fear of speed when learning parallel sking

IMO this skier needs to get some different skis. To make shorter turns 180 are too long generally for someone learning to parallel on blues.
Skis up to your nose will be the best length, roughly.

Also, as Mike said earlier, have some lessons.

And bottom line is push yourself to let the skis run. Being afraid of speed is a bit of a problem if you want to ski. 2 of my mates GF's have this same "fear" of letting the skis runs and picking up speed. My guess is this is because they are afraid they will not be able to stop, and to be honest trying to stop with a snowplough will not stop you quickly enough, so you need to learn how to "hockey stop" and simply remember that if you feel you are going too fast, turn up the hill and keep turning and you will check your speed massively, and eventually come to a stop.

Thanks again. Advising me to get shorter skis, well I should try with skis with smaller radius. Though my last ski day was on snowblades. And turning them scared me just as much :x

Not least because I was not sure how they would cope with snow-cannon made ice. I might start a thread moaning about that. At all four Austrian ski areas I have tried this year, the ice has added to my woes over increasing speed, and the blue runs have tended to be worse cuplrits than the reds, which is crazy.

The last thing I need are skis which cope less well with ice than my relatively straight and long old skis, which often slide sideways even after being re-edged (though they hold a bit better when worked hard, probably as they are quite stiff).

I do push myself a bit when the piste is empty. But have to keep an eye on hazards beyond the edge. Busy pistes with vastly mixed ability skiers & boarders, at mixed speeds, are the biggest worry.

It is also true the length of my 180s caused problems as they cross so easily, though I have largely got the hang of managing their length now.

Innsbrucker,
It is perfectly possible to ski slowly with parallel turns down a steep run (one of your earlier questions I believe).

I know most skiers don't, because they enjoy the feeling of speed, but you don't actually have to go fast in order to do skidding parallel turns. And I don't see why you are trying to avoid skidding, unless it is because you are trying to perform pure carving turns, which in my case anyway, need a much wider area and a gentler slope.

Most of the instructors I have had want us to go slowly, and practice our technique, until we get to a comparatively easy bit when we can go as fast as we like.

You shouldn't feel that you are going so fast that you are losing control. You need to ski more slowly until you have regained control (by practising hockey stops etc. as already described).

This is a video of me trying to ski slowly with parallel skidding turns where I finish my turns, down what is actually a black slope (although that section is more like a red one) in very icy conditions. I am trying to remember to angle my skis so they dig into the slope at the same time as I am trying to get my body to lean in the opposite direction down the slope (so that I am putting extra weight on my downhill ski to stop it from sliding down the slope), as I was instructed to do in my morning lesson.

Sorry to everyone who's already seen it. It is certainly not meant to be a video demonstrating correct ski-ing methods, because I am making lots of mistakes, but it does demonstrate ski-ing down a steep, icy slope, while staying in complete control. I could have stopped or turned at any moment and I felt quite safe all the time (apart from when the guy from behind shot past me and startled me a bit - although he did really give me a very wide clearance).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN6WMzDaL0

Ally

That is encouraging, thanks. I would guess on a good day, my skiing looks somewhat similar to that.

Innsbrucker wrote:That is encouraging, thanks. I would guess on a good day, my skiing looks somewhat similar to that.

I've just seen your comment on another thread, that you've done about 150 hours of ski-ing. That is about the same as me, because according to my reckoning that's about 5/6 weeks of ski holidays depending on how many hours you ski per day.

If you can ski the same as me you can't be that bad! :D :D

I am still having lessons because, as you can see, I have a lot to improve on!

Maybe you just need to be less hard on yourself, and take things a bit easier (as well as have some lessons of course). When I was breaking in my horse (many years ago now) a very useful phrase in the book I was reading said 'make haste slowly', and I think one could apply that to ski-ing as well as horse training.

Ally

Sounds to me like you need a nice short softish pair of skis. All skis will work on ice, provided the edges are good and you can work the edges and not slide instead.

Your skis are clearly too long and too stiff for you if you ask me.

Its a vicious circle, the better you edge the better the carve, the better the carve the confidence grows, the more confident you become the faster you go, the faster you go the better the edge & so on.
Eventually you crash & burn & the circle is broken so the confidence building thing starts again. :twisted:

Finn

My circle is intact