Absorbing Impacts and Attacking Moguls

Ripping down a steep slope filled with VW-sized moguls — and making it look good — requires technical perfection, and can make-or-break your ego and injury status. In many ways, moguls are the ultimate proving ground of skiing prowess, an arena for hot-doggers, fitness buffs addicted to the burn, and competition junkies.  Moguls not only demand attention to detail and quick decision-making, but most importantly a stance that absorbs impacts and returns energy to your next turn. With the right approach and practice, you can look like Jeremy Bloom under the lift line and survive to ski again the next day.

Mogul skiing requires a mastery of different skills than you practice on groomers. But with the challenge comes plentiful rewards — improving your skills in the moguls will bode well for your ability across all types of terrain. Moguls build great core strength and enhance skills also used in trees, steeps, hard snow and choppy snow. Let’s start with the lower body and stance.

Honing Your Stance

When approaching moguls, it’s important to have a stacked stance, meaning your feet, knees and shoulders form a vertical line up to your head. Skiing stacked allows your entire body to absorb impacts and keep your skis under you, outputting more energy and keeping your balance point centered. Practice the correct stance on groomers before taking on moguls. Stay vertical throughout each turn, emphasizing the “stack” stance and quick, short-radius turns without leaning your upper body toward the slope.

If you feel good skiing with the right alignment through your feet, knees and shoulders, now pay attention to your upper body. It’s important to stay quiet, meaning there should be little to no movement above your waist as you enter and exit moguls’ crests and troughs. It’s kind of like an inverse-bobble head doll. Your lower body should bobble while the upper body calmly stays in place.

Absorbing the Shock

So where should absorption happen, and how does it make you a better mogul skier? Absorbing impacts correctly allows the skier to check speed, stay in control and look fluid. As you approach a mogul crest, stay on the balls of your feet and drive with your tips into the snow. Feel your knees begin to react to the mogul. It is very important to absorb with your knees back into your butt and torso rather than up toward your chin, all the while keeping a stacked stance and skis on the ground throughout the motion. Attack with your lower body and actively absorb into your core without allowing yourself to fall into the backseat.

Correctly absorbing a mogul crest back into your body instead of upwards toward your chin forces your momentum to remain centered while allowing you to easily extend your legs into the next trough. As moguls increase in size and become more technically challenging, it is important to keep your upper body directly downhill to the fall line while your lower body absorbs and turns.

Try this at Home (or on the slopes anyway)

Try to take a section of moguls in steps of three repeating. For example, select a crest to attack, absorb into your torso not your chin, extend into the next trough, then repeat into the next mogul. Ski slowly at first, focusing on controlling your line and staying stacked. With practice absorbing impacts and skiing in control in moguls, you’ll naturally increase the speed and fluidity of your skiing. Take this skill set to the rest of the mountain, as absorbing impacts correctly will make you a better skier when ripping through hard, wind crusted snow or shady ice patches. Stay balanced, be aggressive and have fun.