Kevin Hinds: Hi! I am Kevin Hinds. I'm cross-country skiing and snowshoe instructor here at L.

L. Bean in Freeport, Maine. Today, we're going to talk about some basic cross-country skiing techniques.

So, the first thing you want to do is walk out on to the snow pack and put your skis down next to you. The nice thing is there is no right and left with the skis we're using today and the bindings are mush easier to use than they were before. So we are going to bang a little snow out of the front of our boots and then we'll go ahead and step into the bindings. Just like so and I just bang my skis little bit make sure they're on. We're going to put our poles down so we can do some exercise to get you comfortable on being on these skis.

One of first things you want to think about is your body position. You want to have a slight bend in the knees, a little bit of your weight forward, and the weight is on the ball of your foot of your toes, and think about your nose over your toes. We're just going to sidestep, one ski at a time all the way across the trail, just getting used to transferring the weight.

After you're comfortable with that let's try to turn. You're have your tips apart and your tails together, still your knees slightly bent, and we will go on in a circle. Tips of part tails together. Nice small steps, Excellent! Now that we've done that let's try another one with our tips together and tail apart. Knees are still nice and bent.

Now this position, a lot of people may have seen before especially if they've done some downhill skiing. It's more of snowplow, a wedge or a pizza slice and it can help you slow down. One of the first things that's on a lot of people's mind when they start out is what happen when you fall. So we are going teach you how to get up from that fall and keep going.

Now though you've fallen down the first thing you want to do is takes your poles off and get them out of the way. Once you've done that, you're going roll on to your back, tuck your knees toward to your chest and grab the tips of our skis. Once you're in that position start rocking a little bit from side to side to get some momentum and then go ahead and roll right over onto your skis on your knees.

Once you're there you're going to get one ski in front of you and brace your hands off that leg and then stand up on the other leg. One of the common things people like to do when they get to this point of getting up is they want to use their poles to get up. But if they do that they're going to actually put their shoulders at a lot of stress for rotator cuff injuries and shoulder injuries. So I like to still keep my poles off to the side, get one leg up, carefully step up onto the next leg, and then you can reach down, grab your poles, and get ready to go.