I am finally learning how to ski! It's something I wanted for a long time so I'm super excited. I had an instructor for the first 3 days and now I have 3 days on my own until I head back home.

Our instructor told us to ditch the poles for now as they only get in the way when you're a new skier. They make you lose balance more easily because you're flailing around with your arms and they often break because people fall on them.

I already did a 4th day of skiing on my own (no poles) and I'm quite happy with my progress. I can already do all the blue slopes comfortably (not WELL, but I'm not scared for my life). So I want to take the last 2 days to chill and enjoy the mountains. I'll still try to improve my technique and so on, but I'm not going to push myself or focus too hard on learning. I just want to have fun.

Now every other skier I met in the resort (outside of our little beginners group) found it weird that I'm not bringing the poles with me. So I googled a bit tonight and it seems that the correct way to use them is to plant them before turns. Of course this will take a while to get used to, so in the short term they will make my skiing worse.

Now my questions are:

1. What other purpose do poles serve apart from pole planting and going up hills easier? (I'm not planning to go up any hills, I can do small slopes without poles)

2. Should I bring them along tomorrow and try to learn how to use them? Or just keep doing what I'm doing right now?