Ski track analysis and feedback
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Analyzing your tracks is a simple and important feedback mechanism.
Examples of skidded and more engaged tracks (I hesitate to call them carved, although the ski edge was engaged).
Let's look at some of the issues involved in analysing ski tracks.
Clean snow
The cleaner the snow, the easier it will be to see the details of our own tracks. The less people skiing it, again the easier it is. This is why it is great for the first runs of the day, early morning.
If it's ice or slush you'll have trouble reading the tracks.
I usually love getting out early morning, on the freshly groomed piste for a track analysis.
Marker or partner
You can certainly take 2-3 turns working on something and then just stop and look up at your own tracks. It will be fairly simple to follow your tracks back from your current location.
I find that however quite disrupting - I need at least 5 turns to establish a rhythm and a skill and then 2-3 to stop, so it's harder this way.
Otherwise, you can do an entire run and check them from the lift, on the way back up. The problem is identifying your tracks. The best thing to do is to use a marker. So, when you go up with the lift before the run, take a marker with clean snow around it, near the bottom of the lift. This can be a terrain feature like a bump or roller or some environmental feature like the lift post or a fence etc.
Then, when you do your run, towards the bottom of the lift, get close to your marker on the side you decided (left, right, turn above or below etc). It will be then easy to pick up your own trail in the next lift ride and follow it up to the turns that matter.
Careful to not get too close to posts or fences, eh?
Alternatively, you can have a partner follow you and making observations about your tracks - this works well on green and some blue slopes, but when the skiing gets serious, I prefer to see my own tracks.
More examples and feedback
To get appropriate feedback, you need to understand how to "read" the tracks, to see what they tell you about that skier and that turn. There are many examples of tracks, with detailed explanations for members, over at Feedback - check your tracks.
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