There are two basic kinds if skiing, Alpine and Nordic and for the most part when we take our winter skiing holidays we take part in Alpine skiing, you know the one where you strap on the skis and slide down the hill! Alpine skiing evolved from cross-country skiing when ski lift infrastructure was developed at mountain resorts to tow skiers back to the top of slopes, thus making it possible to repeatedly enjoy skiing down steep, long slopes that would be otherwise tiring to climb.
When we all go on our first winter sports holiday the challenge is simply how to control the direction and speed of their descent. Typically, as novice skiers, we use a technique called the “snowplough” which is where we all start and we use to maintain a comfortable speed and come to a stop by pointing one or both skis inward, but more advanced skiers use more difficult but more elegant and speedier methods, the ultimate for most of us the “parallel. As we gain confidence and we take on board our instructor’s patient advice, the better we become, increasingly looking forward each year to our next ski holiday.