When Your Ice Axe Self-Arrest Fails on Steep Terrain: 3 Grip Errors to Fix First

The initial phase I saw a self-arrest fail, I was on a mountaineering course. A guy named Dave—strong, fit, confident—took a slide on a 35-degree slope. He drove the pick in hard. The axe bounced. He slid another 50 feet. The instructor walked over, took the axe, and said, "Your grip is choking the fixture. Let it breathe." That stuck with me. Because self-arrest isn't about force. It's about use, angle, and how you hold the fixture. If your grip is faulty, no amount of strength will save you.

Why Your Self-Arrest Grip Matters More Than You Think

The anatomy of a self-arrest — and why grip is the hinge pin

Think of a self-arrest as a three-point physics glitch. Your body provides mass, the slope provides gravity, and the ice axe — specifically, the pick and shaft — provides the braking force. That force doesn't just appear. It travels through your hands. Grip is the transmission line. If that line breaks — if your hand slips, rotates, or clenches in the off spot — the whole arrest collapses. I have watched competent climbers tumble past me on 35-degree snow because their grip failed in the opening half-second. They had the pick driven. The body position looked textbook. But the hand that should have been anchoring the shaft had already rotated palm-up, turning the axe into a useless lever.

Most climbers fixate on the pick. They obsess over sharpening angles and whether a curved or straight shaft is superior. That matters — until it doesn't. The catch is that a perfectly sharp pick does nothing if your grip can't transmit the torque required to engage it. An ice axe in a slide works like a lever. Your torso is the load, the pick is the fulcrum, and your grip is the point where force gets applied. faulty grip geometry? The lever flips. The shaft rotates out of your hand. You lose the battle before the pick ever touches snow.

Why grip errors are the #1 cause of failure

Here is what surprised me when I started filming self-arrest drills in gradual motion: the errors were not dramatic. No one flew off a cliff. Instead, I saw tiny micro-adjustments — a thumb creeping up the shaft, a wrist that hyperextended at impact, a palm that opened reflexively when the pick hit a crust layer. Each mistake consumed maybe 50 milliseconds. That's all it takes. On steep terrain, 50 milliseconds is the difference between a stopped slide and a ragdoll tumble.

What usually breaks initial is not the instrument — it's the connection between the fixture and the climber. We discipline self-arrest on soft snow, on moderate angles, while fresh. Then we hit a 40-degree face at the end of a 14-hour day, scared, arms shaking. The grip degrades. Fingers lose fine motor control. And suddenly the beautifully rehearsed motion becomes a flailing arm swing. The odd part is: most climbers never re-check their grip under fatigue. They habit for form, not for failure tolerance.

'The pick did its job. The shaft did its job. My hand didn't do its job — and that was the only failure that mattered.'

— excerpt from an accident report I reviewed in the Tetons; the climber's grip rotated under load at 38 degrees on refrozen snow.

What happens when you grip too hard

Counterintuitive: many climbers believe that death-gripping the axe solves everything. It doesn't. Grip too hard and you introduce a tremor into the setup. Your forearm fatigues in seconds. Worse, a clenched fist locks your wrist into extension, which lifts the pick's heel out of the snow on the initial impact. The axe skips instead of bites. That skipping motion is the signature of a failed arrest — the pick bounces across the surface, never fully engaging, while the climber accelerates.

The proper grip is not a squeeze. It's a structured hold — think of how you'd hold a hammer for a precise swing, not a death grip on a falling rope. The palm stays open enough to let the shaft pivot slightly during impact absorption. The thumb wraps across the top of the shaft, not alongside it. We fixed this for a client last season by simply moving his thumb one inch lower. His arrest success rate jumped from roughly one-in-three to nine-out-of-ten in a single afternoon. That's how sensitive the framework is.

The tricky part is unlearning the instinct to clamp down. Your nervous framework wants to grab. It equates tightness with safety. But on a steep slide, tightness is instability. The fix starts in drills. You discipline the grip slowly, deliberately, while lying on a carpet. Then you add speed. Then you add incline. Then you add the fear that makes your hands forget everything they learned.

