Published in The Denver Post (1994-95)

GETTING THE MENTAL EDGE IN YOUR SKIING

Skiers are serious athletes. Unlike sports like tennis or golf, skiing is not inherently competitive. But that does not mean that skiers do not want to “win” every run they take by skiing well and having fun. Skiers want to be able to ski better on steeper terrain and in more difficult snow conditions. So what enables you one day to ski the toughest trails and other days to feel like you should stay on the easier slopes? What separates the skiers who ski consistently well from those who do not? It must be what goes on inside their heads.

Many skiers spend hours in the off-season training to get themselves in shape for the coming season. During the season, skiers take hours of lessons and practice diligently to master the technical aspects of skiing. When asked how important being mentally ready for skiing is as compared to physical fitness and technical skill, skiers usually say as or more important. Yet little or not time is devoted to mental preparation.

The purpose of the Mental Edge is for you to develop Prime Skiing. The dictionary defines “prime” as: “having the highest quality or value.” In your skiing, Prime Skiing means being able to ski your best consistently on difficult terrain and in challenging snow conditions. Prime Skiing comes from attaining ideal levels in your motivation, confidence, intensity, and focus.

Mental Edge Pyramid

The Mental Edge Pyramid provides you with a way of understanding the development of mental skills. The Mental Edge Pyramid describes the Prime Four (motivation, confidence, intensity, and focus) that are critical for developing the Mental Edge. These four factors will progressively lead you to Prime Skiing.

Skiing your best evolves from a sound foundation of Mental Edge skills. These Mental Edge skills influence each other in a particular order that leads to Prime Skiing. At the base of the Pyramid, prime motivation ensures total preparation including physical, technical, and mental training. Prime motivation leads to prime confidence in your skiing ability, truly believing you can ski your best. Prime confidence results in prime anxiety which enables you to overcome challenges while you ski. Prime anxiety then produces prime focus while skiing where you ar totally concentrated on what you need to do to ski your best. The culmination of the Mental Edge Pyramid is Prime Skiing.

Positive Change Formula

Change of any sort, whether technical, physical, or mental, does not occur automatically. Change due to trial and error is slow and inefficient. Positive change requires three steps. First, an awareness of what you are currently doing and how you need to improve. Second, controlling that which you want to improve. Third, putting in the necessary repetition to ingrain the positive change fully. So developing your mental skills as well as your skiing involves an awareness of your mental, physical, and technical abilities, taking active steps to control them, and having sufficient repetition to make the changes automatic, thus producing positive change, which puts you on the road to Prime Skiing.

Benefiting from the Mental Edge

Developing the Mental Edge will provide you with several important benefits to your skiing. You will have a greater understanding of what contributes to and interferes with skiing your best. You will have more information and understanding of mental preparation for your skiing. You will develop Mental Edge skills that will enable you to ski to the best of your ability. You will have the skills to overcome the challenges that you will face in your skiing. Finally, you will ski consistently better, gain more satisfaction from your skiing, and just plain have more fun.

CONFIDENCE IN SKIING: BELIEVING YOU CAN

Have you ever stood at the top of a trail, looked down it and felt supremely confident? You felt sharp, strong, and relaxed. You knew you would ski well. It was a great feeling and it resulted in a great run.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case for skiers. What sometimes happens is that when you stand on top of that trail, you see intimidating moguls, frighteningly steep terrain, and fearsome snow conditions. You have thoughts like “I can’t ski this” and “I know I will fall and hurt myself.” At the same time you become tense and intimidated, and you ski poorly. Everyone would like to feel completely confident for every run they take. But, unfortunately, this kind of confidence does not develop easily. What then can you do to build your confidence?

The first thing is stop defeating yourself. It is overwhelming how skiers can be their own worst enemies on the mountain, their thoughts and actions negative. So you need to reverse this negative attitude that often inhibits your skiing and become your own best ally. Developing confidence does not happen overnight; rather it is a building process. It involves three steps: good preparation, positive thinking techniques, and successful experiences. By being well prepared, you will have some confidence in yourself. Add to that some positive thinking and your confidence increases even more. This improved confidence will enable you to ski better which will confirm your initial confidence. What results is an upward spiral of confidence and skiing in which your positive thinking and skiing reinforce each other until your confidence and skiing are sky high.

Confidence starts with good preparation. If you know you’ve done everything possible to prepare yourself to ski well, you are going to be confident that you will. Skiers who are in good physical condition, technically skilled, well-rested, and mentally prepared are going to believe that they will ski their best.

Confidence can be thought of as a muscle. Like any muscle, if it is not exercised properly, it will either atrophy or learn to respond the wrong way. A poorly conditioned confidence muscle will cause you to react with negative thoughts when you are in a challenging situation. There are several simple techniques you can use to train your confidence muscle to respond positively.

First, when I’m skiing with people I often ask them how they will do on a run. Typical responses I get are, “I just don’t want to hurt myself” and “I hope I make it to the bottom.” With a negative attitude like this, you’re bound to ski poorly. You have to become your own best ally by learning to Talk the Talk. Before a run, you should say things like “I’m going to have a great run” and “I’m going to have fun and do my best.” You may not believe these statements at first, but in time, combined with some good skiing, the positive thinking will sink in and you will believe it.

Invariably, some negative thoughts will pop into your head no matter how confident you are. In these situations, you should use a technique called thought stopping. First, you must stop making negative statements. Whenever a negative thought enters your mind, say “stop” or “positive.” These keywords block the negative thoughts and refocus you in a positive direction. Second, replace these negative thoughts with positive ones. It’s useful to make up positive phrases beforehand, so when negative thoughts pop up, you can immediately replace them with positive ones.

