How to Snowplough: Stopping and Turning on Skis

Your first job on skis is not going, it is controlling your speed and stopping. The snowplough (the "pizza" wedge) does both, and it is how you make your first turns. Here is how to snowplough and turn.

HobbyStack EditorialJune 10, 2026Updated July 13, 20261 min read

Part of the Skiing hobby guideSee the full overview — what it involves, what it costs, and how to start.

Key takeaways

The snowplough (or "pizza") is a wedge shape, ski tips together, tails apart, that controls your speed and lets you stop. It is the first thing to learn.
To slow down or stop, push your ski tails apart and roll your knees slightly inward so the ski edges bite. A bigger wedge slows you more.
Keep the ski tips close together but not crossed, and put your weight evenly on both skis, in an athletic, slightly forward stance.
You turn from the snowplough by putting more weight/pressure on one ski: press the outside ski and you turn the other way (weight the right ski to turn left).
Look ahead, stay relaxed with knees bent, and lean slightly forward. Sitting back (a natural fear reaction) makes skis run away from you.

The wedge: your brake and speed control

Beginners fear that skiing means hurtling downhill out of control, so the very first skill removes that fear: the snowplough, often taught to kids as making a "pizza slice." You push your ski tails apart while keeping the tips close together (but not crossed), forming a wedge or triangle. This shape is your brake and your speed dial. In a straight, narrow ski position you glide freely, but in the wedge, the skis resist forward motion and scrub off speed, and the wider you push the wedge and the more you tip your knees inward so the inside edges of the skis grip the snow, the more you slow down, until you come to a complete stop. So before you worry about going anywhere, you learn that you can always control your speed and stop by making a pizza. That knowledge, that you are never helpless, is what lets you relax and actually learn.

Stance: where your body goes

How you stand on skis matters as much as what your skis do. The right stance is athletic and slightly forward: knees bent, ankles flexed so your shins press gently into the front of the boots, weight balanced evenly over both feet, and your body leaning subtly downhill, forward, not back. This feels counterintuitive, because fear makes beginners lean back away from the slope, but leaning back lifts your weight off the front of the skis and actually makes them harder to control and faster, the opposite of what you want. So fight the instinct: stay centred to slightly forward, shins on the boot tongues, relaxed and springy rather than stiff and upright. Keep your hands forward where you can see them (holding your poles), and look ahead down the slope, not at your ski tips. A balanced, forward, relaxed stance is the platform that makes the snowplough, and everything after it, actually work.

Turning from the snowplough

Once you can glide in a wedge and stop, you make your first turns, and the mechanism is beautifully simple: you turn by shifting your weight onto one ski. From the snowplough position, if you press down and put more weight on your right ski (the "outside" ski of the turn), you will gradually turn to the left; weight the left ski and you turn right. The more you press the outside ski, the more it steers you around. So to link turns down a gentle slope, you shift your weight from one ski to the other, plough-turning left, then right, then left, in big rounded S-shapes, and turning across the slope also naturally controls your speed. Start on a gentle "green" beginner slope, keep the wedge, look where you want to go (the skis follow your eyes and weight), and make slow, deliberate weight shifts. That is the whole beginning of skiing: snowplough to control speed and stop, weight one ski to turn, and link those turns down easy runs. From this foundation, everything else, parallel turns, steeper terrain, develops naturally, but a solid snowplough is where every skier starts. And for your first day, a lesson with a qualified instructor is genuinely worth it: they will fix your stance and keep you safe far faster than figuring it out alone.

Resist the urge to lean back, it is the number one beginner instinct and it backfires. When a slope feels steep or fast, fear tells you to sit back away from it, but that makes the skis accelerate and become uncontrollable. Consciously keep your shins pressed into the fronts of your boots and your weight centred or slightly forward, especially when you feel nervous. Forward equals control.

Common questions

How do you snowplough on skis?

Push your ski tails apart while keeping the tips close together (not crossed), making a wedge or "pizza" shape, and roll your knees slightly inward so the inside edges of the skis grip the snow. This wedge scrubs off speed; the wider you make it and the more you engage the edges, the more you slow down, until you stop. Keep your weight even on both skis in a balanced, slightly forward stance. The snowplough is your brake and speed control, and the first skill every beginner learns.

How do you stop on skis as a beginner?

With the snowplough: push your ski tails apart into a wide wedge, tips together, and press your knees inward so the ski edges dig into the snow. The bigger the wedge and the more the edges bite, the more you slow, until you come to a complete stop. This is why the snowplough is taught first, it means you can always control your speed and stop, which removes the fear of skiing out of control. Practise stopping with the wedge on a gentle slope until it is automatic.

How do you turn using the snowplough?

From the wedge, you turn by shifting your weight onto one ski. Press down and put more weight on your outside ski, and you turn toward the other side: weight the right ski to turn left, weight the left ski to turn right. The more pressure on that outside ski, the sharper you steer around. To ski down a gentle slope, you link these plough turns, shifting weight from ski to ski in rounded S-shapes, which also controls your speed as you turn across the hill. Look where you want to go and the skis follow.

Why do beginners lean back when skiing, and is it wrong?

Leaning back is a natural fear reaction, when a slope feels steep or fast, instinct says to sit away from it, but it is a mistake that makes things worse. Leaning back lifts your weight off the fronts of the skis, making them harder to control and actually faster. The correct stance is centred to slightly forward, with your shins pressing into the front of your boots. Consciously staying forward, especially when nervous, gives you control. Fighting the lean-back instinct is one of the biggest early skiing challenges.

Should I take a lesson for my first day skiing?

Yes, a lesson with a qualified instructor is genuinely worth it for your first day. An instructor will set up your stance correctly, teach the snowplough and turning safely, choose appropriate beginner slopes, and fix mistakes before they become habits, all of which is much faster and safer than trying to work it out alone. Skiing has real risks (speed, other skiers, terrain), and good early instruction prevents both bad habits and accidents. Starting with a lesson is one of the best investments a beginner skier can make.

Bottom line

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