Skate Skiing

Skate skiing is very difficult to explain with words, but I'll give it my best shot. I will split this little "how-to" up into two sections, what happens with your lower body, and what happens with your upper body. There are many different techniques of skate skiing, but I will be dealing with V1 here. I will briefly describe the other types at the bottom of this "how-to".

The Lower Body:

This will be easy for all you ice skaters and rollerbladers out there. It is the exact same motion as ice skating.
For all you who have never ice skated or rollerbladed, or are really bad at it, let's see if I can describe how to do it. First of all, your skis will be opened up in a V approximately 45 degrees wide. You are going gliding on one ski with the other suspended right above the snow. When you start slowing down, you are going to be shifting your weight to your unweighted ski, and pushing off with the ski which you were just gliding on (again, at about a 45 degree angle.) You are going to glide on that ski until you start slowing down, and then push off onto the other ski. It's very simple to learn how the movement goes. If you watched the Olympics, and they had a slow motion shot of a speed skater, look at the legs of the skater. It's the exact same motion. You don't have to go very fast in the motions, but it's just centering your weight above the ski you are currently gliding on, and then pushing off from that ski to the other ski and balancing on that ski.

The Upper Body:

The upper body is a lot easier to teach how to move. Basically, your upper body is always looking in the direction which your skis are moving. So, when you are on your left ski, your body is facing the tip of your left ski. When you are on your right ski, your body is facing the tip of your right ski. You want to pick a side (as a suggestion, if you're right handed, pick your right side. If you're left handed, pick your left side) and that's the side you will be poling on. Basically, you want to pole at the same time your ski on the designated side hits the snow, so you have three points of contact (the ski and the two poles). When you plant the poles, your arms should be slightly bent at the elbows, and they should never get more bent than that. You then want to drive your poles behind you by bending at the waist (as a rule of thumb, your arms should graze your knees). This part of poling is called compression.

Putting it all together:

Basically, there are two phases to skate skiing. There is a definite rest phase and a definate work phase. During the work phase, you will be poleing. During the rest phase, you will just be using your legs. Several points to work on once you get the basics:

• When your skis make contact with the snow, your toes, your knee and your nose on that side should be lined up.
• When you drive your arms beyond your body, you arms should go as far back as they can.
• I haven't gone over how you hold your poles (there is a certain way to put your hand through the wrist strap), but if you are holding your poles correctly, as you go back, loosen your grip on your poles. This does two things: 1) It saves energy as you don't have to lift up your poles behind you. 2) You don't have to worry about poking someone's eye out.

Different Techniques:

• V1 - Was described above.
• V2 - Similar to the V1, except it has a much slower tempo. You stagger the poling a little bit, so you pole in the middle of your glide phase (you don't pole at the same time you push off from your ski.) You also pole on both sides. This technique is good for flat areas, slightly downhill and slightly uphill.
• V3 - Don't get me started on this. Supposedly there is such a technique (a friend of mine showed it to me in a book after I said it didn't exist), but it looks like someone spazzing.
• Mach V-1 - This is like the V1, except you pole every third ski glide. The tempo goes like: Pole/skate - skate - skate - pole/skate - skate - skate.
• Mach V-2 - This is like the V2, except you only pole on one side.
• Marathon Skate - Put one ski in a groomed track. Using the other ski, you are going to push the tracked ski forward. You will also pole to propel yourself forward. Always face the tip of the tracked ski.
• No Pole Skate - Pretty self explainatory. It's skating using no poles. Use your arms for momentum (like the speed skaters).

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