Another way to build your confidence is to think like an instructor. Negative reactions to problems when skiing are usually self-defeating and emotional. For example, if you fall, you could say “I’ll never learn to ski this trail” or “What’s the point. I quit.” This negative feedback causes you to dwell on what you did wrong and causes feelings of depression, anger, and frustration. This critical reaction also hurts confidence by making you anxious. What results is even poorer skiing and lower confidence.

But if you think like an instructor, that is, be objective and constructive, you can give yourself instructions that will enable you to not make the same mistake again. For example, you could say, “I sat back too far that run, but if I keep my hands more forward I will be able to do better next run.” It provides useful information so you can remedy the problem and ski better. Knowing how to improve next run, you will feel encouraged, relaxed, and more confident.

Finally, success in the most direct way to improve your confidence. Instead of jumping into very difficult conditions right away and getting discouraged, start on an easier slope, get comfortable and confident there, then slowly increase the difficulty. As you ski more challenging conditions, your confidence will increase too.

CONCENTRATION AND SKIING: THE RIGHT FOCUS

Steve was a frustrated skier. When he skied on easy terrain, he had no problems. He could concentrate on his skiing and really enjoy himself. But when he got on tough trails, he would fall apart. “Things would pop into my head that have nothing to do with my skiing. I am too aware of skiers around me, I think about my ski falling off,” says an obviously perturbed Steve.

What Steve has experienced has happened to every skier. It involves the inability to focus on the things that will enable you to ski well. Difficulties like these involve one thing: Concentration.

At one time or another we have all been “in the zone,” that period when your skiing without thought or conscious control. You get into a groove where nothing fazes you. You’re totally concentrated on skiing your best, yet you’re not trying at all. It is an unbelievable feeling and you always ski great. Unfortunately, you can’t control being in the zone. It comes and goes as it pleases. You can facilitate being in the zone while skiing by improving your ability to concentrate.

When your skiing is on, you only seem to concentrate on the right things. You’re only aware of things that you need to ski really well. You concentrate on the terrain, the snow conditions, on my technique And you’re focused on the present, not what you just did or what your’re going to do. This describes precisely the notion of good concentration: focusing on only those things that are necessary for you to ski your best.

In contrast, poor concentration involves focusing on things that will either interfere with or are irrelevant to your skiing. You’ll be skiing down doing just fine then all of a sudden you think about falling or what you’re going to have for lunch. Your concentration shifts away from skiing well and you lose the ability to ski your best. Fortunately, there are several simple techniques that you can use to improve concentration.

First, when concentration begins to wander, reminders that I call keywords can be used to refocus attention. In other words, when you’re distracted, you can repeat a word that enables you to regain the proper concentration. When things jump into your head, instead of losing it completely and ruining your run, you can repeat a keyword to myself. Keywords can be technical (e.g., bend, plant, forward) or psychological (e.g., calm, positive, attack). They remind you to do things that make you ski better and they get your concentration back. There are two good reasons to use keywords. Repeating the keywords blocks out distracting thoughts. They also remind you of things you need to do to ski well.

Another way to improve concentration involves using a key object rather than a keyword. Instead of a word, pick out a real thing, an object, to concentrate on when you’re skiing. For example, plan out your path through the moguls, then focus on that or think about squeezing your pole grips to remind you to make a good pole plant. Aside from making you concentrate better, you will be able to learn faster. If you are trying to improve your skiing, using the keywords and keyobjects can help because the more you are concentrating on what you want to work on, the more you will do it.

Finally, breathing can be used as a key object to improve concentration. When concentration is lost, you can focus on your breathing by taking deep breaths. Skiers often find themselves out of breath when skiing even after only a few turns. By thinking about your breathing you can become aware that you are holding your breath. Focusing on your breathing can help you concentrate better and, by getting more oxygen into your body, you will be able to relax and ski better. Also, breathing enables you to get a rhythm in your turns that will help your consistency.

It’s important to emphasize that good concentration is not learned right away. It takes time and some practice. Try this exercise. On alternate runs, concentrate on something different and see what happened. For example, on one run, just focus on the terrain. The next run, think about the snow conditions. Finally, concentrate only on your body and technique. This exercise will teach you to be aware of what you could concentrate on when you’re skiing. It also helps you control your concentration. As you use the keywords, keyobjects, and breathing, they will come more easily to you and the more you use them, the easier it got and the better you will ski.

ANXIETY IN SKIING: KEEPING COOL ON THE SLOPES

Does this sound familiar? You’re standing on top of that tough trail you’ve been wanting to ski all season. It might be KT22 at Squaw Valley, the Goat at Stowe, or someplace in between. You look down the trail and, all of a sudden, you start to feel strange. Your heart starts pounding, your knees begin to shake, your breathing becomes short and shallow, and you feel lightheaded and faint. ANXIETY has just set in! There is no way you can ski that trail now, so you take an easy run.

Such a reaction is not uncommon in skiing. Unfortunately, anxiety is one of the biggest obstacles to good skiing. Anxiety results in extreme muscle tension, butterflies, and a loss of strength and coordination. Clearly, your body can’t perform its best. Anxiety also hurts mentally by lowering self-confidence and diverting concentration from the skiing to the bad physical feelings. At any level of skiing, the ability to overcome anxiety will determine what you ski and how much you enjoy skiing. So how can you overcome anxiety and stay cool on the slopes?

Increase Familiarity

A primary cause of anxiety in skiing is the unknown; what you don’t know can hurt you. Unfamiliarity of the terrain and snow conditions will cause worry and doubt. So you need to familiarize yourself with the trail you are going to ski in order to show you there is nothing to fear. There are several ways of doing this. First, skiers have a tendency to want to jump right into a trail even though they might not know what’s ahead. A better approach is that, if you are anxious, to watch other skiers go ahead of you. This way you can see what the terrain and snow conditions are like, and note any obstacles you might encounter. You can sideslip or make cautious turns the first part of the run, so you can see first-hand the terrain and snow conditions. That way you can be relaxed the remainder of the run, commit yourself to skiing well, and really enjoy it. Also, before you go, select a path down the run that you can follow. This will make the trail seem less threatening and more manageable.