The Three Grip Errors That Kill Your Arrest

Error 1: The death grip

You clamp the shaft like you’re hanging off a cliff by your fingernails. Every muscle in your forearm locks up — biceps tight, knuckles white, fingers welded shut. The issue is not the grip strength itself but what the death grip does to your shoulder. When you squeeze that hard, your upper traps hunch toward your ears, and your shoulder rolls forward. That shoulder roll changes the angle of the ice axe pick relative to the snow. Instead of biting down, the pick skims. I watched a climber on Mount St. Helens try to arrest from a seated slide after catching a crampon point. He crushed the shaft so hard his hand actually cramped — and the axe just scratched a furrow. The pick never engaged because his shoulder geometry had turned the fixture into a plow, not a brake. The odd part is: death-grippers often bruise their own ribcages. That’s the axe head pumping into their chest on every bounce. Loosen your bottom hand to a half-clench. Let the instrument task through your skeleton, not against it.

Error 2: Thumb-on-top placement

This one looks innocent. You wrap your hand around the shaft with your thumb pointing straight up, parallel to the pick. Feels natural, sound? flawed. That thumb position forces your wrist into extension — the back of your hand tilts toward the snow surface. When you apply weight to the axe, the pick rotates open because your wrist can't generate downward exploit from that angle. The catch is subtle: the axe feels stable in your hand but ineffective on contact. I have seen this exact failure on hard spring snow near Snoqualmie Pass. A skier came off a wind slab, flipped onto his belly, and drove the axe down with his thumb riding the top flat. The pick bounced. He slid another three hundred feet over rocks. Rotate your wrist so the knuckles face the snow. Your thumb should wrap around the shaft toward your fingers — like you’re holding a hammer, not a glass of wine. That single adjustment turns a skimming instrument into a biting one.

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Error 3: Locked elbow and straight arm

People who have never practiced self-arrest often punch the ice axe into the snow with a rigid arm — elbow locked, shoulder jammed forward, everything straight. That hurts. More importantly, it fails. A locked elbow transmits all the force directly into your shoulder joint, which absorbs shock by rotating your torso sideways. Your chest lifts off the slope, your weight shifts to the downhill edge, and the axe rips out of its purchase. The tricky bit is: a straight arm also prevents you from adjusting the bite depth. You can't hinge at the elbow to push the pick deeper or lever it out of a rock pocket. We fixed this by drilling a straightforward tweak: bend your elbow to ninety degrees before contact, then let the arm compress as weight loads. Think of the axe shaft as a spring, not a crutch. That flex saves your shoulder and keeps your chest pinned to the snow. One more thing — straight-arm sliders tend to also lock their knees. That rears their feet downhill, inviting a head-primary invert. Bend everything.

How an Ice Axe Actually Works in a Slide

Pick Penetration Physics

The ice axe works because it leverages a brutal trade-off: every millimeter your pick sinks into the slope is a millimeter of kinetic energy converted into stopping force. But here’s the mechanical catch—penetration depth depends almost entirely on angle of attack at impact. Swing too vertical (shaft perpendicular to the slope) and the pick skips, deflecting off the surface like a stone off water. Too shallow (pick nearly parallel to the ice) and you’re scraping, not digging—the tip catches nothing. The sweet spot is roughly 70–80 degrees relative to the slope plane, where the pick's tapered tip bites and the curve of the adze drags into the ice, creating a hooking action rather than a scraping one. I have watched climbers fail their self-arrest on moderate 35-degree snow precisely because they slammed the pick in at a flat angle, expecting magic. faulty order. You get no hook—just a scratched lane and accelerating speed.

exploit and Body Position

That pick bite alone won’t stop you. The axe becomes a lever, and your body becomes the fulcrum—unless you get the geometry flawed. The shaft needs to run diagonally across your chest, with your upper hand gripping the head (thumb wrapped over the adze, not under it) and your lower hand applying downward pressure near the spike. This creates a torsional force: the pick digs, the shaft torques, and your body weight drives the adze edge into the slope. The odd part is—most climbers grip the shaft like a baseball bat, both hands stacked. That kills the lever arm. You lose mechanical advantage. Your weight stays high (hips above the axe head) instead of low and driving. The catch? Too much lower-hand pressure can over-rotate the pick out of the ice. You want steady, not violent. We fixed this on a training day by having a partner hold my ankles while I practiced the motion: one smooth, rotational roll from hip to shoulder, not a frantic hack.

