By Warren Smith Published: 9:40AM GMT 13 Jan 2010  This week, Telegraph Travel is showcasing Warren Smith’s top skiing tips each day, covering four aspects of skiing – how to improve your carving, learning to ski moguls, tips on freeriding and how best to tackle the steeper slopes. Day two: freeriding.  Freeriding, freeskiing, off-piste skiing – whatever you call it, this is one of the most pleasurable aspects of the sport. The words also stand for a certain spirit in skiing: the feeling of floating over pure powder, being immersed in the silence of the backcountry, and enjoying the freedom of skiing your own way in the ultimate natural playground.  For many people, the first image that comes to mind when they think of freeriding is of glorious, untracked powder snow. But off-piste you will also encounter a variety of other conditions that are far from ideal.  These include snow that has been affected by the weather, and by other users. The snow may be crusty, dense and heavy, or chopped up by other skiers. Skiing these different conditions can be demanding, and requires techniques that you can develop on-piste – tackling moguls, steeps, and practising your carving.  To make sure you stay balanced and fluid when skiing variable terrain, concentrate on adjusting your position in four main ways. First, bring your skis closer together – perhaps 30 per cent closer than they would be on piste. Second, distribute your weight more evenly between your feet, to stop the downhill ski sinking into the snow. Both of these changes will improve your stability. Stay smooth by steering the skis progressively with the thighs. Finally, use a strong pole-plant to give confidence to your turn initiations and an overall 4WD feel to your freeskiing.  When snow is blown by strong winds, it gets compacted and feels firm rather than soft and forgiving. With snow like this, you have to work a lot harder, and really power through your turns. You do this by forcing your legs out underneath you, and keeping a constant pressure against, and into, the snow.  As you start your turn, allow yourself to rise above the snow. As you come up, prepare to drive your skis back into the snow again to round your turn off. You’ll find you’ll need about twice as much power as normal to push your skis back into the surface.  If you’re working your legs with this degree of strength, you will find yourself powering through the firmly packed, wind-blown snow – and actually enjoying what would have been a nightmare run
Warren Smith, the leading ski instructor and coach, offers his top tips on    improving your freeriding. In this video, he focuses on dealing with    wind-affected snow.