Counter Irrational Thinking

Another significant cause of anxiety is irrational thinking. Anxious skiers tend to make terrain and snow conditions much more extreme than they actually are. How many times have you heard, “those moguls must be ten feet tall” or “this trail is like a cliff”? Saying things like that certainly cause anxiety. So, to reduce anxiety, you have to counter these statements, that is, show that they are not true. For example, have someone to stand next to a mogul to show you that the bumps are, in fact, not ten feet tall, or watch other skiers go down to show that it is not a cliff. When this is done, anxious skiers usually see the absurdity of their thinking, recognize the reality of the terrain and conditions, calm down, and ski better.

Breathing

The most obvious, yet often neglected, way to reduce anxiety is simply to take some long, slow, deep breaths. Deep breaths will relieve many of the symptoms of anxiety including tense muscles, shaking, and loss of coordination. Muscles can not function effectively without adequate oxygen, so by taking deep breaths, muscles will relax, feel better, and enable you to ski well.

Progressive Relaxation

The symptom of anxiety that most interferes with skiing is muscle tension; you feel like your body is made of stone. Also, skiers tend to show their tension in different parts of the body, most commonly the legs or the shoulders. A useful technique you can use to relieve that tension before a run is called progressive relaxation. It involves tightening and relaxing major muscle groups: legs, chest and back, arms and shoulders, and face and neck. This method enables you to reduce your muscle tension and control your breathing, so when you want to ski a tough trail, you have the ability to calm down and ski better. Here’s how to do progressive relaxation.

1. Just before your run, notice where the tension is in your body. For that area, tighten your muscles up for three seconds, then relax. Take a deep breath. Repeat the tensing. Do the same thing for other tense muscle groups.

2. During these exercises, say “tight” just before you tense your muscles, and “loose” before you relax. The idea is to condition your body to these keywords so when you get nervous, you can say them and your body will relax automatically.

Smiling

Perhaps the simplest and most hard to believe technique that is effective in reducing anxiety is the act of smiling. This does not mean finding something funny or laughing, rather simply raising the sides of the mouth and smiling.

Smiling influences our feelings in two ways. First, we are brought up believing that when we smile, we must be happy and relaxed. Second, research has shown that when we smile, neurochemicals are released in our brain that have a relaxing effect. So next time you begin to get nervous, familiarize yourself with the slope, look at the trail realistically, breathe, use progressive relaxation and, most importantly, SMILE!

SKI IMAGERY: SEEING IS BELIEVING

Mental imagery is a technique that has been used by the world’s best ski racers for many years. One story has it that in preparation for a World Cup downhill, an injured Jean Claude Killy imagined skiing the course during the week leading up to the race. He won the downhill. And remember the sight of the Mahres running the 1984 Olympic slalom in their head before finishing 1-2. This technique can also be used to help recreational skiers to ski their best.

Ski imagery refers to repeatedly imagining a skiing performance. Ski imagery involves the total reproduction of actual skiing performance including visual, auditory, and muscular sensations. Thus, it is more than just “mental” rehearsal. In a sense, you are fooling your body into thinking that you are actually skiing. Also, considerable research has shown that you can improve your skills through imagery alone and, if you combine it with actual performance, you can improve even more. Ski imagery can be used to enhance mental and technical aspects of skiing while you are on the slopes.

There are three places you can use ski imagery to improve your skiing. At the top, just before your run, close your eyes and rehearse how you want to ski. Focus your imagery on technical or mental cues that you want to do on your run. Put yourself in a balanced body position with hands forward and move your body just as if you were skiing. Combining the imagined sensations with the actual physical sensations will enhance its value. Ski imagery at the top of a run has several benefits. It gets you out of a thinking mode and into a feeling mode. Ski imagery narrows your focus onto things that will help you ski better. Finally, it gives you a positive and successful image to begin your run, thus improving your confidence and reducing anxiety.

Next, use ski imagery at the end of a run. If you just had a great run, the most important thing you want to do is remember it. By repeating the run with ski imagery, the feelings associated with it sink into your mind and muscles, so you’re more likely to retain them for the next run. If you just had a poor run, the last thing you want to do is remember it, yet it is those feelings of skiing poorly that stay in your muscles. In this case, re-do the run, but this time imagine yourself skiing well. This washes the bad feelings out of your mind and muscles and replaces them with positive images and feelings.

Finally, you can use ski imagery on the ride up the lift. The fact is, even with high speed quads, skiing is a very time-inefficient activity. So why not use that idle time to improve your skiing. While on the lift, take two minutes, close your eyes, and imagine how you want to ski the next run. Also, if your feet are dangling off the chair, move them with your imagery to give you that combination of imaged and real physical sensations.

Keep in mind that ski imagery is a skill that develops with time. Many skiers indicate that their images are not that clear, but with a little practice, the images come into focus. Also, the emphasis in good ski imagery is on feeling the imagery, not just seeing it. Try to feel the physical sensations that you experience when you are actually skiing.

A common concern I get from skiers when they start using ski imagery is that they keep making mistakes in their head. This is to be expected, but will decrease in time. To assist you in having only positive images, when you make a mistake, rewind the “video”, and “edit” it with good skiing. If you have trouble with that, try slowing the video down frame-by-frame. You will be able to control it better. Then as you’re able to imagine yourself skiing well in “slo-mo,” speed up the video to normal speed.

