The Three Telemark Tips That Have Helped Me Most

The first is a tip from the late Paul Parker’s seminal instructional Free Heel Skiing: Telemark and Parallel Techniques, perhaps the most revered book in all of modern telemark. Though the third and final edition of his masterpiece presaged the new telemark norm (NTN) and its highly resistive bindings by years, and was released contemporaneously with the Rainey Designs HammerHead–the holotype of aggressive 75mm bindings–Parker’s tip to weight the ball of the foot on the rear ski remains crucial in a modern gear paradigm. In lieu of astute technique, the telemark skier can instead leverage their binding’s resistance, putting all of their force onto their toes instead of properly weighting their back foot.

“Drop your heel,” Parker wrote. “Think of dropping your back heel closer to the ski, pressing on the ball of your back foot instead of cranking up on your toes. Keep as much of that back foot on the ski as you can.”

In my progression as a telemark skier, I thought mostly of weighting my edges, not so much how I was doing it. And as I moved to tech-toe bindings, especially on telemark tech system models with their freedom of fore-aft movement, I came to find that purposefully weighting the ball of the back foot was crucial to aggressively steering softer touring boots and more neutral bindings.

Parker stated in Free-Heel Skiing that he gave an outsized focus to the back foot not because it is more important, but because it was the most often neglected. “Telemark,” he wrote, “is almost always a two ski turn.”

2. The Tele Turn Is A Two-Footed Technique

That notion leads to the second tip that has been most influential for my telemark skiing–the reminder that the telemark turn is in fact that two-footed technique.

This may seem obvious, and is certainly covered extensively in the telemark teaching landscape, where the ideal of weighing both feet equally is amongst the most shared telemark tip of them all. This is exemplified in the big-toe, little-toe pointer, which tells the skier to imagine that they are weighting the downhill ski with their big toe, and the uphill ski with their pinky toe, helping the newcomer find both of their edges symbiotically.

But nuance abounds in the telemark technique and in the teaching of it. And in more advanced telemark skiing, the back foot often receives outsized attention. This is for many reasons. For one, the immediate edge engagement of the new telemark norm has made leading with the back foot crucial in a way it isn’t on 75mm equipment.

Moreover, leading with the back foot has long been amongst the most supreme markers of proficient telemark skiing. As I wrote in my piece “Old Books Good Tips - Part III: The Early Lead Change:”

This technique goes by many names–Craig Dostie refers to it as “steering with the rear,” while Dickie Hall has called it “stepping back” into the telemark turn. In his classic instructional Free-Heel Skiing: Telemark and Parallel Techniques, first published in 1988, Paul Parker called it the early lead change. While this notion has various identifiers, the core tenet of the technique remains: that initiating a turn with the rear foot is instrumental to a solid telemark.

But while this principle is undoubtedly core to strong telemark skiing, I became obsessed with it to the point of neglecting my front foot and the important part it plays–such as powering through variable snow, initiating quick turns, and its role in becoming the rear ski in the lead change.

3. Slow It All Down And Learn To Embrace The Alpine Position

That transition of skis–the lead change–is key to the telemark, and brings me to the final of the three tips that have helped me most of late: slowing it down and embracing the strength of the alpine position in the brief, often vulnerable parallel moment in the telemark turn.

I discovered this pointer recently in an article by instructor Matt Charles entitled “For Strong Telemark Turns, Don’t Rush the Finish,” a piece that ran in the spring 2022 issue of 32 Degrees, a print periodical aimed at snowsports instructors.

“Telemark skiers love the dropped-knee position. It lowers your center of gravity closer to the snow, feels solid, and looks really cool in Instagram photos,” wrote Charles. “The ‘telemark position’ (as it’s called) offers stability through the end of the turn, where the lack of a heelpiece affects your ability to deal with natural turning forces.”

But Charles notes how the eponymous free-heel stance is but one part of the equation. “For strong telemark turns, you’ll need to be solid in every part of the turn, including the trickiest one: the middle of the lead change, in (or around) the fall line.”

Charles notes how many telemarkers rush the lead change, and suggests that skiers “slow down, realize the strength of the ‘alpine position,’ and focus on the fundamentals.” I noticed my own rushing in the lead change, and using Charles’ pointer came to embrace the most exposed moment in the telemark turn–where both feet are passing and the fall line is crossed. Slowing down my lead change has allowed me to attack the fall line more aggressively, and has helped me achieve a more balanced transition and rhythm in each turn.

These three tips have been a continuing education of sorts–they are principles I have more recently gravitated to–and have aided in my never ending journey of learning the telemark turn. But these are but a select few notions in an endless field of telemark philosophy. Years from now I will likely find another set of telemark tenets revelatory.

Because whatever tip it is, whatever pointer makes things click is a moment in a chain of time, bringing you a step closer to the telemark turn supreme.