Ski turns

Dear experts
I always take ski lessons. My ski trip in December in Japan, the coach taught me to maintain facing the bottom of the slop, just use the lower part of my body to do small turns. However, my trip in Feb, a coach in Austria taught me to make big turns, use the whole slop to turn. He told me off if my turns were too narrow, or too short, :cry: . He became a bit unkind at the end. Well, after all, he was teaching an old dog a new trick. Can someone explain to me which way is the correct one? Thanks.

You need both. Long turns and short turns.
Neither are "correct".
Use each depending on conditions and the slope and the number of other skiers around.
And simply what you feel like doing at the time.

Thanks old Andy. Can I assume shorter turns are more advanced, hence the Austrian coach was a bit reluctant to teach me because he think I wasn't ready? He did not explain anything to me.

Try thinking of it this way. Rotating the legs at the hip, and maybe a little rotation at the waist is like winding up a spring, everything wants to spring back to a neutral facing forward position. In short turns, we want to take advantage of that spring effect to help turn the skis quickly. In long turns, too much of that spring effect would cause issues like excessive skidding early in the turn. What your Austrian Instructor saw, was probably unnecessary rotation in your wider turns. That is not to say that in longer turns there shouldn't be some slight rotation toward the turn direction, but only just enough to have the spring effect in the right direction.

An important point to emphasize here is that we ski into creating that tension in the second half of the turn. It is not something that you artificially create. A lot of intermediate skiers overuse this spring effect to make turns, rather than using edging and pressure.

Trencher explains the issue very well. I tend to add in smoothness in the turn.

What I actually believe your instructor was wanting you to do was to finish your turns properly in order to control your speed / enable you to ski faster on steeper terrain. Try this in your living room as it may help you mentally imagine what a good position might look like.

Carving
Stand feet shoulder width apart and have someone pull your arm, perpendicular to direction facing. Here you are in an incredibly stable position and hence when doing wider turns there is absolutely no problem in attaining this position. Great for powerful carving turns, you can't use skis properly from a weak position. Biggest risk here is that you let uphill ski come forward too much (imagine body rotating to face downhill), repeat exercise above one foot in front of other with someone pulling perpendicular to direction you are facing. Not so strong and hence a bit of an outdated way of thinking about skiing if you are planning to carve.

Separation is however a necessity if you want to skid your turns as is allows you to pivot/skid skis underneath your body. Hence moguls, steep hard snow etc. Here you are not trying to fully exploit the skis edge or design to carve.

My rule of thumb is as follows.
1) Never let downhill arm cross your zip line, regardless of carving or pivoting / skidding
2) If I am skiing moguls or something where I want no element of carve in my turn then I will try and focus on a something downhill e.g. a piste pole. This helps to improve my leg body separation.
3) At least one pitch a day practice skiing to a piste pole with poles in hands, T tray style, keeping body facing downhill (again to work on above)

Of course the real challenge is that most of the time, we are neither pure carving or purely pivoting our skis beneath is, hence my zip line rule.

Short radius turns require you change your direction more quickly than for longer radius, and generally require more energy. You need energy to change direction, and you only have a limited amount. Using that limited amount of energy to change the direction of both your legs and chest will turn your chest and legs a certain degree. Using the same amount of energy to turn just your legs (with your chest pointing downhill and not really turning) will turn your legs by a greater degree. The energy you save by not turning your chest can added (wholly or partially) to the energy you use to turn your legs.

Try making two types of short radius turns. The first where you turn your chest and legs, and the second where you turn just your legs (maintaining chest pointing downhill). Compare how they feel, and you will notice that it feels MUCH easier and cleaner to turn just your legs.

Thank you all. I have had private lessons for 6 days, 4 hours a day, without touching any short turn techniques. I think i know how to discuss with my next instructor now. Thanks again.