Want To Be a Better Skier? Try Worrying About Your Technique Less

I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make. I think I’m better at skiing after a few beers. Mind you, I’m not talking about slamming numerous Four Lokos and straight-lining through the nearest slow zone. That’d make me an a-hole. Instead, this is about those one or two grown-up beers that provide a subtle buzz and, in my case, an odd sense of clarity. With them on board, the frustrating, anxious part of my brain quiets a bit, and I enter the fabled two-beer flow state.

Your mileage may vary, and if performance is the goal, combining alcohol and skiing obviously isn’t the best bet. A Binghamton University article about alcohol consumption and sports flatly states, “Alcohol is not considered to be a performance enhancing substance.” Duh, I guess. Liquor and beer increase dehydration, reduce muscle recovery, and can hamper the body’s energy production. They also make you floppy and less coordinated. There’s a reason Lance Armstrong wasn’t busted for having a Corona before practice.

But the other side of booze—its ability to reduce inhibitions and temporarily stymy anxiety—led me towards a minor revelation about skiing. I have been perseverating way too much about my technique instead of enjoying the ride. Maybe you have, too.

By necessity, technique is front and center in skiing. From a young age, “athletic stance” is repeatedly drilled into our collective heads. The internet is populated with countless listicles and instructional videos that dictate how you can become a better skier by shifting your weight or changing when you initiate a turn.

This stuff makes plenty of sense for beginners and intermediates. You can’t improve on the slopes until you master the basics—a rule that applies to almost anything worth doing. But as skiers graduate from intermediate to expert, technique slowly becomes less important, provided they’ve figured out how to get themselves out of the backseat. If they keep at it, skiing should start to be as easy as walking, running, or breathing.

That’s where I’ve found myself for the past decade or so. My fundamentals are fine. They aren’t nearly as good as Mikaela Shiffrin’s Olympic medal-winning stance and turn execution, but they get me from point A to point B pretty well. What isn’t fine, though, is obsessively worrying mid-run about whether I’m skiing right or not.

Mainstream sports fans might’ve heard of “the yips,” a fabled, dreaded condition that sometimes plagues athletes, preventing them from performing motions they once executed flawlessly, like a pitch or pass. The yips’ root cause remains somewhat mysterious, but has been attributed to performance anxiety or neurological issues. Either way, most of us have probably experienced something like the yips before. When the pressure or nerves mount, it’s easy to flub a motion you’ve practiced endlessly. Any top-tier athlete will probably tell you that overthinking during game time is the best way to blow it. Or, as novelist Frank Herbert wrote, “Fear is the mind-killer.”

Few of us are striving towards elite performance, though. The situation during a casual day on the slopes is less dire. We endeavor to ski a little faster or move through the trees more naturally. Still, stressing about the perceived technique adjustments associated with reaching these goals isn’t productive in my case, and it certainly makes skiing less fun. I’ve had plenty of days on the hill where I’ve fully relaxed into the process, beers or not. Those days, unsurprisingly, feel good. At its best, skiing is fluid, loose, and improvisational.

The point, then, is figuring out how to avoid applying unnecessary pressure in the first place. Depending on your temperament—where my anxious skiers at?—this is easier said than done. Thinking about overthinking tends to cause more overthinking. Admittedly, I haven’t found the answer, but I can confidently say that ensuring skiing feels right isn’t about edge angulation—it’s about clearing your head. You have to get out of your own way for the magic to happen.

Obsessing over doing things correctly doesn’t just sour the mood. It also muddies one of skiing’s core tenets. Most of us ski because we like to do what we want—not fit a specific mold. Thankfully, over the past few decades, the definition of “good” ski technique has expanded. There’s the “McConkey turn,” which crosses a carve with a hockey stop, and Magnus Granér ’s joyous, frantic vibe . The crown jewel of alternative skiing might be a video shared by Henrik Harlaut where he intentionally drags his back through fresh snow, much to the chagrin of form sticklers everywhere. We can put whatever labels we like on these techniques, but they aren’t inherently right or wrong unless you’re trying to podium at a World Cup event.

So, next time you’re on the hill and can’t quite get your skis to do what they want, take a beat and ask yourself what you’re really doing. Are you trying to enjoy yourself or rigidly adhere to some lofty, perhaps outdated technique ideal? If it’s the latter, try something different for a bit, like skiing backward or making quick, little turns. A willingness to lower the pressure and play around pays dividends. It could even make you better at skiing—whatever that means.

Related: The Affordable Colorado Ski Pass That Tends to Fly Under The Radar

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