The time has arrived!!!

so thats why they didnt have very nice cakes around Borovets!! :mrgreen:

Hi mate sounds like you had a great time, seriously though, apart from takin lessons, use the internet. There are loads of sites with tips on transitioning from snowplow to parallel. And then once you are there you will be flying around the mountain. Its all about practice, just keep it up.

As beginners we started in La Thuille, in Italy. Tonnes of excellent plenty of cruisey, wide flat runs. The day we went on a 45 minute trek to La Rosiere, the neighbouring resort in France.

There are also some resorts that you are able to ski all year round, which are the big glaciers.(one in Italy, Zermatt-Switzerland, did this one last summer. Can be a little icy, but still possible. But if you like walking, it is beautiful, with amazing views of the Matterhorn, at whatever point you are in.)

Hope this helps, if you have any questions or want any advise, dont hesitate to message me, and ill gladly try to help.

ah thanks. How isit you do Parallel turns then? Well like sharp turns? i could turn by leaning but it kinda took a little longer to turn and so in that time im building up abit of speed :lol:
Well i guess speed to me is slow to you lot. I was watching a video of me skiing. and where i thought i was going quite fast, on video looked really slow :lol:

sm4sh wrote:ah thanks. How isit you do Parallel turns then? Well like sharp turns?:

Personally i found the transition to parallel came naturally and happenned with out any thought on my part whatsoever. And if i recall correctly it was a natural consequence of gaining speed.
To move to Parallel i would advise that you start by making your plough (V) shape smaller and smaller, this will allow you to pick up a little more speed and also bring your skis to a straighter orientation.
Try to use the plough only when turning, keeping your skis straight at all other times.
Get to this point and i think you will start to 'feel' yourself wanting to go to parallel turns.

Of course i am not instructor, thats how it happened for me.

I might go to the chill factor a couple of times before my next holiday. maybe have a couple of lessons. See if i get the hang of it.
One thing i kept trying do was the Parallel stop (if thats what its called) wasnt really working out to well though :lol:

Learning to stop parallel was one of those things i needed to learn first as it looks a lot more elegant than ploughing.
Having said that though the plough still comes into play a lot, you will even see the pro's use it from time to time.

Sm4sh,
It takes a long time to learn to do a correct parallel turn. My daughter began to learn how to do it when she was 10 by following the instructor in her class, doing snow-plough turns in an S, and gradually tightening up the turns - so she didn't even notice the change from snow-plough turn to stem turn (a bit of a plough just for the turn) to true parallel.

I got taught the foot picking up method (in a lesson on a dry ski slope) and the problem with that method is that it's very difficult to drop it later on. The only good thing about this is that when the instructor has us all ski-ing on one leg these days (as an exercise) I'm pretty good at it :D

As you will have discovered, the main problem with trying to do a parallel turn is how to get the weight off the ski you're standing on, in order to turn it to face the other way. It's easy enough on a green run, because you can just pivot the two skis together, but on the steeper slopes you have to get an edge on the downhill ski to stop yourself sliding down the mountain, and then somehow get the weight off it to turn it and make the other ski the downhill one and get an edge on that one without totally losing it when you're in the dangerous position facing straight downhill.

It has taken me about 7 weeks of ski lessons to get reasonably good at parallel turns, and even now I sometimes sneak in a snow-plough, or a stem turn, when I think the instructor isn't looking :oops:

I think lessons and practising in a snow dome is a very good idea :D

I wish I lived nearer one :cry:

This is a description of how to do the stem turn:

http://www.mechanicsofsport.com/skiing/manoeuvres/stem_turn.html

Ally

I was told about the lifting of the foot thing to try the parallel stop. I was half able to do it when going slow :lol:
And from looking at that link. that is what i was doing. Keeping legs parallel going across the slope and then doing a snow plough to turn and face the other direction. :) I just thought that was called snow ploughing.
I was managing blue slopes doing that. But it really kills ya legs when you do it.
and with the snow dome its about an hour away. Plus they can be quite expensive :(
Still might look into going though 8)