The Role of the Adze and Shaft

Here’s what self-arrest manuals rarely say outright: the adze is not a backup—it’s a primary brake on certain surfaces. On hardpack or icy snow where pick penetration struggles (the tip skims after 5 mm), the adze’s flat edge can be rotated to act as a plough. That requires a subtle grip shift: rotating the wrist so the adze faces downhill rather than uphill. Most people never routine this. They train pick-only arrest on soft snow and assume it transfers. It doesn’t. The shaft itself also matters—a straight shaft transmits force differently than a curved one. Curved shafts (typical on technical mountaineering axes) create a natural wrist break that helps with pick angle, but they can also lever the adze away from the snow if your grip slides upward during the arrest. That hurts. You feel the shaft slip through your lower hand, the pick pops out, and suddenly you’re ragdolling. The fix is gloveless routine until the muscle memory locks—or, if you must wear gloves, taping the shaft where your lower hand sits. Not pretty. But it returns control.

“Most self-arrest failures are not strength failures. They're geometry failures—off angle, faulty grip, off torque at the exact second you call rotation.”

— hearsay from a guide who spends May through October fixing climbers on Rainier’s Muir Snowfield

What that actually means in discipline: the axe is a machine with three interacting contact points (pick, adze, spike) and you control all of them through one interface—your grip. adjustment the grip, adjustment the machine. That's why fixing the three errors from the previous section isn’t optional; it’s prerequisite. Next up, we walk through how to apply this on a 40-degree slope without skipping the setup.

Walkthrough: Fixing Your Grip on a 40-Degree Slope

phase-by-stage grip correction drill

Grab a routine axe—or even a broomstick with a taped handle—and lie belly-down on a yoga mat or carpet. The goal is to overwrite that panicked death-grip before it ever meets real snow. open by planting your self-arrest hand (the one holding the axe head) so your thumb wraps over the top of the shaft, not around the side. Most climbers instinctively choke the axe like a hammer—thumb aligned with the fingers. That forces the pick to skate. Instead, cock your wrist: the back of your hand faces uphill, thumb pressed firmly against the flat of the shaft. We fixed this on a friend by having him imagine holding a shallow tray of water—thumb pinned, palm open.

Now the lower hand. Slide it down the shaft until your arm is almost straight, then twist your grip so the knuckles face downhill. This is the counter-exploit point—the part that actually drives the pick into the slope. The tricky part is keeping your elbows locked. I have seen climbers bend their lower arm and immediately lose all purchase. Lock the elbow, then press the shaft against your ribs. That creates a rigid triangle: pick, elbow, ribs. flawed order? Your upper hand takes all the load and burns out in two seconds.

typical mistakes during discipline

People rush. They slap the axe down and hope. The most typical error I watch on dry land is lifting the head before engaging the lower hand. You swing the pick, then raise your chest to look downhill—that tiny lift retracts the point. The pick has to stay buried through the slide, not just at impact. Another pitfall: rolling onto your side. On a 40-degree slope, your body wants to rotate; the axe wants to drag. If you let your hip drop, the shaft twists, and the pick torques out. maintain your sternum flat to the snow. That sounds straightforward until gravity yanks your shoulder toward the valley.

'The primary slot I watched a climber roll mid-arrest, I thought his axe broke. It hadn't. His wrist just folded.'

— from a guiding notebook, not a textbook

What usually breaks initial is the thumb. Climbers grip so hard the thumb slips around the top of the shaft, converting the axe into a glorified brake lever that does nothing. The fix? Tape a penny to the top of your axe handle. If your thumb leaves the penny during a discipline self-arrest, you're doing it faulty.

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How to check your fix without falling

No fall required. Get on a grassy slope with a 30- to 40-degree angle—dry, not icy—and simulate a head-initial slide. Lie belly-down, slide a few feet, and hit the arrest position. Check three things: pick engagement (did it catch instantly or skip?), shaft angle (is it diagonal across your chest or vertical?), and shoulder position (did you retain your downhill shoulder back?). I tell people to film it. Watched one climber's axe bounce three times before scratching in—his thumb was dead flawed. Another arrested in under six feet with a locked wrist. Same slope, same speed. The difference wasn't strength; it was grip geometry. If your pick skips, stop immediately and re-check thumb alignment. If your body rolls, focus on keeping that lower elbow hard against your ribs. check three times—anything beyond that and you're reinforcing bad habits. Then go find a real snow slope for a controlled slide—flat apron, no exposure—and repeat the same sequence. The catch is: real snow bounces back. Your initial arrest might feel like hitting gravel with a butter knife. Don't adjustment your grip—shift your angle of attack. Drive the pick deeper by pressing your upper hand forward and down, not straight down. That tiny shift is what saves your skin on a 40-degree slope where stopping distance is measured in body lengths, not feet. And if you feel the axe begin to peel out? Lock your wrist harder. That hurt the opening dozen times I did it. By the fifteenth, it stopped being a decision and started being a reflex. Go find a slope, do the drill, then film the result—you will spot the flaw in two tries. Most climbers do.

