Everyone’s writing summaries, so I thought I’d join in and document my first official ski season as a memory.
This season, I skied 16 times—6 at Nanshan, 2 at Bayi, 2 at Baiqingzhai, 2 at Gongchangling, 2 days at Beidahu, 1 time in Dubai, and 1 time at a tiny little ski resort in Tieling.
Actually, I had skied a couple of years before this, but it was all pretty casual—just a bunch of buddies going out, all skiing in snowplow, you know how it is. I was a bit better than them—I picked up snowplow turns without falling by tagging along with instructors and observing others.
Before this ski season started, I really wanted to improve my skiing. Right on the day Nanshan opened, my classmate’s company organized a trip, so I tagged along. I rented a board, but felt like I’d completely forgotten how to ski and ended up falling all over the place. I thought it was the gear, so when I got back, I angrily bought a full NORDICA set—including skis—and also got some new clothes, pants, and goggles. I felt great about it at the time.
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It was this Transfire 70 set: 4100 yuan including boots (super crappy, even bought the wrong size, had to exchange later), poles (snapped by the cable car...), plus ski and boot bags (the boot bag got soda spilled on it, sticky and unusable, the ski bag worn out at both ends, now practically ready for the trash).

The second time at Nanshan, I returned with my new gear. My feeling was, wow, these new skis are so smooth—I watched others and just figured out how to turn the skis on my own, somehow intuitively got parallel turns, felt awesome at the time. Looking back now, it must’ve been the ugliest kind of parallel turn—twisting my hips, upper body leading the turn, still half snowplow.

So that’s how I got started, I guess. When I got back, I started looking for forums and tutorials, and found this gem called Lvye. All my knowledge came from there—I owe thanks to all the people and Lvye itself for that.
Then came an important milestone in my skiing journey: learning the feel of edge control. I have to thank CCTV again—their ski tutorial. One episode showed the feeling of center of gravity while gliding on beginner slopes: squatting, standing up, leaning forward and backward, swaying left and right. I mimicked that feeling of shifting weight. While swaying side to side, suddenly I noticed the skis turning on their own. I didn’t understand the mechanics at the time, but it felt amazing—completely different from before. I did that a bunch of times on the beginner slope at Nanshan, just subtly shifting left-right weight. Later I went home and crammed theory, and that’s when I learned what “edge control” meant.

After that, during New Year’s when I went back to Shenyang, I went to the small Baiqingzhai ski area to keep practicing edge control. I started to feel the power coming from the outside leg when pushing into turns, which made turning faster. Gradually I put more weight on the outside leg, then learned about counteracting and hip angulation. Tried them out and the effect was obvious—body strength transferred more easily to the outside leg.
After getting cocky with edge control and feeling like I was pretty awesome, thinking I could handle most slopes, I then got a big lesson.
After New Year’s, I went to Gongchangling ski resort in Liaoyang, which is pretty big in Liaoning—I think they have a 1400-meter giant slalom run. After warming up a few times, I took the lift up, but unfortunately, not knowing the terrain, I chose the wrong run. I ended up dropping down an ungroomed off-piste slope with a near-vertical (50+ degree) drop-off at the top. That whole day was spent climbing back up the mountain looking for my skis... no one even offered to help bring them down. No one came down that slope for two hours. Eventually I slid down on my butt, then got back on the giant slalom run—but couldn’t control my speed at all, technique wasn’t there, and I fell hard again... Later that afternoon, I tried edge control on a high-level run at Bayi (not the “toilet run”), but was exhausted and lost control, getting launched off and taking the hardest fall of the season. Got dizzy for a week, left hip hurt so bad I limped for a week, which made me miss the beginner carving turn lesson at Nanshan—so disappointing. After that I bought a helmet (super important!).

After that, I went back to basics—practicing basic parallel turns and half snowplow, working on traversing. After a few tries, I got new insights. Weighting the inside: pull your ankles back to tilt the skis, push your hips forward, knees forward—least effort, best result, don’t even need to reach your arms forward to hold your balance. For carved GS turns: open the inside knee to guide the turn, use ankle pressure on the edge (saw this on a forum, try it, super effective), and pull in the inside leg to reduce the gap between the tips of both skis, lead with the outside shoulder. For carved turns: keeping your upper body facing downhill is key, counter-rotation and counter-angling matter even more—keeping upright naturally creates counter-rotation, leaning forward to weight the inside causes counter-angling, and the feeling of twisting through ankles, thighs, and waist varies—I can’t quite describe the difference yet at my level. Edge angle is crucial, or else you won’t carve. How hard you press depends on the slope—you’ll wear yourself out if you don’t adjust. Pole planting isn’t very smooth yet—when I concentrate, I think my form’s okay, just wrist flicks, but when I relax, I tend to swing them around too much. Watched videos, looks pretty silly... These are my personal observations, please feel free to correct me.

After returning from a business trip in Dubai, it was Saturday, so I grabbed my luggage and headed to Ciqikou to buy boots. Ended up with a pair of NORDICA TRANSFIRE R1, which were a full size smaller than my previous ones. On Sunday I headed straight to Nanshan, didn’t bring my own skis, rented a bunch instead—twin-tip green skis, long ones, short ones—gained some experience. In the end I rented a freshly waxed “Blood-Sweating Horse,” super fast, insanely fun, and even managed to do continuous 360s on the beginner slope and 180s on flat ground, spun myself dizzy in the end...

My final run of the season was at Beidahu, via special train. Used to feel a bit nuts carrying my own gear around, but after seeing all the other ski buddies, I felt totally normal again.

The long runs at Beidahu really helped improve my technique—you can keep thinking and adjusting as you ski, unlike the Beijing slopes where you’re done before you know it. Loved Run 6 and Run 10, basically hung out there all day. Went from fearing moguls to actively seeking them out to slow down, weaving through the troughs between moguls—it was insanely fun. The only downside was that the lift pole scratched up my beloved beginner skis pretty badly. Planning to give them a tune-up, then put them away for good. During the fun runs, I even got complimented on my skiing by Big Tomato Bro, which felt awesome and super motivating.

Eight months of waiting feels long—thinking of picking up a new sport, tentatively cycling, to build up quad strength and endurance. Getting ready for the 2013-14 ski season.
To all the ski buddies I met at Beidahu, let’s plan another run sometime.

I’ve got a few issues—my legs don’t align properly, knees come together but feet don’t. Any good drills for that?