Is there much to be gained by doing it in your head?

I mean thinking about how to turn, when to turn, body position an so on.

Or is it a waste of good skiing time?

Deffinately - if you picture it correctly!

The fear would be that you visualise it incorrectly and then end up doing it incorrectly.

I've spent many an hour trying to get to sleep, visualising turns. Sad really.

ellistine wrote:

Deffinately - if you picture it correctly!

The fear would be that you visualise it incorrectly and then end up doing it incorrectly.

I've spent many an hour trying to get to sleep, visualising turns. Sad really.  

That is a good point. It's not so much that you would visualise incorrectly, but that you would visualise failure. Visualising should always be of succeeding. This applies to the two main uses of visualisation in sports.

The first use is to cement concepts learned and this could be from a lesson, a drill or watching a video. The brain has a wonderful cross-referencing ability that builds your visualisation subconsciously using previousely stored concepts. It will then store your visualisation, for use or modifying later.

The second use is to practice maneuvers where real practice is not possible. For instance skiing a racecourse or kayaking a rapid for the first time. You could just think about the maneuvers but in the real time of doing whatever it is, you won't have time to recall your thoughts. Visualisation allows you to have practiced without doing.

In either case above, visualising failure would not be good. It's rather like skiing through trees. If you look at the trees you will hit one. Instead you look at the gaps between - success.

Visualisation is very much tied to relaxation. It can be relaxing to sit and visualise, but it is far better to relax then visualise. By this I mean that your ability to visualise will be better if you have a practiced relaxation technique. If you are not into meditation, then learning a simple relaxation response exercise will work with practice.

Trencher

I think there is when you are not on the slope, but when you are on the slope don't think about what you are doing too intently - try to use muscle memory.

I practice my turns in my head all the time (when not skiing) and sometimes see myself as if I'm standing down the mountain. is that weird?

caron-a wrote:

I practice my turns in my head all the time (when not skiing) and sometimes see myself as if I'm standing down the mountain. is that weird?  

No, that's not weird. You can visualise what you would look like or what it would be like.

Trencher

Yeah i visualize skiing all the time, sometimes for fun and others to try and mentally perfect a technique then later perfect it on snow. It does work for me definately, and most as well!

Theres nothing better than a dream making perfect turns down steep untouched powder on a bluebird day