When the Rules Change: Edge Cases on Ice and Hardpack

Self-arrest on ice vs. soft snow

The moment your pick hits ice instead of consolidated snow, the rules swap completely. Soft snow lets the shaft sink in, creating a friction anchor you can lean into with reasonable confidence. Ice doesn't cooperate—it skates. I once watched a climber execute a textbook arrest on what looked like firm spring snow, only to have the pick glance off a marble-sized ice lens buried two centimeters down. He slid another forty feet before a rock outcropping stopped him. The fix is counterintuitive: on ice, you can't rely on the pick alone. You call to drive the shaft and the spike into the surface simultaneously, distributing the load across two contact points instead of one. That changes your grip from a high, pick-dominant hold to a lower, shaft-hugging clamp—thumb wrapped over the shaft rather than tucked behind it. Most people resist this because it feels weaker. It isn't. It just asks your wrist to task at a different angle.

The catch is that hardpack snow sits in an awkward middle zone—not soft enough to swallow the shaft, not hard enough to deflect it cleanly. Here, the grip error is usually speed. You rush the motion, and the pick skips across the top crust like a stone across a pond. The trick is to aim the pick with deliberate pressure, almost stabbing it in, then immediately roll your weight over the shaft. That sequencing fail—stab then roll, not roll then stab—is what breaks most arrests on hardpack. I have seen guided clients freeze with the pick hovering an inch above the snow, unsure whether to commit. Commit. Hesitation on hardpack costs you the next six feet of slide.

Heavy pack vs. light pack

A thirty-pound pack shifts your center of mass backward by several inches. That sounds fine until you flip onto your stomach and your legs drop, rotating the axe shaft away from the snow. The frequent fix—gripping tighter—actually makes it worse. Tension in your shoulders pulls the pick out of the surface. We fixed this on a friend by loosening his upper grip and letting the pack's weight settle his hips lower, which forced the pick deeper. Counterintuitive, yes. But it worked. With a light pack, the opposite snag appears: you have less mass to anchor yourself, so you tend to over-correct by driving the pick too hard, which bounces it off firm snow. The grip shift here is subtle—squeeze the shaft just hard enough to hold it stable, not hard enough to shake your forearm.

The odd part is that the strap of your pack can interfere with your axe hand if you carry the pack high. I have had a chest strap catch the adze handle mid-arrest, torquing the shaft sideways. The adjustment is to drop the pack an inch on your back before entering steep terrain—or switch to a diagonal carry on the axe side. That one-inch move saved me a broken wrist two seasons ago.

Gloved vs. bare hands

Thin liner gloves are a lie. They insulate just enough to numb your tactile feedback but not enough to protect your palms from abrasion on a long slide. Your grip naturally loosens when you can't feel the shaft texture against your skin. The threshold is specific: if you can still pinch the pick between thumb and index with the glove on, you're fine. If the glove material bunches at the thumb web, you will lose the C-grip under load. I carry a spare pair of thin leather labor gloves for the approach and switch to bare hands on actual arrest habit. The difference is immediate—you feel micro-shifts in the shaft before they become full failures.

Thick mountaineering gloves solve the cold issue but create a new one: reduced mobility in the wrist. You can't curl your fingers tight enough to lock the shaft against the heel of your hand. The workaround is to choke up on the shaft by one hand-width, bringing the pick closer to your face and increasing use. It looks ugly. It works. Bare hands, by contrast, let you use the full C-grip with a relaxed wrist—but only if the air temperature stays above freezing. Below that, your fingers stiffen within seconds, and the axe becomes a lever you can't control. The rule I follow: gloves on when below 25°F, bare hands above, and for the in-between range—a thin neoprene palm pad taped to the shaft. That's not a hack. It's experience.

'The hardest arrest I ever performed was on fifty-degree ice with a full pack and mittens. I didn't stop until I hit a bergschrund. The grip worked; the gear layout didn't.'

