Technique enables us to initiate significant modifications in our skiing motor behavior, thereby assuming the role of homo technicus, whereby we are responsible for the technical evolution itself. In postmodern skiing, we consider not only the level of efficacy of a technical system, but also its efficiency as a guideline for evaluating our technical progress.
However, are we aware of our actions while skiing or do we ski following our instincts and our own technique? And, if so, are we aware of the objective of our skiing? i. e., how do we remain balanced and control our speed and trajectories? By achieving these primary objectives, we could consider ourselves to be efficacious skiers. However, we seek something more than these basic purposes: we seek efficient actions by taking advantage of skis’ characteristics and external forces with less muscular effort. In other words, we seek better performance with the same resources, or the same performance with fewer resources.
We propose that there is no singular method of skiing that is superior to another; there is both an efficient and an inefficient way to ski. A characteristic of postmodern skiing technique is the rational management of muscular effort. Based on the relationship between performance and muscular input, it is possible to distinguish between efficient and inefficient technical procedures.
When all technical action is aimed at achieving the best possible performance, with the least possible muscular effort, and within the shortest possible time, this rational principle will lead to increasingly significant successes.
Ski technique evolves with the advancement of slope’s preparation and the technology embodied in the skis. We consider the skis to be vehicles, and as such, we can ‘drive’ them both efficaciously or efficiently.
The primary and truly intended function of our technique lies in relieving muscular effort and increasing performance while driving our skis. In order to execute a carved turn, it is imperative that we have overcome the inertia of the skis as objects, gradually ceasing to resist them. Subsequently, we achieve a skier-skis synergy that qualitatively transforms our skiing, imparting exceptional efficiency. As an illustration of this, efficacy is skiing crust snow with slalom skis, whereas efficiency is doing it with fat skis or rockers.
The ideal technique is a method of achieving an efficient outcome as there exists a singular technical resolution that, under the given circumstances, is the most efficient. The athlete uses what produces the best result, i.e., everything that leads him to be the fastest. Therefore, he is not efficient, because he will have to resort to a high level of effort on certain occasions in order to achieve the best result. However, the recreational skier is not interested in being the fastest, but in being the most efficient. This means learning to regulate less muscular effort, which means learning to allow it to happen instead of making it happen, focusing more on the process than on the result.
After trials and errors, our feet find the right movements, and our essence grasps the results and locates the efficient gesture. This is a complex action at the beginning, but simple for the skier who already has it because the technical gesture became synthesis. “Repetition seems to be the precise way to reach the perfection of the movement. Precisely, when this perfection has been reached and efficiency accompanies it, the forgetfulness of the action arises,” says Peter Sloterdijk.
Given that conventional beliefs are geared towards completing skiing with “the greater the effort, the greater the skiing”, postmodern efficient technique of least effort is in complete contradiction to traditional beliefs. This does not mean, however, that we should let our skiing drift away in complete passivity. The intention is to reach a balance between means and ends, between doing and not doing, between action and inaction. This balance involves a gradual muscle tone distribution but it easy observable that, for most skiers, muscle tone is disproportionately allocated. With appropriate tonic distribution, we can utilize the appropriate effort for our current performance, resulting in a sense of comfort, pleasure, and optimal mental and emotional balance.
We conclude that it is essential to improve our technique into an efficient one. Could we make it better? We are uncertain whether we can achieve it; however, it is imperative that we attempt to accomplish it.
When we employ the efficient ski technique, we make an effort to conserve effort, thereby achieving the satisfaction that efficient executions generate. In other words, to apply an efficient ski technique is to apply a lesser effort to avoid a greater effort.
