Use Your Eyes To Increase Turn Accuracy & Control

In addition to drifting your turns, incorporate use of your eyes into your movement pattern to increase turn accuracy and provide even more speed control when skiing moguls.

Where your eyes are focused while you are skiing moguls has a huge impact on your ability to ski with more control. You will have better speed control if you can be more accurate in turning at a specific location where you intend to make your next turn. Using your eyes will be a game-changing technique that will give you new-found control and turn precision.

How Your Eyes Help Increase Speed Control When Skiing Moguls

Your eyes are a huge source of information for your brain and they help communicate the intended location of your next turn to your brain. All you have to do is look at where you want to make your next turn. Once your brain understands where you want to initiate your next turn it fires specific nerve pathways which, in turn, then activate the necessary muscle groups in your body to move the necessary body parts to take you to this desired turn location.

So, let’s understand how we achieve more speed control and turn accuracy when skiing moguls if we take advantage of this relationship between your eyes, your brain, your neuromuscular system and how your body parts move.

Since your brain has been with you since birth it knows how to make your intentions happen and you don’t have to think about the many underlying detail body movements. It is the same with other movement pattern sports. How does your tennis racquet hit the tennis ball? How does the head of your golf club hit the golf ball? How does a baseball player hit, or catch, a baseball? Answer: by focusing your eyes on the ball. Your brain knows how to get the job done once you communicate your intention.

You Will Always Ski To The Location Where Your Eyes Are Looking

One universal rule of skiing is that you will ALWAYS ski to where your eyes are looking. If your eyes are focused on a tree you will ski into it. If you are looking at the open space between two trees you will ski between the trees. It is a very simple concept.

If you are skiing in mogul terrain and you stare at a deep or ugly trough the odds are that you will end up skiing in the trough going at a high rate of speed and putting your reflex speed to the test. However, if you focus your eyes on the flat tops of each mogul and clumps of soft snow you will ski to them, stay out of the troughs and be able to control your speed more effectively.

Continuously Look Down The Mogul Run To The Precise Location Where You Want To Make Your Next Turn

It is important to CONTINUOUSLY look at the target location where you intend to initiate your next turn. And, the target location ideally should be DOWN the mogul run, not across the mogul run. Turn you head, not torso, to keep your eyes focused on the target. Look DOWN the hill to the location where you want to make your next turn.

Note: there is a VERY IMPORTANT difference between looking in the direction that your skis are currently going versus looking at the specific location where you want to initiate your next turn (where you want to be).

Incorporate Use Of Your Eyes Into Your Everyday Skiing Movement Pattern

If you want to be successful skiing moguls it is very important to incorporate the use of your eyes as part of your everyday routine skiing movement pattern. It will increase both your speed control and accuracy of turning at your intended location.

To incorporate your eyes into your movement pattern you will need to select, and look at, a specific turn location for each and every turn you make. That includes turns on groomed runs and  as well as turns on mogul runs. While it is less critical to focus on each turn location when skiing groomed runs (since groomed run terrain is prepared and smooth) you don’t want to have one movement part tern for groomers and another one for bumps. If you do that you will be unlikely to make use of your eyes as an automatic process for every turn. You will run the risk of forgetting to use your eyes when it really counts in mogul terrain.

If you don’t also use your eyes when you make turns on groomed runs then, when you ski in the bumps, your eyes won’t be part of your normal turn sequence movement pattern. As a result, you will likely forget to use your eyes to to improve turn accuracy and control when you go back into the bumps.