The parallel turn in alpine skiing is a method for turning which rolls the ski onto one edge, allowing it to bend into an arc. Thus bent the ski follows the turn without sliding. It contrasts with earlier techniques such as the stem Christie, which slides the ski outward from the body ("stemming") to generate sideways force. Parallel turns generate much less friction and are more efficient both in maintaining speed and minimizing skier effort.
Parallel turns require solid contact from the skier's lower leg to the ski to rotate it on-edge. This was difficult to achieve with early ski equipment, limiting the technique to the high performance realm of racing. The introduction of composite skis, metal edges, releasable clamping bindings, and stiff plastic boots combined to allow parallel turns even on beginner equipment. By the late 1960s it rapidly replaced stemming for all but very short-radius turns. The evolution of shaped skis in the 1990s advanced the carving turn to preeminence.
Today parallel turns are taught to teach novice skiers the effect of weighting and unweighting their skis.
Read more about Parallel Turn: Basic Action, Changing Technique
Famous quotes containing the words parallel and/or turn:
“We tend to be so bombarded with information, and we move so quickly, that there’s a tendency to treat everything on the surface level and process things quickly. This is antithetical to the kind of openness and perception you have to have to be receptive to poetry. ... poetry seems to exist in a parallel universe outside daily life in America.”
—Rita Dove (b. 1952)
“For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)