In all of your ski imagery, you should incorporate technical reminders to improve your skiing. For example, if you’re working on your balance, in your imagery, tell yourself to stay in balance before your run and, during the run, see and feel yourself in balance. Also, include Mental Edge skills such as positive thinking, relaxation exercises, and concentration techinques into your ski imagery. This will further reinforce you being mentally prepared to ski your best.

LEARNING TO SKI BETTER

Acquiring new skills and becoming a better skier is, at the same time, one of the most satisfying and frustrating experiences skiers have. Skiers would love to be able to work on something for an hour or so and be able to use it in the most difficult terrain and snow conditions. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works for most skiers; learning can be a long and disheartening process. To make the learning process easier, it is helpful to understand how most people learn new skills. There are four stages in the learning process.

The first stage, intellectual understanding, involves understanding what you are doing incorrectly and the correct execution of the skill. If you do not understand the right and wrong execution, learning will simply be trial-and-error. This approach is both inefficient and discouraging. For example, if you have a habit of dropping your hands back in the moguls, you need to understand how you are dropping them, how it hurts your skiing, and the proper forward position they should be in. To ensure this understanding, taking a lesson can be valuable. If you can not take a lesson, ask someone you trust to describe and demonstrate the correct and incorrect execution, and, if possible, watch videos of yourself so that you can see the difference.

The second stage consists of muscle awareness in which you know what position your body is in and what your body is doing. Without this awareness, you will not be able to control your body and learn new skills. Returning to the hand position example, if you have no awareness that you are dropping your hands, you are going to have a difficult time changing the habit. To improve this awareness, you can watch videos of yourself to get a good image of how you ski. Also, focus on body position while you are skiing, thus enabling you to see and feel what you are doing incorrectly.

The third stage, initial learning, is the first indication of skill development. In this stage, in order to execute the skill correctly, you must focus totally on your body and the skill. Any distractions will cause you to forget the skill and you can only do the skill in easy terrain and snow conditions. Continuing the hand position example, by really concentrating on your hand, you are able to keep them forward, but only on a well-groomed slope that is not too steep. As soon as you get into more difficult conditions, your old habit returns.

The fourth stage involves generalization in which you progressively are able to use the skill in increasingly more difficult conditions. For example, working on your hand position, you first can only do it skiing on smooth, flat terrain. Then you can keep your hands forward on steeper terrain. Then you can do it on steeper, bumpy terrain with uneven snow. You know you have really learned a new skill when you can do it in the most challenging conditions without having to think about it.

Most people have a misconception about how we learn new skills in skiing. The typically held belief is that we learn in a consistent, linear fashion. In other words, improving skiing follows directly from working on the new skill. The reality is, though, that we learn in a cyclic manner. That is, in the early stages of learning, we tend to have a temporary drop in our overall skiing performance because we are narrowly focused on new skill, we are not paying attention to our overall skiing, and we have not learned how to incorporate the new skill into our overall skiing. Only later in learning, as the new skill becomes more ingrained in our muscles, does our skiing performance return to and surpass our previous level.

Understanding the learning process will have several benefits to your skiing. You will have more realistic expectations about learning. You will know that it will take some time and effort to improve, so you will maintain your determination to get better. You will be less frustrated during learning. You will develop a patient attitude. Finally, you will view learning as a positive experience, thus motivating you to want to improve more.

DEVELOPING PRIME SKIING

The goal of almost every skiers is prime skiing. The dictionary defines “prime” as being of the highest quality or value. Prime skiing then is being able to ski your best consistently on the toughest terrain and in the most difficult snow conditions. But prime skiing doesn’t come automatically. It is a building process that evolves by adhering to several important rules.

Ski with Purpose

Developing prime skiing requires that you are constantly striving to become a better skier. If you are not, you are getting better at doing the wrong things. Unfortunately, skiers often only go through the motions of skiing without having a particular focus or reason to be out on the slopes. To ski your best, you have to ski with purpose. For prime skiing to develop, it is necessary that you have a specific purpose and goal in mind every time you go skiing. Every time you go out to ski, you should know exactly what you want to accomplish. If you are skiing without purpose, several things will happen. You will not improve because you are not working on anything. You will make it harder to improve because you are practicing the wrong things, further ingraining bad habits into your mind and muscles. You will not ski your best. You will not have as much fun skiing as you can. There is a cliche that goes, “Whatever you put into something, that is what you get out of it.” This applies to skiing as well. Only if you are skiing with purpose will you gain the most enjoyment and satisfaction out of your skiing. So make sure that, whenever you go skiing and whatever you are working on, whether technique, conditioning, Mental Edge skills, or fun, that you ski with purpose.

100% Solution

One of the biggest problems I see in skiers is a lack of consistent focus and intensity in their skiing. Too often, skiers will ski most of the time at 60% focus and intensity, take lessons at 80%, and expect to ski at 100% when skiing gets challenging. This is unrealistic because if you haven’t done it most of the time, you won’t be able to do it when the conditions demand it. You want to become physically and mentally accustomed to skiing at 100% focus and intensity by skiing at that level most of the time. This is the 100% solution. A basic rule to follow is that whatever you need to do in challenging conditions, you must do in all of your skiing. This means being totally mentally “there” and focused on skiing well and being at a level of intensity that will give you the strength and quickness to be physically capable of skiing in tough conditions. You should put 100% focus and intensity into every run you take. So when you ski, your body and mind will be trained to ski at 100% focus and intensity. This will enable you to be mentally and physically accustomed to what it feels like to ski at that level.

Ski for Adversity

Anyone can ski well under ideal conditions; easy terrain, good snow conditions, and nice weather. What separates the best from the rest is their ability to ski at their best in difficult terrain, tough snow conditions, and poor weather. Most skiers when faced with poor conditions will lose confidence and motivation, and ski poorly. But great skiers respond differently. They view it as a challenge rather than a threat. This is their chance to show themselves and others how good they can really ski. They become more fired up and motivated. In fact, great skiers seek out adverse conditions in order to challenge and improve themselves.

