What Should We Teach Beginner Skiers?
Updated: Oct 3
Skidding or steering? What kind of snowplow? Or should we skip the snowplow and start with parallel skiing? Before choosing a method, we need to ask a more important question: what do we want beginners to learn?
Learning to ski is different from learning many other sports, such as tennis, golf, basketball, or gym fitness. Skiers need to learn more than movements: they also need to "drive" a vehicle—their skis. They do this standing up, without a steering wheel or handlebars, on a slope shared with other skiers.
Beginners need to learn the movements appropriate to their stage of learning. More importantly, they also need to develop spatial orientation and habits for choosing their path, controlling their speed, and skiing among others.
Instructors need to recognize that poor “driving” habits can develop sooner than poor movement structures and can have more serious consequences.
The first few hours on skis shape how beginners approach skiing later. That is why developing good “driving” habits should be the priority. Exercises and techniques are tools for reaching that goal.
For example, a snowplow turn is not a goal in itself. It is one way to help beginners learn to control a turn.
The goal is for beginners to ski confidently and in control on a blue slope. They should be able to choose their path, avoid obstacles, and control their speed through each turn.
They should learn to do this with healthy, effective movements that provide a foundation for more advanced skiing, without having to relearn the basics later.
Beginners need to learn to control both direction and speed. But to turn, they need to keep moving. If we focus on slowing down first, we can make turning harder.
Turning itself is an effective way to control speed and come to a stop. That is why we should first teach beginners to turn, then use the turn to slow down and stop.
On a gentle beginner slope with a flat run-out, beginners can keep moving without picking up too much speed. The terrain allows them to focus on turning without having to brake first.
If we kill the speed, we kill the turn.
Instructors should avoid presenting speed as something to fear. This can create anxiety and make beginners freeze up.
Speed is part of skiing. We should help beginners become comfortable with it and learn to manage it.
If beginners struggle to manage their speed, we should reconsider the terrain. Choosing a slope that is too steep, then teaching habits that hold back their progress to compensate, creates another problem.
How Do Turns Control Speed?
First, let’s clarify what we mean by a turn.
The skis move forward along a curved path, gradually changing direction.
Simply rotating the skis or sliding sideways is a different action.
Traversing means moving across the slope without changing direction.
From the start, we should teach beginners to guide their skis forward along the intended path.
Being in control means being able to choose where we go and how fast we ski.
Turns help us control speed in two ways. First, a rounded turn takes us across the slope rather than straight downhill, limiting how much speed we gain. Second, resistance from the snow during steering helps us slow down.
Steering and Skidding
Steering means guiding the skis along the path we intend to follow. In this article, “skidding” means unwanted sideways slipping that takes us away from that path.
The key difference is control: are we following the intended path, or are the skis slipping away from it?
(According to the dictionary, skidding means when something (esp., a vehicle) slides unintentionally on a surface (or slides along a surface) so that they have no control.
On the contrary, steering is to control the direction of a vehicle.
There is a difference between skidding and drifting. Skidding happens unintentionally; drifting is an advanced intentional action.)
So, the main difference is that with steering, we can ski in the direction where we want (that is, when we want to ski to the left, we will ski to the left), and when skidding happens, we move somewhere other than where we originally wanted to (we want to ski to the left, but we skid to the right from our original intention).
A common belief in skiing is that steering requires skidding. But with the distinction above, skidding is a loss of steering control: instead of following the intended curve, the skis slip sideways and distort the turn.
This slipping often takes the skier farther down the slope, where they gain speed. They then need to brake to control the speed gained by losing their intended path.
In skiing, there is a common belief that skidding is required to steer the ski in a new direction.
On the contrary, for a beginner, skidding is a failure of steering; moreover, skidding ruins a properly steered turn. Skidding is against steering.
Skidding usually happens toward the fall line, where the skier can gain speed. So it seems like a kind of braking, but it tries to solve a problem it created.
When steering, the skis move mainly forward along a curved path. When skidding, they slip more sideways.
The tracks show the difference. Steering produces a smooth, rounded turn. Skidding distorts that curve, often leaving a wider, less clearly defined track and a straighter section in the middle of the turn.
Track of steering Track of skidding
Beginner lessons aim to develop steering control and prevent unwanted slipping. Deliberate sideways sliding is a separate skill you can introduce later, at a more advanced level.
Teaching steering instead of skidding
Before teaching turns, we need to develop basic skills: gliding straight, handling the skis through scooter exercises, and moving the lower legs and ankles.
Steering involves rotating the foot and lower leg around a pivot point near the inside hip. But steering is more than a movement: the skier also needs to think about where the turn will take them. Steering is made with the foot-leg (lower leg) rotation based on a pivot point of the inside hip area, but it is more than just movement elements.
Steering means thinking ahead to where we want the turn to end, then guiding the skis along the whole path. Simply twisting the foot to point the ski across that path can cause abrupt braking or make the edge catch.
At first, beginners should continue each turn until they stop. Later, when linking turns, they can start the next turn sooner. But they should know they can complete the turn and stop whenever needed.
Steering combines foot and leg rotation with the intention to guide the skis forward toward the end of the turn. Teaching these together helps beginners develop spatial orientation, plan ahead, and build safe “driving” habits from the start.
With a steering approach, beginners start each turn with a clear intention: where they want to go. Speed control comes through guiding the skis along that path.
With a braking-first approach, they focus on slowing down before changing direction. This can lead to sideways slipping downhill, away from the intended path.
Shifting the focus from braking first to following a planned path can help beginners ski with greater confidence and control.
In this case, the steering is the main point from the start of the turn, and the skier starts the turn without the additional intention of braking.
Shifting a skier's mindset from a skidding approach to steering can dramatically improve their confidence and safety.
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