I'm just back from La Plagne. Conditions were generally very good
with a dusting of fresh snow on hard pistes. A handful of very busy
areas had thin cover with the odd stone popping through. I don't know
why the piste machines didn't grab snow from elsewhere (there was
plenty slightly off-piste) ...perhaps there are environmental
restrictions?

On day 2, I got a 2 hour private lesson. The snow off-piste (near the
resort) had become too hard to really practice but I was shown that it
is essential to lean away from the slope to get the skis to turn under
those conditions. I was also shown how to improve stopping (by
absorbing some of the speed by bringing the downhill ski under my body
and, again, getting more upper body weight away from the slopes so the
hips [edges] are digging into the slope.

The final area covered by my lesson was what to do when the slope has
really hard-packed snow. I said that this had been a problem area with
our holiday last year (Courmayeur) and was also relevant to the steeper
sections of La Plagne. The instructor advised me that I was rotating my
body towards the turn which was the opposite to what was really
required to get a strong edge. In addition, he suggested that I push
the tongue of the boot towards the turn - I imagined pushing the boot
towards the front binding on my other ski. There was an immediate
improvement but my lesson finished before I could really practice this.


Over the next few days, I started to really push forward on my boots
but I was never able to get a really strong edge unless I started the
turn very slowly. It seemed that the process works best when the
tongues of both boots are slightly 'weighted' prior to the 2nd half
of the turn where the knees are bent and the body lowered. After that,
I found that I had to shift my weight back slightly so that it was
evenly over my boots to stop the skis skidding.

Can anyone comment on anything that I'm doing wrong here? My skiing
on hard pistes has really improved but I'd like to get this area
resolved so that I can progress to steeper slopes with confidence.

Thanks in advance!! (and let me know if you've got any questions
about La Plagne - while I still remember!)

Niall