The way to learn to ski for adversity is by practicing in difficult conditions. Instead of avoiding poor conditions and always trying to ski in perfect conditions, seek out the worst possible conditions. Admittedly, this is potentially discouraging, but not if you keep the right perspective. Set realistic expectations about your skiing in these conditions. Recognize that you will struggle at first. Also, realize that even the best skiers will have problems in tough conditions. Use the difficult skiing as a learning experience. Figure out what you need to do technically and mentally to ski better. So, in the future, when you are faced with poor conditions, instead of losing confidence, getting anxious, and wanting to avoid them, you will see them as a challenge and you will be confident and motivated to ski your best.

CHALLENGE YOUR SKIING

To ski your best you have to develop the Mental Edge in your skiing. This means being confident, relaxed, and focused whenever you ski. In order to do this, you have to challenge your skiing. This can be accomplished in several ways.

Consistency and Flexibility

A hallmark of all great skiers is both consistency and flexibility in their skiing. It is an essential part of Prime Skiing. Consistency should be a part of every aspect of your skiing, from off-snow physical training to lessons to practice to skiing. Consistent preparation leads to consistent thinking which will result in consistent skiing. But consistency does not mean rigidity.

Flexibility is also necessary to become the best you can. Flexibility allow you to adjust to different skiing conditions. Having the flexibility to adapt to changes means you will be able to ski your best in a wider range of terrain and snow conditions. Anyone can ski well in ideal conditions, but only skiers who are flexible can ski their best under poor conditions when they are really challenged.

Commit Yourself

When you are skiing hard, there is no room for being tentative. If you let up or back off in the middle of a run, you are going to be in trouble. At best, you will be lose your rhythm and have to stop. At worst, you will fall and could injure yourself. One of the most important things you must do when you begin a run is to be totally committed to the run. Unfortunately, as you develop as a skier, you will often come upon terrain or conditions that you think are over your head. You may be uncertain about skiing it. This uncertainty creates doubt and anxiety. If you try to ski in these situations when you are uncertain, you are going to ski tentatively and bale out at the first sign of trouble.

So before you make a run, make sure that you are focused on skiing to the best of your ability. Make sure you are totally committed to doing it all the way. If you are not totally committed, stop, get refocused and committed, then GO FOR IT! By being committed, you will ski better and with more confidence and command, make fewer mistakes, improve faster, and have a whole lot more fun.

Trust Your Ability

A disagreement I have had with instructors involves whether it is good for skiers to think about technique right before and during a run. They argue that if they don’t think about technique they won’t ski well. But it is my belief that if you focus on technique too much you will do that technique well, but your overall skiing will suffer because you are not thinking about skiing hard.

There is a time and a place for technique. That time is when you are specifically thinking about improving. It is here that you question and analyze your skiing and focus on a particular part of your skiing in order to develop it. By doing this, the new technique becomes, with practice, second nature and it will then help you to ski better.

But when you are out skiing hard, you shouldn’t question, doubt, analyze, or get technical. If you do not have a technique down by the time you begin a run, you will not be able to use it effectively in that run. Whatever ability you bring to the run, believe in it, and ski as well as you can with what you have. Simply put, TRUST YOURSELF to ski the very best you can on that run.

The Winning Feeling

After the lessons and practice, skiing your best is not an intellectual process. It does not involve thinking, analyzing, or planning. Skiing your best is about emotions and feelings. It means generating feelings of skiing at a higher level. When you are reaching for a new level of performance, don’t think about it, feel it. After a great run, don’t think about how you skied well.

Instead, feel what it was like to ski that well and reproduce that feeling the next run.

PRIME SKIING: ECSTASY ON ASPEN MOUNTAIN

Published in Aspen Magazine (1995)

You’re at the top of Christie’s, your favorite trail on Aspen Mountain. You look up at Independence Pass. It shines in the bright sunshine. It is a beautiful day and the snow is perfect. As usual, Christie’s is steep and bumpy. As a long-time Aspen skier, you know that to ski Christie’s well, you have to prepared; ready to ski your best from your very first turn. If not, you won’t have that rhythm and feeling, and your run will not be good. You look down Christie’s and you feel supremely confident, no doubts, knowing you will ski your best. Your body is ready; you feel relaxed, yet energized. You are committed to skiing your best.

You begin your run. You are focused on the terrain and snow condition, no unnecessary thoughts, no distractions. Your skiing is fluid and strong. You are skiing without thought or conscious control. Everything is clicking; you are on! It is the most unbelievable feeling in the world. It is ecstasy and you truly believe that it can only be found in Aspen. Some people call this elusive state being in the zone or peak performance. But I call it Prime Skiing. Prime Skiing means skiing your best under many conditions consistently.

More often though, it seems that you are doing whatever the opposite of Prime Skiing is. Does this sound familiar? You’re standing on top of that tough trail on Aspen Mountain that you’ve been wanting to ski all season. It might be Silver Queen, Jack Pot, or one of the Dumps. You look down the trail and, all of a sudden, you start to feel strange. Negative thoughts rush into your brain, “I can’t do this. Who am I kidding. This is crazy for me to ski.” Your heart starts pounding, your knees begin to shake, your breathing becomes short and shallow, your muscles tense, and you feel lightheaded and faint. You’re focusing on everything but what will enable you to ski well. FEAR has just set in! There is no way you can ski that trail now, so you take the easy way down. Any possibility of experiencing Prime Skiing is gone. Unfortunately, Prime Skiing can be difficult to control. But you can reach Prime Skiing by paying attention to the technical, physical, and mental aspects of skiing.

