PNW Concrete Pow

Just get out and ski lots of snow types, don't rely on power, respect that learning comes in waves, have fun, and you will get it dialed.  The books have a way of making sense once you can do what is being described...

This is good advice. I've watched friends go from having skied twice, to skiing double black crud in 1-2 years. The trick is to just go out no matter what the weather. It's raining? So what, it's great technique builder. I find that skiing "powder" only comes in handy a few times a year, but being incredible at crud and mank is valuable almost every ski day.

There's a huge difference in technique for skiing fresh cascade snow vs Colorado snow. In CO you can let your tips dive, in PNW *NEVER* let your tips go below the surface. So you'll start to do this by leaning back, but you really need to stay centered still. It's a different balance point, work on it whenever you can.

Going to be skiing 4-5 days a week this winter and probably 2-3 in spring and a few times a month in summer until the snow turns to the Late July/Aug-Oct crap snow.

Going to be skiing 4-5 days a week this winter and probably 2-3 in spring and a few times a month in summer until the snow turns to the Late July/Aug-Oct crap snow.

That is how you do it. You ski all the time and in all conditions. Push your comfort zone with respect to snow type, steeps, trees, moguls, but not all simultaniously. Watch the really good skiers and see what they are doing right. Watch the intermediate skiers and see what they are doing wrong. Use the chair ride to study skiing. With the lessons you are taking and knowing that you are going to ski that much you will make great progress. It is all a matter pushing yourself over and over again. If you aren't falling, you aren't learning.

1. Ski a lot
2. ski with friends, watch their technique and ask for feedback
3. when you can't make it out, watch ski movies

Don't pay for lessons. Save that money and buy some real skis (aka 88 mm is not fat - especially for up here).

A lot of really interesting replies and advice. Some good, some not so good IMHO.

I am a Level III Certified PSIA Instructor with 28 years experience and Directed my own program for 10 years at Alpental. So some practical experience actually teaching a person in your "category".

Everyone is different so needless to say each person will improve in the their own "best learning environment". What that is, well hard to say. The links to vids and books for me personally are kind of funny. I have bever been able to learn a sport by reading a book or watching a video. Can they embellish the learning process, yes, absolutely. Yet I just got done watching the "blue line" video and am not sure most folks would have a clue that the dude was talking about ("drift down the secondary fall line.........." huh????). LOL.

Lessons are certainly a great direction, yet need to say buyer beware. Many of the programs at the Pass and all over WA state are provided by part-time ski instructors without certification. That was true of my program as well. My #1 goal each year was always to deliver the best product I could, which in the ideal world, would be Level IIIs teaching 1st dayers all the way to the "teach me to rip the pow" folks like yourself. However there are not enough Level IIIs to go around for all the classes and business principles do not allow.

The other challenge with group lessons is ending up in a group with students that have different reasons for being there. You want to learn to ski the pow. The person next to you might be there to find a mate, and not ski, or any other of a variety of reasons. Most good instructors can deal with this type of "split" (or even worse, an ability split) yet it can hold you back.

The coach/private lessons concept is great, but more expensive. Finding a person to work with you and focus on your stengths and weaknesses will improve you the most the fastest. Yet many people balk at that notion in skiing, versus say golf where lessons from a PGA Pro always make sense. Its the environment, being in the mountains versus a golf course on a sunny day.

Finding some good bros to ski a lot with will surely help as well. Sounds your schedule is primed to really improve this season with the ability to ski a lot. Which, come the end of the day, is the #1 way to get better. To get out there and pound it, good days and the bad.

A couple final thoughts:

* Only listen to skiing advice from an instructor, period. While your firends might be good skiers and have good intentions, it was my experience that about 90% of the advice given by non-instructors was simply wrong, if not making it worse. I know there a lot of folks out there getting their hackles raised by that one, but it's true. Unless you have actually taught a big population of students (as in thousands) you do not what you are doing.

* Snow is snow is snow. Yes, we can experience some really crappy snow in the PNW, especially compared to CO, yet the changes in technique are more in your head then actually physical. To me, refinements of the skill set are what is needed to ski all our different types of snow, not completely different ski styles.

Hope this helps. Feel free to PM if interested and have a great season!!!!!

...

Everyone is different... I have bever been able to learn a sport by reading a book or watching a video. ... "blue line" video and am not sure most folks would have a clue that the dude was talking about ("drift down the secondary fall line.........." huh????). LOL.

...

* Only listen to skiing advice from an instructor, period. While your firends might be good skiers and have good intentions, it was my experience that about 90% of the advice given by non-instructors was simply wrong, if not making it worse. ...

Everyone is different, that is the truth.  The videos I posted (green line/blue line) were the best advice/instruction/etc. I have ever seen for me, and perhaps for people of my cognitive preference; cognitive preferences (preferred ways of learning) differ markedly among people; I don't pretend to know which learning style "most folks" have (although, in my research on cognitive preferences for my M.S., a lot of statistics on relative frequencies of preferences were available in the peer-reviewed literature); perhaps you do, since you are/have been an instructor.

I agree with listening to advice only from an instructor,  but I would add a qualified by a PSIA instructor (since they have had to document their abilities to get a certification);  some "professional"  but non-PSIA instructors I have had made it worse.  A good instructor should be able to differentiate among cognitive preferences and tailor his/her instruction to that person's  best learning format (I have seen some good PSIA instructors do that as well as using a palette of techniques that address a variety of cognitive preferences when teaching a group).