Getting the Free Heel Feel! Some Early Season Tips
After 20 years of free heel skiing, Leslie Ross, 3x telemark champion, says EVEN she is still working on perfecting her tele technique. Leslie, the founder of Babes in the Backcountry, still teaches for Babes. The annual refresher clinic for Babes instructors was just the ticket to get her feet moving again in the right direction for the winter. Sporting their new stealth bomber Flylow Jackets, G3 Skis, and Scarpa Women’s T1’s 10 Backcountry Babes instructors braved the morning chill at Arapahoe Basin Saturday Dec 3rd to freshen up their technique and teaching styles so that they could bring some great energy and coaching to the 2012 Babes Telemark Clinics. Starting off with yoga, they got centered and balanced and then headed out for the rest of their on-hill refresher.
Thoughts from the instructors to get you into the free heel Groove too:
- Keep your hands out in front. Elbows out and shoulders in front of your body. Allow there to be light between your arms and your body
- Round your spin.
- Tuck the tailbone
- Keep 50/50 weight on both feet at all times.
- Practice shuffling in place and then moving down the hill.
- Allow there to be a imaginary tennis ball under your uphill foot- goal is to get more pressure on the ball of your foot.
- Steer with your skis
Hope these tips help to you start your season off on the right foot…or the left!