Last year, I worked with Molly, an intermediate advanced skier who believed she was ready to tackle the really tough stuff on Aspen Mountain. Her big goal for the season was to ski one of the Dumps, Perry’s Prowl, technically well with confidence and commitment. Molly felt she had the technical skills to meet this new challenge, but her body and mind just wouldn’t cooperate. So we spent a few days putting all three parts of Molly’s skiing, technical, physical, and mental, together so they would work for her to experience the ecstasy of Prime Skiing.

The first step was to speak to Molly’s regular Ski Schools of Aspen ski pro about what she needed to work on technically. He said Molly’s technique was very solid, but when she got scared, Molly fell back on the two cardinal sins of Prime Skiing: sitting back and leaning into the hill. So Molly’s technical focus was to stay forward and weight the downhill ski. With this information, we spent the first day on moderate terrain like Pump House drilling these into her head and body. I gave Molly a keyword, “press” that she repeated out loud to remind her to press on the front of her boots and on the downhill ski. Also, on the ride up the gondola, I had Molly close her eyes and use ski imagery to picture herself skiing the way she wanted. With ski imagery, Molly would re-create the image and feelings of meeting the challenges that lay ahead.

These “Mental Edge” techniques served several purposes that would benefit Molly when we went up to challenge the steep stuff. It further ingrained good technique into her mind and muscles, so it, rather than the cardinal sins, would come out on the steeps. Molly also began to feel more in control of her skiing, which would counteract her fears of the difficult terrain. Molly’s confidence improved too. She actually started to believe that Perry’s was attainable. Molly also learned how she could focus better using her keyword and the ski imagery. Molly was ready for the next step the following day, to apply these found technical and mental skills to a set of challenges that lay between what we skied the day before and her goal of mastering Perry’s Prowl, namely, the steeps and bumps of Bell Mountain.

The next morning was cold and bright, with the sun rising onto Ajax. As Molly and I rode up the gondola and we talked about what lay ahead, it became clear to me that Molly had some very tough expectations. “I can’t make any mistakes today. I have to ski well.” With that attitude, Molly was setting herself up for failure. It was time for a reality check! I told her that she should not expect to ski her best when facing new skiing challenges. She had to accept that she would make mistakes and that is okay. I had Molly set some realistic goals for the next few days, “I will work on skiing in balance and in control. My main focus is to practice the technical and mental skills so I can use them on Perry’s. I will look for progress rather than perfection as the day goes on. I will be patient and allow myself the time to achieve my goal.” Now with this attitude, Molly was ready to succeed.

At the top Bell #2 I introduced Molly to the first part of the skiing routine. A skiing routine is a brief procedure that ensures that Molly would be physically and mentally prepared to ski her best. A skiing routine takes only about 15 seconds, but is the best time investment you can make in your skiing.

Molly had to get herself physically ready by being relaxed, but energized before her run. Molly admitted she was feeling a little nervous. I was glad about this because it would give her the opportunity to practice some relaxation techniques that she could use when the challenges got tougher. I had her take several slow, deep breaths. This ensured that she had enough oxygen in her body for it to perform well. I also described Active Relaxation, a technique she could use to reduce the muscle tension she felt. Active Relaxation involves tightening and relaxing tense muscle groups. Molly felt tension in her shoulders and neck, so I had her tighten that area for five seconds, relax those muscles and take a deep breath, and repeat it. I also got Molly to smile with a little joke. Smiling is the most underused and most effective way to get people to relax. Molly’s body was now relaxed enough, but she also needed some energy for strength and agility. Too often, skiers stand around before a run and get cold and stiff, then expect their bodies to kick right in. I showed Molly how to “rev her engine” by doing several knee lifts, swinging her arms, and jumping up and down a few times. Now she was physically ready for a great run. Molly was relaxed, but energized. Molly practiced her physical preparation for several runs as we worked our way across the Back of Bell to the Ridge and around the Shoulder and Clavicle. Each run I saw better physical preparation and improved technique. I could also see that Molly was skiing with more confidence and commitment, even though the mental part of the skiing routine would not come until the afternoon.

After lunch, we added the second part of the skiing routine, namely, to get Molly mentally ready. Right after her physical preparation, I checked her confidence. Molly’s response, “I hope I don’t make an ass of myself,” was not exactly the glowing statement of confidence I was looking for. Recognizing this from the grimace on my face, she immediately replaced it with a fairly convincing, “I will try my hardest and ski my best” accompanied by a big smile. I next had her close her eyes and, using ski imagery, see and feel herself experiencing Prime Skiing. The ski imagery gives her a positive image to start from, thus increasing her confidence, and narrows her focus on what she needs to do to ski well. Finally, she repeated her technical keyword and began her run.

As our second circumnavigation of Bell Mountain of the day progressed, I saw several important developments in Molly. The level of her skiing had improved dramatically. Molly was staying forward and over her downhill ski consistently, and she was linking turns and committing herself to the fall line, something she was reluctant to do previously. But most gratifying to me were the changes in Molly’s attitude. She evinced a confidence that Molly had never shown before. She actually laughed when she made mistakes, knowing they were part of the process. The greatest pleasure for me was the excitement she was feeling and the pure fun that was evident in her. Molly stated in no uncertain terms that she was ready for Perry’s tomorrow.

Molly was waiting at the bottom of the gondola for me the next morning. She had dreamt about Perry’s last night and, chiding me, said that the dream was not a nightmare. Heading to the top, we reviewed what we had worked on yesterday. Molly said she was still kind of nervous, but actually felt good about it because she now knew how to control her feelings.

After two warm-up runs in which she reinforced her skiing routine, we rode up Lift #6 and skied down to Perry’s. To alleviate the potential shock for Molly of looking down Perry’s from between her skis on the catwalk, I traversed ten feet down and stopped with Molly pulling up right behind me. This was her moment, so without a word, I went through my skiing routine and began my run, skiing confidently and in control, hoping to be a good role model for Molly. I stopped a third of the way down and looked up at Molly. She slowly and deliberately did her skiing routine and pushed off. I could see the focus and intensity in her. Skiing around me, she actually smiled and continued down. Her run wasn’t flawless, but she demonstrated all of the things we worked on. Molly was more relaxed, and skied in control with confidence and commitment.