— Alpine guide, recounting a near-miss to a group of trainees

What Self-Arrest Can't Do (And Why Grip Won't Save You Here)

Over-vertical terrain

Grip perfection means nothing when the ground drops away beneath you. On terrain steeper than about 50 degrees—think exposed rock bands, ice bulges, or the kind of slope where your heels hang in space—self-arrest becomes geometry theater. Your ice axe needs friction against the snow to bite, but on over-vertical sections, the blade can't engage because your body weight pulls you off the surface instead of into it. I have watched climbers with textbook grips sail past their pick, the steel scraping uselessly against air. The axe works by leveraging your mass against the slope; remove that contact and you're just holding an expensive handle while gravity does its thing.

The trade-off is brutal: a perfect grip on vertical ice might keep the fixture in your hand, but it won't stop the slide. What saves you here is not technique—it's terrain selection, a rope, or a well-placed screw before the fall begins. Most teams skip this reality check. They drill arrest on 30-degree hardpack until it's automatic, then move onto a 70-degree couloir and wonder why the same motion yields nothing. faulty aid for the job. Self-arrest is a slope-management skill, not a cliff-rescue trick.

Rock-hard ice

'The pick skipped twice before I even knew I was falling. Third window, it broke.'

— overheard at a rescue seminar, 2023. The speaker's thumb was still bandaged.

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Here is where grip fails in a different way: not because your hand slips, but because the axe has nothing to grab. On water ice or dense alpine hardpack—the kind that rings like ceramic under a crampon point—the pick glances off rather than penetrating. Even with a death grip, even with the shaft full-length, you're essentially dragging a metal stick across glass. The catch is that many climbers mistake blade chatter for technique weakness. They tighten their hold, curl their fingers harder, shift weight—none of it matters if the penetration depth is zero.

I have seen this exact failure on the north face of a Colorado peak I won't name. Fall started at the crux. Man had his grip perfect, thumb wrapped, wrist locked, axe driven with intent. The ice laughed. He slid 200 feet before a boulder caught him. His partner told me later that the pick never once held. The odd part is—discipline on soft snow actually trains the off reflex. Soft snow rewards aggressive swing; hard ice punishes it. You overcommit, the axe deflects, and now you're tumbling with a sharp aid inches from your neck.

High-speed falls

Velocity changes everything. On a measured slide—say, a tumble that starts at walking speed on moderate scree—a good self-arrest grip buys you window to roll, drive, and stop. But once you cross that threshold, the physics flip. Falls on steep couloirs or frozen gullies accelerate fast: 30 mph after three seconds, 40 mph after five. At those speeds, the force required to dig your pick into the snow spikes beyond what human wrists can generate. Your grip might hold the axe, but the axe can't hold you. It's the difference between steering a bicycle and trying to stop a motorcycle with your bare hands—same motion, utterly different outcome.

We fixed this at a guide training once by running timed drills: begin from a dead stop versus a running start. The difference was stark. From a standstill, everyone arrested within 15 feet. From a sprint, the same group could not stop under 80 feet, and two lost their axes entirely. High-speed falls volume a different reflex entirely—not grip adjustment, but immediate body positioning to create drag before you even attempt the axe. Most climbers reverse the order. They reach for the fixture initial, lose balance, and by the phase the pick hits, they're already out of control.

Your next phase here is not more grip drills. It's an honest assessment: on the routes you actually climb, does self-arrest have a realistic chance of working? If the answer is no—steep ice, sustained exposure, unprotected fall lines—then you require a rope system, not stronger fingers. Grip saves you on the moderate ground where 90% of your routine happens. For the other 10%, acknowledge the limitation and carry the right gear. That's not failure. That's reading terrain correctly.

Reader FAQ: The Grip Questions You've Been Afraid to Ask

Should I wrap my thumb around the shaft?

Short answer: no — not the way you think. The instinct to wrap your thumb around the shaft like you're gripping a hammer is exactly what gets people into trouble. I've watched climbers in clinics death-grip the shaft, thumb locked over the top, and then wonder why their axe skips across the snow like a stone on water. The tricky part is that a wrapped thumb locks your wrist into a position where the pick can't engage. You orders the shaft pressed into the open V between your thumb and index finger — that spot where the meat of your palm meets the bone. That distributive pressure lets the pick bite. Wrap your thumb around, and you're essentially lifting the pick off the slope. It feels weaker, but it isn't. The trade-off: you lose the sensation of holding something firmly, but you gain actual braking force.

