Seeing many fellow skiers enthusiastically discussing their skiing experiences, I’d also like to share my own feelings and exchange ideas with everyone—no holds barred.
1What is the most important thing in skiing?
A fellow skier posted a question: What is the most important thing when skiing? This is a broad topic, and many skiers have offered their own insights. In my opinion, it’s two words: balance.
2The essence of skiing
When you first start skiing, you must understand the essence of the sport. All skiing movements rely on gravity to slide from high to low (excluding those that use inertia to climb slightly on certain sections), so skiing is essentially a deceleration activity. All movements—whether it’s the snowplough, parallel turns, snowplough turns, or carved turns—are fundamentally about controlling the resistance between the skis and the snow surface.
3Accumulation of experience
Ski resorts began to be built in Beijing around ten years ago.
At the beginning, skiing enthusiasts learned through trial and error. On one hand, they sought advice from those with skiing experience, and on the other, they collected and translated foreign skiing materials. These included text, video, and personal insights. Over the years, a wealth of information has accumulated on websites like Lvye and major video platforms, providing great help to skiing enthusiasts.
But just as you learn to swim by swimming, learning to ski definitely cannot rely solely on materials—you must keep practicing, learn skiing by skiing. Only through continuous practice can you gradually accumulate experience and truly understand what the materials are talking about.
4An imperfect analogy
I always feel that skiing is somewhat similar to riding a bike. When you can manage to balance and wobble your way onto a bicycle, your improvement in riding skills comes from repeated cycling and long-distance rides. Skiing is the same.
However, the conditions for biking and skiing are still different. You can practice biking all year round, and soon you’ll feel completely in sync with the bike. But skiing? There’s only one snow season per year. According to a survey initiated by some skiers on forums, you can see that during one snow season, frequent skiers might hit the slopes over thirty times, but others may only go five or six times. If you calculate an average of around twelve or thirteen times per season, then the number of practice sessions per year is quite limited—so it’s normal for progress to be a bit slow, right?
At Huabei, I saw a lifeguard who skied incredibly smoothly—it turned out he’d only been skiing for two years. Because of his job, he practiced every day, so he became really good at it.
5A gradual process
Skiing is a gradual process, a continuous self-challenge. When you feel very comfortable on beginner slopes, you’ll want to try intermediate ones—but you might suddenly find yourself back at square one, forgetting everything and unconsciously reverting to the hated snowplough stance. When you get used to intermediate slopes and then try even more challenging ones, you’ll be thrown back to basics again. Over time, you’ll gradually find that the slopes don’t seem so steep anymore, and conquering their difficulty is no longer your main goal. Instead, you’ll start focusing more on technique.
6Mastering movement techniques
What are the key points and essence of skiing? As I mentioned earlier, one is balance, the other is resistance, and what manifests is the shift in your center of gravity while skiing. Whether your center of gravity leans back or forward actually depends on the slope you’re on—you don’t need to obsess over whether the front of your shin is constantly pressing against the tongue of your boot while sliding. When someone emphasizes this to you, it’s likely because you haven’t spent enough time on the slopes yet, you haven’t developed a "snow feel," and they’re just trying to help you better sense your center of gravity on the snow.
So, how should you master the techniques of skiing? My answer is: feel it with your heart. Feel the rebound from the skis, feel the centrifugal force when turning, and so on.
There are many discussions about skiing techniques on forums.So-called parallel turns, so-called small turns, so-called large turns, so-called carved turns, so-called snowplough turns, so-called traverse turns, so-called downhill turns...Carving...and so on. In truth, the techniques themselves are important, but even more important is the feeling of becoming one with your skis.
When IMouglewas trying to practice, I was once really excited by posts written by fellow skiers. One post said that skiing moguls is a three-dimensional style—you move from two dimensions into three, and your posture becomes richer, including gliding, swinging, and dancing postures... But when I practiced, I couldn’t figure out how to contract or extend. No matter how many videos I watched or how I observed other skiers’ “mogul jumps,” I just couldn’t get it. Even when I could smoothly ski down the medium moguls at Nanshan, I still didn’t know what to do. Until one day, I suddenly understood the correct way to ski. I realized the answer had been there all along—it was just that my experience wasn’t enough to grasp it. When you ski for a longer time, your snow feel strengthens, your control over the skis becomes more natural, and then your understanding will come.
If you have a teacher, of course, you’ll get started faster—but even with a teacher, the feel for the slopes still depends on your own accumulation of skiing experience. Feel it with your heart, and you’ll master the techniques of skiing.
7The joy of skiing
Anyone who has experienced skiing will surely remember that first moment of sheer nervousness. This is a process every enthusiast goes through—and one of the reasons skiing is so captivating.
The joy of skiing lies in the learning process. If you see someone nearby who is already extremely skilled, you don’t need to envy them too much—because the slopes they’re on pose no challenge for them, and the fun they get from skiing might be far less than yours. Skiing isn’t an especially difficult sport, but getting good at it is definitely not something that happens overnight. On the slopes, you’ll see beginners who’ve only skied a few times bravely taking on advanced runs, and you’ll also see seasoned veterans repeatedly practicing basic moves. That’s skiing.
8Other
Speaking of other aspects, I’d also like to say that skiing can be quite an expensive hobby. If you’re not satisfied with skiing locally and want to go to other places—maybe even stay in nicer hotels or ski all over the world—you’ll need to assess your financial situation.
Another point, which is often repeated, is safety. Safety has two aspects: personal and environmental. On a personal level, never attempt runs beyond your skill level. Environmentally, always be aware of your surroundings and what’s behind you while skiing—don’t collide with others, and watch out for being hit by them. Therefore, it’s essential to have the necessary protective gear when skiing.
Of course, there’s a lot more, such as whether to invest in gear, how to train your body, attempting various advanced moves… but I won’t elaborate on those.
These are just some thoughts from my own experience—I hope they don’t bore you too much.