As the day progressed, we skied each dump and the improvement continued. Each run was a little better and Molly was loving it. Then it happened, we had just finished skiing Last Dollar. Molly skied up to me and said she had felt it, just for a few turns, but it was there. “Felt what?,” I said. “IT, the ecstacy, Prime Skiing, whatever you call,” Molly screamed at me. I knew my job was done. Molly had tasted Prime Skiing and would never settle for anything less. Moreover, she had the tools to achieve Prime Skiing every time went out.

Developing Prime Skiing is just like improving your technique. It takes some time and effort. At first, you have to think about the mental skills. But in time, these skills will become automatic and you will have attained that once-elusive state of Prime Skiing. You will be able to regularly experience the ecstacy of skiing in Aspen.

THE MENTAL EDGE

Published in Snow Country (October, 1997)

Danny (not his real name), a U.S. Ski Team member with whom I have worked over the past several years, was in a major slump. He had fallen in his last five races. Despite skiing 250 days a year, running thousands of gates, and having been among the best in the world, Danny had lost his edge, figuratively and literally. He had lost his confidence, was really nervous before races, and couldn’t focus on what he needed to ski his best. These three areas, building confidence, controlling anxiety, and maintaining focus are critical skills that I have taught the world’s best racers and recreational skiers alike as part of my Mental Edge for Skiing program.

I have found that U.S. Ski Team racers and recreational skiers experience the same psychological challenges, only the objectives are different. The goals for the racers are gold medals and World Cup wins. The goals for recreational skiers are to ski more difficult terrain and snow conditions. The same skills that I taught Danny to get out of his slump and get back on top will also work for you. Here are some tips to help skiers overcome those psychological hurdles that keep the best ski racers in the world and recreational skiers from having a great run every time.

Kurt was pretty psyched by this point and said he was going to have a “perfect run.” Dan agreed and was about to push off. I told them to hold their horses when I heard this because I knew we were in trouble from the start. I explained that they needed to hear a basic, yet important goal that I call Prime Skiing, which is the ability to ski well consistently, not perfectly. With such high and unattainable expectations such as perfection, they were interfering with rather than helping them meet their goals and were setting themselves up for failure. The fact is they could not expect to ski great when they are facing new skiing challenges. Mistakes are, in fact, natural and necessary to improve. So I asked them what are their realistic Prime Skiing experiences. Sam described his as a feeling of comfort and flow with a tinge of excitement. Evan, the philosophy guy, characterized his as being one with the mountain. Kurt said he will be more patient and give himself time to progress. Dan, the most Type A of the group, didn’t know if he could “chill out,” but he would try his best. With these more realistic expectations established, it was time to get busy.

Our first area to work on was confidence, which I told them was a deep-down belief in their ability to ski at the level they wanted. I told them that even World Cup racers can struggle with their confidence because they are faced with unheard-of extremes in terms of terrain, snow conditions, and speed. There are three ways to build confidence. First, they had to feel well-prepared. Well, this was covered pretty well already. These guys were all in good physical condition and it seemed like they had better equipment and had more lessons than Alberto Tomba and Tommy Moe combined. By being well-prepared, skiers feel that they have done everything possible to set themselves up for success.

Second, they had to become more positive in their thinking and talk. With all of their unsuccessful efforts to get better, they had gotten pretty frustrated and had developed the habit of beginning runs with negative statements such as “I’m going to take a bad crash” or “I know I will screw up this run too.” They also started to get down on each other which got them cranky at each other too. So they often skied with a very negative attitude about themselves and the group. So our first exercise was to say something positive before every run. The guys thought this sounded kind of hokey and Dan asked if we had to hug before every run too. I said not to give me any ideas. But they gave it a try. For example, Kurt said, “I’m going to ski my best and have fun” and Evan said, “being a part of the mountain enables me to ski it well.” They started to get into this confidence building technique and soon found that they felt more positive and comfortable and skied better.

Third, the guys had to allow their confidence to build naturally through successful skiing experiences in progressively more demanding situations. Too often, they would jump right into black diamond runs like the Perry’s Prowl or the Ridge on Aspen Mountain, ski poorly, and have their confidence go to hell. So we spent the morning practicing their positive thinking and, with each good run, increasing the difficulty of the terrain and snow conditions from Pumphouse to Back of Bell II to the Shoulder. By lunch, they were confident and ready that they could ski the most difficult runs on the mountain. But they were still not ready to go there yet.

For the afternoon, we turned our attention to improving their focus. There is a tendency for skiers of all abilities to focus on things that actually hurt rather than help their skiing. These guys were no different. When skiing, they would often have an irrelevant focus, such as thinking about who’s watching or the project they have to finish at work or an interfering focus, which involves having negative thoughts or focusing on the outcome. I showed them the value of maintaining a process focus, which means paying attention to things that will help them ski better. This is a particularly big problem for Olympic racers because, for example, it can be very difficult for them to focus on their skiing when millions of people are watching and expecting them to win a gold medal. The first technique involves developing what I call a “ski word,” which is one word that reminds skiers of something that will help them ski well. Ski words can be either technical or psychological. For example, Dan chose “press” to remind him to stay forward on steep terrain and Sam selected “charge” to get him to be aggressive and not get tentative in difficult snow conditions. I then had the guys use their ski words while skiing. They started out by saying them out loud as they skied down. This ensured that they kept focusing on it. Once the ski word sunk in, they were able to just say it quietly to themselves, though Evan noticed that the more challenging the situation, the more important it was to keep saying the ski word out loud.

