Worth mentioning here: If you are falling, let go of your poles. The most common ski injury is the thumb, caused when you keep a death-grip on your pole as you go down. You can easily generate enough torque on the pole to dislocate or even break your thumb. Children are often not given poles at all, and this is one of a few reasons for that (the other main one being that it's thought a child can learn better balance that way).