I like to know if people prefer to ski with or without poles?
I ski for almost 5 years now. I am not a good skier. I am a little bit afraid sometimes. Last year I tried to ski without my poles and it felt better . More free so to say.The only thing is when I fall down, it is not so easy to get up without them I read that it is actually not so good to ski without the poles. What do you think?
Just ski. If you like it better without poles that's great. I use poles. My kid does better without them. Once you get better, you'll see the benefits of poles and also what bad habits you might form by using them. It doesn't really matter.
Depends what kind of skiing you want to do. I think some people who want to do real carving find they get in the way a bit in the turns.
Personally I find them a good thing if I encounter a bit of flat and haven't got up enough speed to carry me to the next downhill bit. Without poles it's exhausting.
I like to ski with my poles, like sandgrounder said, to help get a bit of uumpf going on the flat, and I like em to help me up if I've fallen over !!! If there is a nice run down, I'll just carry them, as like you say it's nice to ski without them too. but I think I would miss them if I didn't have them with me.
Maybe it's psychological but I feel I have much better balance with poles - not that I'm a good skier by any stretch of the imagination.
Also if you look at professional skiers doing downhill, super g, slalom etc, they are all using poles. Unless it's a competition rule that they must use poles there must be something in it.
The only ones who don't use poles are the jumpers, which seems obvious to me.
Having said that simply ski how you feel comfortable. Although, as you said, getting up after a fall is a bit awkward without them.
When i'm going hell for leather down a steep slope I find them invaluable to make minor balance adjustments at high speeds, and rely on them heavily for quick turns at awkward angles. I've never really skiied without them (barring when I was a nipper learning to ski) so my style (if you can call it that, i'm hardly technical) really focuses on using them to pull off my skiing on tougher terrain without coming a cropper... I can't imagine not using them now!
IMO you do not really need the ski poles when you ski on piste. I realized it when I broke them once on top of the mountain and had to ski all the way down in Englberg. They were as useful as the snow around .
However, in carving they help you graciously get out of the turn and correct some mistakes and in some situations they are quite usefull when your comarade fell down and needs a hand Many snowboarders will also ask you too pull them on the flat terrain .
Off-piste it is different story, sometimes you go places where you should not and when you want to get out from there and the ski pole becomes a handy way of support.
Coming back from snowboarding I skied first on snowblades then on some 150 fun carvers without poles. Then I got some poles and finally got some full sized skis. The poles don't really make any difference when I'm skiing but it's not that big a deal to carry them around. They are quite handy for getting up in powder or for towing the kids. On the flats you don't need them really because skating is much more powerful than poling anyway.
I would be dead, honestly, without the poles, haha .Somehow they give me "support" eventhough they mostly just barely touch the snow, and I use them mainly in trying to get speed while starting. Eversince nordic walking started, though, I do not like how they look anymore So many poles on the pavement, even in our tiny city. Mad.
I also started out snowboarding, and therefore find poles to be a complete hassle when trying to ski. Sure, they are occasionally useful, but while skiing, I really don't know what to do with them and they are just in the way a bit, or at the minimum are an unwanted distraction. I'm used to having one piece of equipment to worry about (the board), my tiny brain gets overwhelmed when there are four things (two poles and two skis), so I ditch the poles to keep life simpler.
Lots of skiers tell me that the poles help them to balance. So, why is it that poles are made to be as lightweight as possible, and the best ones are the most lightweight? If their purpose is balance, surely they would need to have some weight to have any effect? I'm pretty sure that it is moving the weight of your arms that are carrying your poles that makes 95% of the effect on balance, so the poles seem to be unnecessary for this goal - just move your arms regardless of whether they are carrying poles.
I've also wondered why the pro's use poles. They certainly need them in the first two seconds of the race when accelerating away from the gate. The people doing the slalom also seem to occasionally use them during the run, but for the rest of them they could just throw them away after the first couple of seconds and seemingly have no ill effects. I'm assuming that there must be a rule forbidding this behavior, but I don't know. I can't imagine that they can help in terms of aerodynamics, because if they did then why don't the snowboarders in the speed events try to use them, or the ski jumpers, or the speed skiers?
I think most people just assume that you need poles, and therefore learn to use them, and then feel uncomfortable without them. However, I like to question everything, and find the costs of poles to outweigh their benefits, and so leave them behind. I then decided the same about skis in general, and went back to the simple life of being a snowboarder with just one piece of equipment.
As I am quite clumsy (I don't know, long skis & poles equals for me getting all tangled up in the most obscure ways possible ...) I use snow blades and no poles. Just love to ski that way and to just have a pair of blades is so easy to get around with too.
I do both normal skis and snowblades, and only use poles with Ski's.
I use my poles a lot, especially when Im going down a black slope with lots of humps, or when leaving a nice slalom track behind me, and they are a nice addition on flat slopes.
On Snowblades, I would be a danger to everybody with poles, and it just feels wrong to have them with you, when you spin around, drive backwards etc.
As snowblades are so short, the skating technique to move on flat surface is easier than on my 2 meter long skis so i dont need the poles there either.