Ballet skiing has been around since the beginning of snow skiing (albeit accidentally) until it was officially made into a ‘sport’ sometime in the 1960′s. Part of the hot dog freestyle incarnation, ski ballet consisted of twirling around on skis with or without music accompaniment and is probably the closest thing that resembles figure skating on snow. It peaked in popularity right around the same time as Fleetwood Mac. Ski ballet had its own set of gear- small skis, large poles- and was preferably done whilst wearing stretch pants. Modern ‘newschool’ skiing has unintentionally borrowed many technical maneuvers from ski ballet- nose-butters, tail blocks, skiing fakie, pole-plants, switch-ups, and manuals to name a few. To make it sound cooler and more masculine its name was later changed to ‘acroskiing’ and it endured a small run in high levels of competition. In the year 2000 (Y2K) the IFS ducktaped its mouth shut and packed it in a very small dark box in skiing’s basement never to be seen or heard from again. Or was it?

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