Hallmarks of good skiing

Good skiing, to me, means two things:

1. You have excellent weight transfer and balancing
2. You're utilizing big muscles (or core) to propel yourself forward. You will not get tired as easily and you can glide much further.

There are signs when you're skiing well. For classic skiing, your ski is lifted up high if you're kicking hard. This also means you're entirely balanced on your gliding ski.

For skate skiing, power comes from bending at waist, ie, using your core muscles. Check out Olympic skier Jessie Diggins to see how much she bends.

You want to retrieve your ski as close as possible and land on outside edge. This way you don't waste time moving your body to balance. When you put your ski down, your body should be right on top of it. You then roll your ski from outside edge, to flat, to inside edge.