Ski school

December 29, 2005 7:45 PM

Can someone break down skiing terminology in a way that isn't completely confusing?

I went skiing a few days ago after having last skiied 17 years ago. I never felt I mastered it at the time, but this ski trip sparked my interest in learning and improving and trying to figure out what the hell turns I was making (mostly improvised based on very vague memories). In this quest, I've found a lot of websites, none of which seem very authoritative. There seem to be a ton of arguments about what constitutes a stem christie, a wedge christie, snowplough turn, inside and outside foot, etc. I'm especially confused about that wedge/stem distinction, which seems to be a source of argument on skiing newsgroups, but I can't find an answer that seems definitive.

posted by Big Fat Tycoon to sports, hobbies, & recreation (6 comments total)

I've taught skiing professionally for a few years. I don't recall all the terms as I haven't taught in several seasons, but the differences between wedge/stem christie, if any, must be quite subtle and unimportant. They are intermediate techniques to get you from wedge/snowplow to parallel. You don't want to be stuck in that transition for more than ten skiing days or so.

A snowplow/wedge is basically skiing with your skis tips-together and tails-apart all the time. The inside foot is the left foot during a left turn, and vice versa. This is not the same as the downhill foot, which should be self-explanatory.
posted by randomstriker at 8:50 PM on December 29, 2005

By the way, in all my years of teaching, I never came across a student who learned effectively through books or the internet. The best way to learn is to ski with someone much better than you -- whether a paid instructor or a friend.
posted by randomstriker at 8:55 PM on December 29, 2005

I do realize that, but I'm just curious in a sort of organizational way how each maneuver would be defined. I'm not intending to solely learn how to ski from reading stuff on the Internet. I've seen reference to the christie being original the "Christiania turn" when it was invented in Oslo, and how a stem christie differs from a wedge christie strikes me as interesting; why bother distinguishing the two if they're not somehow different?
posted by Big Fat Tycoon at 9:42 PM on December 29, 2005

After some googling, it seems the two terms describe the same thing. I suggest that you don't obsess about it, because you want to get to parallel turns as quickly as possible (attainable in one day for some!) and then spend the rest of your life perfecting your parallel turns on all terrain and in all conditions.

Realize too that there is no "correct" technique, only current technique. It's changed considerably in the last ten years, especially since deep side-cut skis handle so differently. And Europeans used to make fun of North Americans for skiing with their legs spread shoulder-width apart, now everyone does it.
posted by randomstriker at 10:38 PM on December 29, 2005

The two do describe the same thing. To understand this properly, there are some facts that you should have.

1. All skiing was free-heel skiing until the late 1800s. The dominant turning technique while going down slopes was the telemark turn, which involved (and is still practiced using telemark gear) initiating a turn by unweighting the downhill ski, transferring the weight to the erstwhile uphill (now more correctly outside) ski, and placing the inside ski behind the outside with the knee down low about parallel with the other boot. In the days when skis had little to no sidecut (or arc built into each ski's shape), the two skis would form a long arc-like kind of shape that would facilitate turning. At the end of the turn, both skis end up with about even weight on them and parallel.

2. "Christiana" or "Kristiana" was the name of Oslo, Norway until 1925.

3. In that city, or more likely just generally in Norway, a different technique was developed. Instead of initiating a turn by acting on the downhill/inside ski, a turn was initiated by stemming - making a wedge with - the downhill/inside ski and transferring the weight to the uphill/outside ski. This obviated the need to place one ski behind the other and to lower the knee into a crouch position. It is also likely, by the way, that it was the development of this alternative technique to the telemark turn that motivated skiers to affix the back heel to the ski as well as the front.

4. So, the word "stem" literally means the act of making a wedge or a snowplough.

Thus, "stem christie" and "wedge christie" are the same thing. Presumably "wedge" replaces "stem" in the term to, uh, stem any confusion that might arise from not knowing the word "stem" in this context.

But randomstriker is correct - it's not something to spend much time on. The BEST skiers will, at the beginning of the season and periodically if they are working on their technique, make a few linked snowplough turns (or powerploughs as they sometimes get called when it's a ski school exercise) because by doing so you can feel what a turning ski should feel like, which is helpful to everyone.

When you start skiing you should do so a) to gain control and moderate your speed and b) to start getting that feeling of how a ski feels under weight and pressure and how those things are related to turning. For most people, they come to link being in a wedge position with control, and getting them to put their skis together is counter-intuitive and kind of scary. So taking an intermediate step - the stem christie - is just a path to use to get there.

BTW with modern telemark gear it is very possible to stem christie and to parallel ski rather than using the telemark position and technique.
posted by mikel at 6:13 AM on December 30, 2005

I'm a fairly new skiier myself. When I'm on the slopes, I keep three things in mind to stay in control:
1. Arms out in front (as if carrying a tray)
2. Shins pressing against the boots
3. Focus on the spot where I want to be (10-20 meters ahead)--and I magically wind up there without having to think about how to make it happen.
posted by neuron at 11:59 PM on January 1, 2006 [1 favorite]