How do you balance in powder snow?

Oct 3

**Formless, connected, and with all the time in the world**

Your balance can be activated and improved!

Like many physical abilities, our ability to balance can be improved.

Keen skiers, looking ahead to a new winter season, can make significant progress by doing some simple activities. And the progress made will improve your skiing.

We have three balancing processes and we use them all together as we ski:

Vision - look at something fixed, some distance ahead of you. It just works.
Inner ear - keep your eyeline level, to allow your inner ear canals to tell you which way is up, down, sideways.
Proprioception - let your senses feel what’s going on underfoot and allow them to correct your balance several times a second. You may feel that you are ‘wobbling’. Actually you are adjusting, and that’s the point. And this skill can become really well developed.

Here are some simple ways to train these abilities to work for you:

Balance on one leg for a couple of minutes, Then on the other one. Really! It’s that simple.
If you can do that easily, try it on a balance cushion.

I use an inflatable disc cushion, only partially inflated, so it’s soft to stand on. I then float on a cushion of air, allowing my balancing processes to do their thing for a few minutes. One leg, then the other.

It’s good fun, it feels very similar to balancing on skis in powder snow AND the skill transfers directly to my skiing.

If you really get into these activities, you can add some gentle bending and stretching movements to make things a little more challenging.
Or do them with your eyes closed - switching off one of your balancing systems, to challenge the other two.

Q. How do you balance in powder snow?

A. Learn to balance really well, then transfer that skill to powder snow. So do the simple activities above.

That’s similar to another question I’m frequently asked

Q. How do you ski in powder snow?

To which the real answer is: Learn to ski really well, then transfer that skill to powder snow.

That sounds like a great training programme to me!