the snow.This makes you slow down. In order to stop, just snowplow more widelyand with more tilt. How well this works depends on how steep the slopeis, how icy, wet, or dry the snow is, and how strong and flexible you are.

Turning

Turning is particularly hard to explain, because so many skiers (myselfincluded) do it intuitively -- you just turn your body. But I thinkI can explain the basics.

First you will always turn with more weighton the outside foot (e.g. on a left turn, your weight is on your rightfoot). So shift your weight to the outside foot - one way to do this is toslightly lift your other foot (not off the ground, just put less weighton it).

Second, turn your body in the direction of the turn. Huh? But how yousay. Try this experiment. Stand up, on one foot, and twist your body.(If on your right foot, turn your body to face left). You can probablydo this intuitively. If you pay attention, what you do is lift the heel,and turn on the ball of the foot. On skis, you should also have theweight on the ball of the foot to turn, although the rear of the ski won'tactually lift off of the ground. Because of the skis, you'll have to dothe twisting motion a little more agressively than when standing on onefoot, but it is the same basic motion.

Improvement

How fast you improve will depend on your fitness, and natural ability.But for most people, the first two days (three to five hours per day)will be rough, but after that you'll really start to feel you're gettingthe hang of it. One important factor is that you'll ski worse when you'retired. So if you start out on the second day feeling like you're improving,but then by the end of the day you're falling more than ever, it is becauseyou are tired, not because you're not learning.

Summary

It's important to have goodconditions your first day. And take things at your own pace. You mayat the end of the day still find that you don't care for skiing. But ifyou follow all of the advice above, you'll at least know you've given it afair shake.

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