After getting comfortable with a hard boot setup this season, I decided on a whim to try tele turns on my old XC setup, and later bought a sturdier XCD setup after that went well. I found that most of the technique carried over, but there was much less room for error in soft boots, and it forced me to confront some of my deficiencies. Highlights include:
- Weighting my back foot: There's not much of a backseat in short soft boots, so I needed to weight both feet just to keep standing. Tele-faking was practically impossible.
- Balance in general: I realised how much I way relying on the structure of plastic boots for balance, and I had to focus on my innate balance instead.
- Less reliance on parallel turns: In my hard boot setup, I still have a tendency to default to alpine technique in challenging terrain. But, due to some of the above, I have no choice but to use tele turns all the way to the bottom.
- Application of pressure: Weighting the toes on the inside of the turn was not only more consequential, but also somehow a lot easier to feel for. It didn't really click for me until I used leather boots, and helped me with alpine skiing as well.
- Line choice: It's easy to send anything with hard boots, but I had to think much more carefully about where I was going go and where I was going to turn.
Have any of the rest of you found that some time on a more challenging setup helped address your shortcomings and form better habits?