What if my axe has a curved shaft?

That changes the geometry — and most tutorials ignore this. A curved shaft, typical on technical mountaineering axes, rotates the pick angle relative to your forearm. The odd part is—the same grip you used on a straight shaft might actually lever the pick out of the snow on a curved axe. We fixed this by shifting the hand position an inch lower on the shaft, which realigns the pick's angle of attack. trial it on a low-angle slope before you call it on a 45-degree ice run. The catch: lowering your hand reduces leverage for the self-arrest motion. You have to drive your weight harder over the axe head. Not a design flaw — just a trade-off between precision and raw power that varies by shaft curve.

“I switched to a bent-shaft axe and suddenly couldn't hold a slide. My grip hadn't changed — but the geometry had.”

— guide I met in the Cascades, after watching him fix the same error on five clients that season

Can I self-arrest with a walking axe?

You can. But you demand to understand what 'can' means here. A walking axe — typically lighter, straighter, with a less aggressive pick — requires more precise grip because you have less bite to work with. The recommended grip is the same: open V, firm but not clamped. But the margin for error shrinks. Too loose and the shaft rotates in your hand; too tight and your arm fatigues inside the primary three seconds of a slide. What usually breaks opening is the wrist — you overcorrect, the pick skips, and suddenly you're rag-dolling. The real question isn't 'can you?', but 'are you willing to drill that grip on moderate terrain until it's reflexive?' Because on serious slopes, a walking axe demands faster pick engagement and less panic tension. I have seen strong climbers fail miserably with walking axes on 35-degree hardpack — not because the tool was faulty, but because their grip was built for an ice axe that weighed twice as much.

Drill this: five self-arrests on a 30-degree grassy slope with your walking axe, eyes closed. Feel the pick engage? Yes. Feel it skip? Fix the open V. That's your test. Not until you hit the slide on real snow.
— your next step is the three drills in the final section, which rewrite exactly how your hands remember this.

Takeaways: Three Drills to Rewire Your Grip Muscle Memory

The Towel Drill — Grip Memory Without the Mountain

You don't require snow. You don't need a slope. Grab a hand towel from the bathroom, fold it lengthwise into a strip about eighteen inches long, and hold it like an ice axe shaft. Now lie facedown on your living room floor. The goal is simple: keep the towel pressed *diagonally across your collarbone and chest* while you simulate the self-arrest position. Most people let the towel drift to the side — that’s the palm-grip error showing up in slow motion. The towel drill exposes it in ten seconds. Hold the shaft (or towel) with your thumb wrapped *over* the top, not tucked behind. Every time the towel slides away from your chest, you just replayed a failed arrest. Do five reps per side before bed. That’s it.

The Couch Arrest — Speed Without Consequence

Harder than it sounds. Sit on the floor facing your couch, legs straight, ice axe (or broomstick) in your dominant hand. Then flop sideways onto your stomach — fast. Your job is to catch yourself with the pick digging *before* your face hits the carpet. The trick is grip position: if your lower hand grips the shaft like a hammer fist, the pick won’t engage early enough. You’ll land flat. We fixed this by having people slide their bottom hand *down* the shaft two inches and rotate the wrist so the pick points at the floor before impact. That pre-rotation is what saves split-seconds on real snow. The couch arrest drill hurts when you do it wrong — carpet burn on the chin. Do twenty reps, alternating hands. Your grip will ache. Good.

“I watched a climber grind his teeth through a forty-foot slide because his thumb was behind the shaft. He had the strength. He had the nerve. He just had the wrong grip.”

— Ski patroller, after a late-season rescue on Mt. Hood

The Snow Practice Sequence — One Movement, Three Positions

If you have access to a safe snow slope (twenty to thirty degrees, runout clear), skip the drills and go straight here. Lie on your back, head uphill, axe held in arrest-ready grip. Roll onto your stomach and drive the pick in — all one motion. That’s position one. Now get up, walk sideways five steps, and do it again from a face-down belly slide. That’s position two. The third one is the bastard: a head-initial slide on your back, then roll and arrest before you pass a marker cone (or your backpack). The grip error that breaks first here is the death grip — clenching so hard your forearm cramps, which rotates the pick *out* of the snow. Relax your lower hand. Let the upper hand do the steering. The catch is that position three terrifies people, so they revert to a palm-under grip. That feels stronger. It’s not. Run each position five times, then swap hands. One session rewires more than a season of theory.