Better Skiing: Retraction

Merry Christmas everyone and welcome to this edition of Better Skiing, I’m Bruce Ruff.
Watch a really good all-mountain skier and how they handle all types of conditions on all variety of terrain. They handle bumps, powder, crud, wind-blown snow and combinations of all these conditions with ease and fluidity. The one efficient movement they make to ski all these conditions is retraction.

Retraction is similar in principle to stepping on a thumbtack. You quickly pull your feet up towards your body. In powder, this is a more efficient method of un-weighting your skis than jumping your body up then bringing your skis to your body. With retraction you use half the motion, and half the motion means half the energy. In the bumps, retraction allows you to ski with a quiet upper body. Timing is essential, so look well ahead of your skis to anticipate what’s coming. In crud, retraction helps you to lighten the load of resistance caused by the dense snow. This requires you to ski from the hips down. If your upper body is involved, you’re not doing it correctly and wasting energy.