Ski with your FEET not with your SHINS!

The first time I met Tom Gellie on the snow was kind excitement and enthusiasm, I am a member of the Big Picture Skiing online academy which Tom is a co-founder and I choose Tom very carefully due to his dedication and his special intuitive thinking in ski technic, I am looking into Tom as a ski modernizer technician of the new era.

The first thing he asked us to do on our first drill was to unbuckle the upper level of our ski boots as he did too to the point of being too loose on a steep slope in “Le Massif Québec”, icy condition groomer on the east coast. Very strange as a request, I was wondering what is behind his idea of unbuckling our ski boots!

I can confess that my first impression was a total shock, a very weird request on the first-day drill. After going down the hill I felt myself without any control at all. I looked into Tom, and there he was, smoothly skiing like a ride in the park.

After stopping, he started explaining why he asked such a request on our first day, he was aiming that we should consider balancing our ski based on our feet not depending on our shins even if our ski boots are perfectly tight and buckled.

He described the drill as changing the path of movement, the control should come from the feet first, in other words, your balance comes from your feet and way up.



We should feel the same sensation as we are accelerating on the gas pedal or raising the front of the boot board, reducing how much forward and back we are using as he described it.

After many runs with Tom on unbuckled boots, I went for a ski ride alone before starting my lunch break since I was very excited and curious to check my SKI-IQ, I opened my getCarv app, and I tried a run on a steep blue slope with approximately of 14 turns.

When I stopped, I was surprised to find the new score, I beat my older score easily with 3 points without any extra effort. I can imagine what will be your reflection when you see such a high score SKI-IQ popping up on your phone.

Tom was right, skiing is more with your feet not with your shins. Ski more through our feet than anywhere else in our body. Moving your whole body with a slight movement from your feet in producing the right balance makes a huge difference.