CSIA Interski Technical Comparison

[Jilly]

Lady skier, 4th from the bottom. That skier is now in a neutral stance. No edging, no angulation, no inclination. Edges are released and skis are flat. Then the CoM and BoS move as seen the rest of the picture.

The other 2 pictures are a mess for a recreational skier. A racer can get away with those movements, but that's going to be crash for a recreational skier.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....So, to the issue of toppling and the role of angulation in it, at least as far as I understand what Tom is coaching. I don't think he is coaching an active move of the body into the turn, rather he is coaching a release fo the body from it's arc before the feet are released. So, you aren't so much "sending" the body somewhere as much as releasing the body to travel into the new turn. ...
Does this help?

Does that help me understand why James is misunderstanding what I posted? Nope.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....I don't think he is coaching an active move of the body into the turn, rather he is coaching a release fo the body from it's arc before the feet are released. So, you aren't so much "sending" the body somewhere as much as releasing the body to travel into the new turn. ....
....
Further, since you are effectively falling into the new turn, there's a great deal of accuracy that has to be developed for the feet to be placed at a point where they will provide an effective platform to balance against.....

Mike, I haven't subscribed to Tom Gellie's website. I have to rely on you and Geepers and whoever else is conveying that information here to explain what Tom's saying.

That said, I topple by bringing my feet back up under me so that my CoM ends up, by default, on the downhill side of my feet. IOW the CoM is released because of movement of the feet. As in Bob's video, by the way.

The first time I did this WHOAH that was a surprising sensation. Just exactly like when the roller coaster gets to the top of the first rise and travels over it. Hold onto your socks!

You say "So for the feet to get outside of the body, they have to travel further in the arc so that they are, in effect, uphill of the body. Sounds like the feet are still very much a part of the game."

Yes, Tom may be saying what I'm saying. I've crossed out some words so what you say he's saying is what I'm saying. Hubris, maybe. But I'm thinking I've got this right since it's something I know from experience.

Just bring your feet back up under you, in a sideways figure eight, after the fall line. Keep the skis edged as you do this. Your edges will flatten as the skis come up under you, and they will continue onto their new edges, and your body will topple as a result without you having to do anything consciously with the torso. You won't have to do a Hirscher- or Ted-style torso lunge at the top of the turn. So not either of these:



It's all in where the feet are relative to the upper body. Learning to do this with the feet means you won't know when it will happen (that accuracy thing), so be ready for the surprise. Practice will teach you when the Wheee!!! factor will kick in.

Here's a graphic from Bob's infinity video. It shows this action. The first frame shows the feet out at the fall line. In the second frame the skier is bringing them back up under the body. When the feet get to the fourth position relative to the CoM, the topple begins in earnest. You'll be technically upside down by the fifth frame, with the CoM downhill of the feet.

And no, @Jilly, I don't teach this to my intermediate students. They have enough problems without adding a roller coaster drop to their skiing.

 

[Jilly]

It was the arm motion that no recreational skier needs.

 

[Chris V.]

My concern with this discussion about angulation's role in release and edging is that the discussion sees angulation as a major cause of those two things.

Put another way, it sounds like angulation is being talked about as an action that makes things happen down at the ski-snow level.

It can be that. Imagine a skier in the finishing phase of a turn, with a good degree of angulation, outside leg mostly extended, in dynamic balance. Now the skier flexes the legs, especially the old outside leg. Since the angulation means that the torso has been oriented over the outside ski, this flexion alters the location of the center of mass relative to the supporting skis. The legs have become shorter, while the torso has stayed the same length. The flexion thus destroys the dynamic balance, and starts the skier's body toppling into the new turn. The toppling promotes ski flattening and edge change. This wouldn't have been possible without the angulation in the finishing phase of the old turn.

I would call that skiing from the feet up. No deliberate pushing of the torso into a new direction involved.

 

[geepers]

One other element of angulation that is required is to establish a sufficient platform angle for the ski to grip. It doesn't need to be much, but if there was only angulation, the slop in the connections between the leg, boot, and binding would result in insufficient platform angle for the ski to grip. So there has to be enough angulation to deal with those "losses."

Mike

Yes - I did include "grip" in the list. Gellie was more precise and specifically used the term "platform angle".

