HOW TO SKI SWITCH (SKI BACKWARDS)
The Step-by-Step Guide to Skiing Backwards
Skiing switch sounds intimidating. Sliding backwards down a slope, turning the opposite direction, controlling speed you can’t fully see coming – it’s the skill most skiers avoid and the one that separates good skiers from great ones.
Here’s the thing: it’s more approachable than you think. The mechanics are the same ones you already know. You just have to flip them around.
SNÖBAHN instructor, Eric Ybarra, breaks it down in this SNÖ Report.
Start With What You Already Know
Before you do anything switch, make sure your forward wedge is solid. The first step to learning switch is taking that wedge, the same one you already use going forward, and turning around to do it backwards. That’s the foundation. Everything else builds from there.
Step 1: Slide and Stop
Start by going uphill, then let yourself slide back down. Your first goal is simple: make sure you can stop in your switch wedge. Get comfortable with the feeling of sliding backwards and knowing you can control it. At SNÖBAHN, the infinite slope makes this easy: there’s always room to slide, and you can reset without walking back up.
Step 2: Learn to Hover
Once you can stop, it’s time to hover. Because the carpet is always moving, you need to be able to stay in the same spot – not going up, not going down. Right in the middle. Here’s how it works: slide back down and slow yourself just enough to stay in place. If you add more edge and a bigger wedge, you go up. If you release some of that edge, you come back down. Find the balance point between those two, what Coach Eric calls on the SNÖBAHN slope: the Goldilocks zone, and stay there.
Step 3: Transfer Your Weight
Once you’ve found that Goldilocks zone, it’s time to start turning. The key is a one-leg weight transfer. Shifting your weight onto one leg at a time is what allows you to turn from left to right and right to left while sliding switch.
Practice it. Get comfortable balancing on each foot individually before you try to string turns together.
Step 4: Add the Tap
Once your switch wedge turns are feeling stable and you can balance on each foot, add a tap into your turns. The goal here is to un-weight one ski enough that your feet are free to come together. The sequence: wedge → parallel → back to wedge. Wedge → parallel → back to wedge. Do this until the transition feels natural.
Step 5: Match Your Skis
Now you know where your weight is supposed to be. The next step is holding that turn and matching your skis together – and the tricky part is not going back into that wedge. As you start turning switch, begin the weight transfer without opening your legs. Slide backwards, turn your head, shift from right foot to left foot. Your outside ski is your dominant foot – that’s where the turn comes from.
WATCH THE SNÖ REPORT VIDEO:
Master Your Switch Skiing
The Hardest Part
The biggest challenge when riding switch is keeping your chest up. The more you can keep your chest up and bend your knees, the more forward pressure you drive into your boots. That forward pressure gives you something to hold on to — support that lets you commit to the turn and know that every time you put your weight into that new turn, your speed is in control.
Chest up. Knees bent. Commit to the turn. That’s how you ride switch.
Practice It: Take it one step at a time. Stop before you hover. Hover before you turn. Turn before you match your skis. Every step in this progression depends on the one before it – don’t rush past any of them When you can slide backwards, find the Goldilocks zone, weight transfer cleanly in both directions, and match your skis without defaulting back to a wedge – you’re riding switch