by Keith and Heather Nicol
Being centred on your skis is a key aspect of cross country skiing since it will keep you in balance when descending hills, classic skiing or skate skiing. In my lessons I often see many beginner and intermediate skiers who are not centred and this causes them to be inefficient when they stride or skate and they may fall on downhills. In my lessons we start with feeling centred and I do this by simply flexing our ankles, knees and hips over our skis feeling our weight just behind the ball of the foot. A quick way to feel this is to jump in place on our skis. I next get the skiers to lean back and forward to feel what being out of balance feels like. When students go back on their heels their ankle joint straightens and this is probably one of the beginner-intermediate skiers biggest problems . By not flexing at the ankle they end up getting off balance, putting too much weight on the heel and falling backward. You can see in the first photo below how I stay centred by flexing at ankle, knee and hip and this keeps me balanced in this skidded turn. Also putting my arms out helps maintain my balance. In the second photo below I can balance on one ski while skating- flexing at ankle, knee and hips to stay centred. See this video for more information on staying centred on cross country skis-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dfi0fqnn_AA&feature=youtu.be
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