i feel like using poles is more natural because you have heavy shit (boots bindings and skis) mounted to your legs, and if you use poles you then have something heavy attached to your arms that can balance against the weight attached to your legs
If you have to make a minor arm adjustment to balance yourself, it will require less movement if you have the extra arm inertia of the heavy poles than it would if you were without poles and the only inertia you had control of via your upper extremity was due to the mass in your arms.
i used to only go without poles as practice for half the day then id strap them back on and rip with the bonus arm inertia.
after a while i started going without poles 100% of the time.
i just recently got back into using poles and it feels like ‘why did i not pick you back up sooner?’ I think the way most skiers (even some pros) tend to flail their arms to balance themselves when they arent using poles should be an indicator that using poles gives your bodys core more inertia to play with when balancing upper and lower extremity movement.
You could also look at pro snowboarding, which is usually less aesthetic than pro skiing because boarders have to flail about much more to balance themselves without poles.
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