Learn to Ski on My Own

This winter, I skied from green to double-black-diamond slopes without taking any group or private lessons. I learned everything from watching YouTube.

Unlike figure skating, skiing has no standardized curriculum, or I could not find one; therefore, I had to do the research on my own. Now that I had done it, I wanted to share my experience. If you want to learn to ski on your own and want to take your journey to the next level, you may find the instructional videos helpful.

If you had taken skiing lessons and were taught how to plow (pizza), you need to unlearn it. You need to move from plow to parallel. Janus Hecht’s “Two Keys to Parallel Skiing” has unlocked my parallel skiing. It took me a few days to make the adjustments. Once it was clicked, I hardly went want to plowing.

Once you can parallel, the next step is to learn the hockey stop. Again, Janus Hecht is the man to watch. Hockey stop is not only an essential skill, but it is so much fun to do, especially the hop to stop technique, which Hecht also covered in the video.

Once you’ve mastered the hockey stop, you can make the transition to short turns. I find the step-by-step video from miromiro for short turns to be helpful. In addition to short turns, the instructor (I can’t find his name) shows the jump-turn technique. I love jump turns and use them all the time to ski down the double-black-diamond slopes. In this video, “How to Ski Steeps,” Warren Smith shows how step turns and jump turns can help you navigate the steep slopes. It is incredible to watch.

Skiing moguls appears to be intimidating at first, but it is so much fun maneuvering around those bumps. Like anything in skiing, you want to go with the flow rather than against it. In this video, Darren Turner shows how to ski moguls with ease. I find his instructions to be approachable. I learned “How to Jump on Skis” and basic carving technique from watching him. I am in the process of learning advanced carving from this video. I can’t find the name of the instructor, but her technique looks amazing.

I hope these tips will help open up your skiing journey like they had done for me. Happy skiing.