The word posture comes from the Latin word positura, meaning the mode in which we have the disposition of all or parts of our body. While the term may lead to an idea of a concept rather static, posture is an active state since our intention when skiing should not be setting our body in a fixed position but to control its oscillations.
Posture is preparation to move (Bernstein) and it is associated with movement preceding it (Sherrington). According to Paillard, it could be defined as the relative position of different body parts respect to themselves (the coordinated egocentric system), to the environment (the coordinated exocentric system) or to the gravitational field (the coordinated geocentric system).
It is preparation for action; it is expressive, reflects the intention and contains emotion (Berthoz). It has an anti-gravitational function which consists of providing sufficient articular rigidity and balance maintenance (Massion). Posture is not only a stable position but a dynamic movement unit in which the lever arms and the angles joints are harmonic developing an absorbing effect (Ahonen (1987). Posture is the configuration of body segments at a given time (Thomas, 1940).
Maintaining an appropriate skiing posture requires a proportion of neural resources, as well as a complicated exchange between brain mechanisms that control our balance and those that control our posture. To hold a certain posture during sliding while keeping a balance over the skis, our brain requires the ability to recognize, compensate and, mainly, reorganize the responses to sustained or caused biomechanical changes during our motion.
Patterns of neuronal activity in different brain areas change during the adaptation of a relatively static posture, used for walking on a leveled support surface, to assume dynamic postures while gliding on uneven surfaces. This process produces a conflict when passing from an automatic, natural, and with minimal effort motion activity; to a sliding action-oriented one, consuming greater cognitive and muscular resources.
Skiing posture (or stance) is a preparation to move based on prior mental simulation; not a permanent state of postural reactions. It is the reference of relations that hold together our body parts and our body connection with the environment and the current activity. The primary function of posture is to maintain our balance so movement performance is facilitated. Having a poor posture leads to improper balance and recovering posture is recovering balance.
Posture is not just taking conscience of our body positions; it is positions plus our intentions. Each movement starts and ends in a certain posture, which is considered as the basis for developing our movements and actions. It is, at the same time, sustenance and preparation platform for actions we are aiming to execute because posture is part of our general skiing action planning. Posture must be organized before the action to minimize adjustment of the differences between real posture and a desired or an ideal one.
Skiing is not mechanically performing movements’ sequences and postures since the essence aims to what happens when we move from one posture to another. Then, assuming a specific posture is to seek a body disposition that best suits our skier’s type, the environment, and our action performance. This idea must be related to the concept of sliding: if the surface of our support changes, we must change with it by developing the ability to change our own posture according to the needs the situation requires since all postures assumed by us demands a relationship with the terrain surface and our speed.
Certain skiers are concerned by not losing the acquired posture believing that they have managed stability, while in reality, the important fact takes place by the connection they develop with the snow surface. Proper skiing posture could be described in words but it is easily recognizable on the slopes since good skiers are clearly detectable by their efficient postural movements.
The difference between posture and position could be synthesized in that position is the one the beginner assumes with regard to the rigidity of his skiing behavior, while posture is the one the expert skier adopts with harmony and mobility, that not only is limited to the corporeal since it also includes the setting of his skis and poles.