The second technique I introduced them to was ski imagery, which involves picturing and feeling themselves skiing well before they begin each run. They had seen World Cup racers using mental imagery before their race runs, but hadn’t thought that this was something they could use. Before each run, I had close their eyes and imagine themselves skiing the way they want. Also, like the World Cuppers, I had them move their bodies to simulate actual skiing movements. This strategy is extra beneficial because it combines the imagined sensations with the actual physical feelings of skiing. Ski imagery narrowed their focus onto the images and feelings of Prime Skiing, thus building their confidence too. By the end of our first day together, all four of my merry little band found they were able to focus better and longer and that their skiing was becoming more consistent as a result. But they still weren’t ready for the really hard stuff. That would come tomorrow afternoon.

Mastering anxiety was the focus on the morning of our second day. I told them that anxiety is healthy and a normal part of the skiing challenge. But it can also interfere with Prime Skiing. I said that world-class racers get scared all the time. Some anxiety is what keeps them alive and in one piece.

The first thing they needed to do was understand what causes their anxiety. This was not too difficult to figure. As Kurt put it, “whenever I feel that I’m getting over my head, I start to get nervous and it all goes downhill from there. The group learned that a way to prevent this is to work their way into increasingly more difficult skiing rather than jumping right into the tough stuff.

Second, they needed to recognize the symptoms of anxiety. Again, this was pretty easy. Dan, proclaimed “the macho man” by the others, said, “my breathing would get short, my muscles would get tight, and I would ski like junk” (he actually used an unprintable word here!).

The third step involved learning to control their anxiety. I explained to them that by being more confident and better focused, they would experience less anxiety because they would feel more in control and less threatened. There are several simple techniques that we practiced all morning in increasingly more difficult terrain and snow conditions leading up to the afternoon’s “final frontier” of Aspen’s most difficult runs, as Trekkie Sam put it.

Breathing is the most basic technique for reducing anxiety. When skiers are nervous, they hold their breath which, in turn, tightens their muscles and causes them to lose coordination. I had my “dream team” take several slow, deep breaths before each run and focus on their breathing while skiing. Evan commented that he felt better before his runs and stayed calmer during the runs, especially when things got difficult.

I also taught them active relaxation to get rid of muscle tension. Before each run, I had them do active relaxation, which involves tightening and relaxing muscle groups. Dan was pretty excited about this technique because he said his neck and shoulders always “knots up” when he gets stressed out at work and while skiing.

The last thing I taught them to overcome anxiety was to smile, which was received with considerable skepticism indicated by all of them rolling their eyes and Kurt saying, “now you’re gonna make us a bunch of grinning wackos?” Clearly they needed some convincing. I told them that I used this technique with the U.S. Ski Team athletes with whom I work. There was only marginal acceptance. They asked for it now, not just taking my expert word on it. It was time to bring out the dreaded “gospel of science.” I described to them the findings of research that studied how smiling affects people. As we grow up, we are conditioned that when we smile, we are happy. Also, neurological studies have shown that when we smile, endorphins are released, producing a real physiologically relaxing effect. Sam the Doc saw its merit, so the other guys tentatively bought into it too. So we practiced breathing, active relaxation, and smiling for the rest of the morning. At lunch, they said they felt much more relaxed skiing and were uniformly skiing better.

The final afternoon was devoted to putting it all together and skiing the final frontier. I introduced them to skiing routines, adapted from U.S. Ski Team pre-race routines. The point of skiing routines is to be sure that skiers are totally prepared to ski well their best. So everything that is important to good skiing should go into a skiing routine. Unlike a pre-race routine which can take up to 30 minutes, a skiing routine takes only 15-30 seconds. For the next few runs, in increasingly more challenging terrain and snow conditions, I had the four practice their skiing routines. There were three parts that should be in a skiing routine including equipment, physical, and mental preparation. First, the group made sure that their equipment was ready; boots buckled, goggles on, etc. And Sam added “TGIF:” Tips Go In Front. So they all checked to see if their skis were on correctly! Next, they did their physical warm-up with their deep breathing, active relaxation, and some “engine revving,” which involved moving their legs and arms to get their blood flowing. Finally, the four did their mental warm-up, which included ski imagery and repeating their ski words.

Having practiced their skiing routines for several runs, they were feeling comfortable with them and seeing their benefits. It was, at last, time for their final frontier, Walsh’s and Silver Rush. Riding the gondola up, their focus and intensity was evident. They were ready! Upon arriving at the top of Walsh’s, my four mental monsters went through their skiing routines, getting themselves totally prepared to ski their best. I too went through my routine and just before I began my run, I turned to them and said, “Prime skiing and have fun!” I then skied my best down wanting to be a good role model for them.

I was a bit nervous myself watching them ski down one by one. Each skied well, though not flawlessly. The last arrived at the bottom and I was expecting a litany of comments, but all I got were smiles and a “let’s do another” from Kurt. We took two more runs on Hyrup’s and Christie’s before finishing on Silver Rush. Finally, the afternoon ended and we gathered at the bottom to wrap things up. The first comment was from Evan, “I really felt it coming together there.” From Sam, “That was the first time I felt like I was my ally instead of my enemy skiing.” “I really believed that I could ski that run… and I did,” said Kurt in amazement. Finally, Dan, the skeptic, capped the weekend by saying, “You’ve got yourself a believer here. None of us have ever skied that well for so long.” Thank you’s went all around.

I was basking in the glow of their success as they prepared to leave. Just before heading out, Dan looked up and said, “I’ll bet this stuff would help in our work and other sports we play, wouldn’t it?” The others nodded in agreement. I just smiled knowingly. They had learned the most important lesson I wanted to teach. They were going to be okay out there. My work was done.

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