The staircase: anticipating the descent to avoid falling back

A staircase makes the movement easy to observe. Each step is a new point of support at a lower level. When the foot touches the step, where is the shoulder? Is it already above the support, or has it stayed behind?

When skiing, the feet move down the slope and the torso must follow them. If the upper body remains uphill while the skis move downhill, the skier ends up sitting back. Valerio Malfatto starts from here to explain what they call loss of altitude at Jam Session: during the turn, the whole body must accompany the descent, from the feet to the shoulders.

A staircase makes the movement easy to observe. Each step is a new point of support at a lower level. When the foot touches the step, where is the shoulder? Is it already above the support, or has it stayed behind?

The shoulder arrives together with the foot

In the first part of the video, Valerio asks Giulio to imagine a turn and descend one step at a time, first on one side and then on the other. The focus is on the outside of the body: the shoulder, hip and knee accompany the movement toward the foot that takes the support. When the foot meets the step, the shoulder is already above it.

Repeating the exercise in both directions helps identify the differences between one turn and the other. With Giulio, for example, Valerio focuses on the side where the torso moves less freely and asks him to accentuate the movement so he can feel it more clearly.

From a flat foot to edging

Once the rhythm has been established, Valerio introduces the edges. Giulio places his feet at an angle, imagining the skis making contact with the snow. The outside foot takes most of the load, while the inside foot remains active. The ankles work to make the support precise and stable.

In the final, more demanding variation, the feet arrive at different levels: the outside foot descends lower, while the inside foot remains on the upper step. Here it is easy to see how the two supports have different roles, even though both require an active ankle. In the video, Valerio draws attention to the risk of twisting the ankle during this phase.

The detail to observe is the moment of contact. If the foot is already on the step and the torso still has to reach it, the movement is late. This is the sensation the exercise helps you recognize and carry onto the snow: feeling that, in order not to be late, the upper body must almost anticipate the descent, seek it out and accompany it by looking for the new support—solid and balanced.