Arrival to Gulmarg The Basic Skiing Course begins with the arrival to Gulmarg: a place that is fondly referred to as the Skiing Capital of India.

Ski Fitting, Walking on Skis, Gliding and Side Stepping This day is technically the first day of your skiing course. As with any new course, we will begin with the fundamentals. In skiing, this would mean getting familiar with the anatomy of your skiing equipment. Next comes fitting of the skis. Your skiing equipment has three components: Ski Boots, Ski Poles and the Skis themselves. Once you are familiar with the anatomy of a ski, we will walk you through the fitting process, first the ski boots, then fitting the boots to the skis, and lastly proper way to grip your ski poles - with the strap wrapped around your wrist. Now that the theory and attiring is done, it is time for your first practical lesson- gliding down the snow on your Skis. Your instructor will find a soft slope to try this out. Once you are at the top of the slope, give yourself a gentle push down the slope on your skis and try to hold your balance until you reach the end. Next comes the side stepping - In this technique, you place your skis perpendicular to the slope and use the edge of each ski facing the slope to push you up. After you’ve placed the outer edge of your upper ski into the incline, take your lower boot and bring it in to meet your upper foot, pushing the inner edge of the ski into the snow instead. Repeat the steps until you reach the top.

Controlled Falls and Snow Plough We will be learning controlled falls. Before skiing down the slopes, you need to know how to control your fall when you lose your balance. There is a reason why skiing is touted as the second best thing to flying. You are in for some serious speed (and injury) if you don’t learn to control your skis. So that is what your day will begin with- gliding first, falling down purposefully and using the techniques taught to arrest your fall/slide down the slope. This will be followed by your first real technique/lesson in skiing which is the snow plough! Essentially, this is how you control your speed and brake as a beginner. You sit with your weight centered between the two skis, the nose of each ski pointed in toward each other in a wide A-frame, and gently push off with your poles.

Snow Plough Turn Once you’ve become comfortable with straight descents and snow plough stops, it’s time to start one of the most rewarding parts of the course- learning snow plough turns. This is essentially a controlled way to steer your body, avoid other beginners on the slope and honestly just have some fun. The primary concept is to keep your torso straight, weight pushing on the inner edge of the ski opposite to the direction you intend to turn.

Traverse and Stem Turn Snowplough turns prepare you with the technique and confidence that you need to begin stem turns and eventually parallel turns when your control, balance and confidence with speed has increased. Your instructor will then introduce you to stem turns. Stem turns are a hybrid between the snow plough and parallel turns. Since the skis in snowplough position will naturally act to slow you down, parallel skis help you to accelerate. On a stem turn, you begin cutting across the slope with parallel skis, shifting into snowplough when it is time to turn and push the appropriate foot into the snow. Once the turn is complete and you are moving back across the slope, you resume the parallel position once again.

Basic Swing On a stem turn, you begin cutting across the slope with parallel skis, shifting into snow plough when it is time to turn and push the appropriate foot into the snow. This is where basic swing comes in role. Once the turn is complete and you are moving back across the slope, you resume the parallel position once again. Every time you are in parallel position, you will notice that your skis pick up speed. Training from the previous days will make you instinctively shift to snow plough to slow down.

Recap Last day is a recap, when you put your skills to test, literally. It is time to assess your skiing skills. Your instructor will test you on your knowledge of skiing (theory + practical) and grade you for the certification. Expect to be tested on snow plough, snow plough turns, side stepping, and stem turns with parallel skiing.We will use the morning to brush up on our skills with a practice run.

PROPER CLOTHING EXTRA GLOVES EXTRA GOGGLES CAP SUNSCREEN SKI EQUIPMENTS WATER SNACKS