When I skate ski, I always feel like I am off balance to the posterior. To avoid falling backwards I pull my toes up in my boots (subconcious). By the time I’m done skiing, my tibialis anteriors (shins) are super tired and sore. What am I doing wrong? I tried leaning forward a bit but it didn’t feel natural. Should I bend my knees a bit?
Is this common for beginners?
Very common. It will take quite a few times before that sensation isn’t noticeable, but it will happen. Just keep at it, that’s a muscle under a lot more strain than normal while you’re skating.
set your poles aside and slow way down. do some work on a flat trail just working on riding on one ski. If you examine the track your ski makes, I suspect you are stepping to the inside edge and riding it a few feet until you fall off and end up on the other ski. You balance is what sets the tempo because you can’t ride the gliding ski. So work on stepping onto a flat ski and setting your weight on that ski for a long time, even until it stops.
when you start poling again, a good drill is poling twice for each side, it forces you to glide longer
Cool, thanks for the tips! I’ll give it a go.
When I skate ski, I always feel like I am off balance to the posterior. To avoid falling backwards I pull my toes up in my boots (subconcious). By the time I’m done skiing, my tibialis anteriors (shins) are super tired and sore. What am I doing wrong? I tried leaning forward a bit but it didn’t feel natural. Should I bend my knees a bit?
Is this common for beginners?
You need to soften your ankles and bend your knees. You should feel that you are in balance. When you are standing still on the ground you should be able to jump straight up. If you have problem with that your starting positions/stand is not in balance and when you add speed it will get worse.
Have fun 
if you are skiing with an incomplete weight shift (sort of sitting in the chair) then it will be especially evident when you go uphill. If you feel like you are hoisting yourself uphills with your arms, go back to the basics with weight shift. In places where kids learn skiing young, they ski a long time without poles, like months.
But fear not, you can grab your poles and just do double poling practice to work on your upper body, it’s a great workout. One drill that is great is doing sets of just propelling yourself on the snow using only your abdominal muscles, then just arms, then use your whole upper body, you can really feel the power
To reinforce what jroden said earlier, when you are pushing off with your leg, imagine trying to push through your heel and not your toes, similar to a squat in the gym That oughta help with the shin thing since, you won’t be flexing your foot as much.
+1 to both Kevinshus and JRoden.
I have the same shin issue, and those were the drills an instructor had me do to help with the shins (and overall balance too).
rich
Two things might help.
No poles.
When you lift each foot drag the ski tip on the snow with each step. This is just like wrist and finger tip drags in swimming. You dont need to lift the ski 2 feet off the ground with each stride. Visualise a flat ski landing on the snow like an airplane on a runway. Keep th e ski really flat on the ground which sometimes feels like you almost need to turn your arches to the sky as you take each stride.
The second drill is stand with your skis in a “V” at about 70 degrees of angle. Square your shoulders forward, facing forward to the V. Lean back especially with the hips. You wont move forward. Then very slowly transfer your weight forward, flexing your anklles, keeping you hips and shoulders at the same vertical plane. All of a sudden when your hips get forward enough you will start skiing forward. Your skiiis will move and you will have a feeling that you are falling forward. That is forward body position. It keeps your skiis moving forward while you are in a constant state of striding to keep your feet under your body. I will try to make a video this weekend.
I use that second drill ALL the time for new skiers to make them feel that sweet spot of weight transfer.
I tell them to “fall” down the trail, not “push” themselves down the trail.