Here at Blister, we’ve spent the past 15+ years giving you our honest assessments of outdoor gear — how it performs, and whether or not a certain product might work well for you personally.
So on the ski side of Blister, that means we spend a ton of time on snow testing that gear.
And while we’d consider all of our reviewers highly competent skiers, none of us would claim to be anything close to perfect; when it comes to technique, all of us have plenty to work on. That’s part of what makes skiing such a fun, truly-life-long adventure, and we suspect that many of you would agree.
So, we’re launching this series to shed light on some of the areas for improvement we’ve noticed in our own skiing — many of which will likely also apply to a lot of other intermediate, advanced, and expert skiers out there.
Now, to be clear, we are not ski instructors, and these articles are not instructions. There are countless other resources out there if you want to dive deep into the physics and physiology that go into ski technique, and tons of great, certified instructors who can help address each individual skier’s needs.
Rather, you can think of this series as a sort of journal about our own progression, with the idea that it might help you think about areas to improve, or simply inspire you to try.
In order to do this, we’ve partnered with the folks at Carv to help identify these areas for improvement via their sensors and Digital Ski Coach app, which we’ve been using every day for two seasons. This has drastically increased the amount of time we spend talking not just about ski gear, but about ski technique, and what the Carv data is showing us. It’s truly changed the nature of our chairlift conversations when we’re out testing.
We’ve also turned to Carv’s team of athletes and instructors to add a bit of context to some of the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of what we’re experiencing on snow, and offer pathways to improvement via drills linked throughout.
At least right now, we aren’t focusing on the most basic of fundamentals. So if you’re brand new to skiing, Carv has a bunch of helpful articles and videos of their own that could be a great place to start.
But aspects of what we’re discussing in these first few articles will likely be relatable to those of you who are ‘fairly’ to ‘very’ confident skiers, and those of you who would like to take the next step.
In this first article, we’re focusing on three particular aspects of on-piste carving technique; how experts recommend addressing them; and — since this is Blister, after all — we’ll also be adding some thoughts on how your gear might also come into play.
