Today let’s talk about “recovery,” a term derived from the English wordrecovery, The dictionary defines it asreturn to an original state, which in Chinese means to return to the original state. In skiing techniques, “recovery” refers to non-intentional movements—that is, actions taken to readjust one’s posture to a proper state when unexpected situations occur during skiing. Admittedly, it is ideal to ski without making mistakes and maintain optimal form throughout. But such a state is merely ideal—even World Cup champions make errors while skiing, not to mention us amateur skiers. The ability to correct mistakes and recover to a proper skiing posture when something goes wrong is what distinguishes an expert from the rest; improving your recovery skills can also elevate your overall skiing technique to a more masterful level.
To be able to “recover,” an expert must possess the ability to constantly assess the condition of the slope they are skiing on and the response of their skis to the snow surface, and based on these two factors, promptly determine what actionstotake in response to the snow conditions. For example, when transitioning from a gentle slope to a steep one, the impact of the slope gradient increases. To accommodate this change, you need to use your edges firmly. Only if your brain can make this judgment in time can your body execute the corresponding movements and minimize errors. With proactive preparation, even if the slope conditions change, you’re less likely to make mistakes—thus avoiding the need for actual “recovery.” If the above assumption holds: even though you’ve anticipated changes in the snow conditions but still make a mistake, having mentally prepared allows you to quickly return to a proper skiing stance.
“Recovery” is used to guard against unexpected incidents while skiing, so practicing how to “recover” can be quite challenging. However, during skiing, we can enhance our “recovery” ability by maintaining as proper a stance as possible. So how do we maintain a proper stance? First, during turns, you need to be sensitive to the resistance from the snow and then shift your center of gravity to a position that can harmonize with this resistance. Such shifts in the center of gravity involve changes in the height, left-right, and front-back positioning of your stance. And these stance adjustments are achieved through the bending of three key joints: the ankles, knees, and hips. (Stances can be categorized as high, medium, low, or crouching.) The stance most conducive to “recovery” is the “medium stance,” which should be maintained both during edge transitions and within the transition zones. Of course, depending on the arc of the turn and differences in speed, the degree of movement in the medium stance will vary. Even if you’re aware mentally of the medium stance, in practice you might still push your legs out too straight, causing your thighs to not just align parallel to the slope but even press lower—which is an extreme stance that hinders “recovery,” so it should be avoided as much as possible. Most of the skis we currently use arecarving skis, namely carving skis, which have deep waistlines. Typical slalom skis include66,67, and others, so it’s even more important to pay attention to the balance of your fore-aft center of gravity. How do you properly maintain this fore-aft balance? You need to learn how to use the ball and heel of your feet. The process of applying pressure with your feet starts with the balls of your feet and then transitions to the heels—in other words, the pressure point is a dynamic process. At the same time, the range of the pressure point is limited to the area from your big toe to your heel. If your pressure point extends beyond the big toe or falls behind the heel, you’ll inevitably end up with your center of gravity too far forward or backward, which naturally leads to incorrect movements. When this happens, “recovery” becomes more difficult. When we first learn to ski, some instructors repeatedly tell us to press against the front of the boot. This is an overcorrected training method—if you consistently press too hard on the front of the boot, it’s also wrong. Moreover, before learning to press the front of the boot, most beginners tend to press against the back of the boot with their calves. If after a day of skiing you find either your shins are particularly sore or your calf muscles hurt a lot, it means you didn’t manage the fore-aft balance properly while skiing.
The skill of “recovery” refers to the ability to return from an incorrect posture to a proper one. From a technical standpoint, you should aim to avoid mistakes as much as possible while skiing. We should always maintain awareness of minimizing errors, combine this with skiing speed and slope conditions to ski in a medium stance, and prepare our minds to make forward-looking judgments—only then can we maintain sufficient “recovery” capability.
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