Counter Movement & Counter Rotation

Becoming an expert skier is more like a master magician performing your craft of illusion rather than any precise formula laid in stone. The counter movement is the art of performing this illusion, thus making the fluid motions of expert skiing seem effortless. In fact, you make a twisting movement of the upper body allowing the onlooker to see only an upper body position that faces somewhat down the hill at all times. Skiers must perform this move in order to keep the turning force of counter rotation always at hand. If we look at the old theory of motion, which states, that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It relates like this, if the upper body is facing down the hill, it will allow the feet to be pulled toward the upper body or down the hill, while the upper body again moves against the skis direction of movement -- over the skis -- as they cross the fall-line and realign on the opposite side of the skis again facing down the hill. The counter movement also is used as a balance fine tuning device, before the counter rotation of steering into the new turn is actually made.

Alpine Skiing School section in english version of WWW.SKI.BG is based on
"A Guide To Becoming An Expert: From First Time To A Lifetime"
by John Mukavitz Copyright © 1998