Rightly or wrongly I've begun thinking that grip encompasses platform angle, especially the way the CSIA express it "Upper and lower body separation allows for angulation to provide grip".

On snow it's easier to talk about what can be done to improve grip than platform angle.

 

[LiquidFeet]

It can be that. Imagine a skier in the finishing phase of a turn, with a good degree of angulation, outside leg mostly extended, in dynamic balance. Now the skier flexes the legs, especially the old outside leg. Since the angulation means that the torso has been oriented over the outside ski, this flexion alters the location of the center of mass relative to the supporting skis. The legs have become shorter, while the torso has stayed the same length. The flexion thus destroys the dynamic balance, and starts the skier's body toppling into the new turn. The toppling promotes ski flattening and edge change. This wouldn't have been possible without the angulation in the finishing phase of the old turn.

I would call that skiing from the feet up. No deliberate pushing of the torso into a new direction involved.

I totally agree with what you say above, except I don't know why you say "It can be that" at the beginning.

You are describing skiing from the feet/legs up. Having an angulated body, which is balanced against the outside ski when one flexes one or both legs to release the old turn, definitely plays a role in starting a new turn.

But "angulating" as a movement is not what you are describing. I'm worried that people are thinking of "angulating" as a movement in normal turns, where nothing special is going on, in order to release or increase edge angles. Yes, angulating, when one is not angulated, can do that. But do we want to promote doing it (angulating as a movement) in normal recreational skiing in order to get turns to work? I don't think so.

I haven't seen Tom Gellie's material, so I don't know if he promotes using this movement for this reason in normal turns, not race turns in the gates, and not when trying out to teach with Rookie Academy. I'd be really surprised if he does.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Yes - I did include "grip" in the list. Gellie was more precise and specifically used the term "platform angle".

Rightly or wrongly I've begun thinking that grip encompasses platform angle, especially the way the CSIA express it "Upper and lower body separation allows for angulation to provide grip".

On snow it's easier to talk about what can be done to improve grip than platform angle.

Agree. Platform angle makes grip possible or impossible on hard snow. But saying "platform angle" is an awful way of phrasing a concept. Who came up with that?

How about we call it grip angle?

 

[geepers]

Yeah, me neither. I've never heard anyone say one should angulate in order to release. But racers do it.

Racers do sometimes reach their shoulders out downhill across their skis, in effect increasing their angulation, in order to move their CoM across the skis fast at initiation. I'm not sure I'd call this "angulating." Doing this gets the CoM downhill of the skis, which in turn releases them, tilts them, and starts the new turn. It gets the racer upside down on the course extremely fast.

Hirscher reaching his shoulders downhill over the skis, with shoulders staying level:
View attachment 105841
Ted raising that new outside shoulder and arm to tilt his torso downhill over the skis:
View attachment 105842

They aren't making an additional movement to lunge their body down the hill. What they are doing is building separation and increasing their angulation through the turn, especially in the latter stages and then retaining that separation and angulation into transition.

Here is Ligerty still on edge for the right turn so his skis continue across the hill, already allowing his (hip) angulated/separated body to begin toppling and then flexing his outside leg to remove it's support providing a fast transition into the new turn to the left.

Put another way, it sounds like angulation is being talked about as an action that makes things happen down at the ski-snow level. Do we really want tilting the torso to play a major role in controlling edging and release? Yes, tilting the torso this way and that works to increase and decrease edge angles. But at what cost, if it's conceived of as a fundamental movement to produce these effects?

It's not really tilting the body per se. It's playing with the timing. We separate. We angulate. Retain those a little longer and they'll assist movement into the next turn.

So shouldn't this discussion be considering angulation this way, as a necessary enhancement, a fine-tuning movement

A lot of Gellie's talk was about fine tuning. Incline for edge angle. Angulate to balance laterally. Of course it depends on intent. Sometimes (e.g. short turns) there's more use of angulation to increase edge.

I guess to sum my whole point up, I don't like thinking of tilting the torso as a fundamental and useful way to start a turn, release a turn, or increase edge angle. I prefer to ski from the feet up. I am not talking about skiing in the gates where hurry-up gets the prize.

