Skiing holidays can be ruined with the wrong ski equipment. To become a better skier, it does help to know a little about the ski, how it works, and how to get the best out of it. It has been around for four thousand years, give or take a year or two, and has come a long way since the one found in a Scandinavian bog.

It is now a sophisticated machine, and you have probably gathered that companies making skis and ski equipment are intensely competitive. This means that year on year there is always some interesting technical innovation, and quite often a quantum leap in actual performance. The major breakthrough in the past few years has been to produce a ski that allows a recreational skier to turn like a racer, and we talk about that elsewhere.

What kind of skis will you need to improve your ski technique and make that skiing holiday worth the effort? Gone are the recreational skis that had to be as long as as your outstretched arm above your head. The optimum length nowadays is anything from 5cm (2in) smaller than you are to 5cm taller than you are. So clever is the design that they will grip on ice, go relatively fast, and float through powder snow. If you have been stuck in a rut for years and have moved onto these shorter narrower waisted skis, you should have noticed some improvement although they will not be suitable for really fast work. The main thing is to try different pairs out and experiment.

If you decide to hire or buy from a ski shop, make sure you go in a quiet time. If you go when the shop is busy, the guy in charge of the skis will look you up and down, and judging by the look on your face, ie: pure terror or cool omniscience, will thrust a pair of skis at you without further ado. Ask him for advice. Tell him you are an aggressive skier, and want a pair of performance skis with a bit of welly in them. Hire departments in

ski shops have improved dramatically over the years, so you will probably be better off hiring them if you are only skiing for a week or two. If you are lucky enough to be spending a season in the mountains, dig deep, splash out, and buy some - after taking advice you can trust.

How do you know what to get? If you are hiring a pair of skis out from the ski shop, or borrowing them from a friend, take a good look at them first. Look at the bottoms. Are the plastic soles nice and smooth, and free from holes and gouges? The metal edges should form an unbroken curve all the way along their length. The edges should also be sharp and smooth with no pit marks in them. They could have been battered by countless previous hirers so test them to see if they have any life left in them. Do this by putting them together, sole to sole, and squeezing them with one hand at the mid point just behind the front binding. The metal edges should touch all the way along their length, and there should be a good gap of up to two inches between them when you let go.

Technicians will say there is more to testing a ski in the shop than this, but if there is no gap and no springiness, there ain't much life left in the old thing. Brand new skis will have this spring in them, but just like us used ones can get tired!

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