Vertical separation
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The vertical separation is created between the boots, in all skiers, at high edge angles. It is a very important concept when discussing stance, especially when considering the differences between a wide stance and a narrow stance.
To get straight to the point... this is not a wide stance, as the inside boot is touching the outside leg, with no horizontal separation:
What you see here instead is called vertical separation which is the same thing you get if you stand up and lift one foot, moving it not away from the other one laterally, but straight up, along the other leg.
On the other hand, the one below is a wide stance, where the skis have a fair bit of horizontal separation (usually accompanied by no vertical separation):
Note that it is very hard to have both horizontal separation and vertical separation with the skis at the same angle.
Maintaining a narrow stance
Basically, this - where the skier maintains a narrow stance but increases the vertical separation between boots as the edge angles increase:
We generally recommend a "natural stance", basically let the legs stay where they naturally hang out from the hips - this will be different for every skier... but generally, this is considered a "narrow stance" by most, where the boots are not touching, but not too far apart either.
Read more
More on the topic:
Talks and sessions to work on stance:
Drills:
References
- Anyone Can Be An Expert Skier 2, p41 - Harald Harb 1
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