As the terrain gets steeper it becomes more problematic to pure carve without breaking the personal speed barrier. Spending less time in the fall line with more rapid transitions is useful. (As long as everything else stays in form.) Doesn't mean we have to be quite as athletic as TL and MH! Well, that's what I'm hoping...

Mike, I haven't subscribed to Tom Gellie's website. I have to rely on you and Geepers and whoever else is conveying that information here to explain what Tom's saying.

That's a really hard task. The guy has been super-productive these last few months. The webinar on angulation alone is nearly 2 hours. Then there's the ones on turn transitions, separation (highly relevant), counter torquing (also highly relevant to this discussion) all rounded out by stuff on specific types of skiing - shorts, bumps, pure carving, basic turns.

A few posts from us does not do the content justice. Like summarising War and Peace - "A Russian called Pierre tries to shoot Napolean but doesn't."

 

[geepers]

Agree. Platform angle makes grip possible or impossible on hard snow. But saying "platform angle" is an awful way of phrasing a concept. Who came up with that?

How about we call it grip angle?

How about just "grip"?

 

[LiquidFeet]

The angle part matters. It involves the relationship of the CoM to the BoS matters as it is defined by the tilt of the two angle arms.
"Grip" alone doesn't imply you need to deal with how those two things are in relation to each other.
"Grip" is what you're seeking. The angle gives you grip.
But of course "grip angle" could easily be mistaken for edge angle, bringing us back to the same old same old misunderstanding.
Oh well.

 

[Dakine]

That sure is an interesting up and over move he makes with his shoulder and torso.
I have done something like that when I'm late, I think, a couple of times by accident and it is powerful.
Gates bring out some interesting technique that wouldn't happen in freeskiing.

 

[LiquidFeet]

That sure is an interesting up and over move he makes with his shoulder and torso.
I have done something like that when I'm late, I think, a couple of times by accident and it is powerful.
Gates bring out some interesting technique that wouldn't happen in freeskiing.

I've done it in deep sticky Christmas slop when I was tired and had a loooooong way to go to get back to the base. I made very very short radius turns at slow speed with that shoulder-arm lift, and traveled down the hill in a narrow corridor at a nice slow speed with minimal G force build-up. Without the arm lift I would have made wider turns and had to deal with higher G-forces.

 

[peterm]

I like the Korean skier (mens short & long turns), and it looks like he's having fun too. Bonus points for looking like an astronaut. Here he is winding up for a turn, Ligety-style. I think the reason for skiing like that is to make the transition as fast as possible, but I'm just a hack so could be completely wrong.

 

[geepers]

That sure is an interesting up and over move he makes with his shoulder and torso.
I have done something like that when I'm late, I think, a couple of times by accident and it is powerful.
Gates bring out some interesting technique that wouldn't happen in freeskiing.

See plenty of it in good free skiing. Not quite with the same full bore use as Ligerty or Hirscher but it's there.

From

 

[geepers]

The angle part matters. It involves the relationship of the CoM to the BoS matters as it is defined by the tilt of the two angle arms.
"Grip" alone doesn't imply you need to deal with how those two things are in relation to each other.
"Grip" is what you're seeking. The angle gives you grip.
But of course "grip angle" could easily be mistaken for edge angle, bringing us back to the same old same old misunderstanding.
Oh well.

Yes the angles matter. But not more than how, where and when we generate them.

Do you discuss platform angle in a lesson? I would guess that would be rare.

I use my wife as a litmus test - very short fuse for what she describes as ski techno-babble.

 

[karlo]

I think the reason for skiing like that is to make the transition as fast as possible,

Looks to me that the resulting transition is quite slow, compared to what could be some otherwise. Anyway, perhaps this is simply the Korean way of making long turns. See 7:50


As for the short turn clinic, I’m assuming that there’s something lost in translation.

 

[LiquidFeet]

I do not say "platform angle" to the usual clients I get. I'd need a white board and marker to get the concept across. And an hour.

 

[karlo]

See plenty of it in good free skiing

What’s the title of the fourth, so I can search it? It won’t open for me here

 

[geepers]

What’s the title of the fourth, so I can search it? It won’t open for me here

Ski tips in a minute - Episode 2 long turns

Youtube channel is Joshua Dunacan-Smith


But really have look at any skier doing high quality wide turns and you will see this holding of separation and angulation into transition.