Deb Armstrong/Inside leg activity for parallel turns

[mdf]

was there a culture of skiing pre-2000s where the inside ski was used more?

I'm not sure, but one data point: I had a lesson that included video analysis. My inside ski came very sligthly off the snow at the apex of the filmed turn, showing I had no weight on it. The instructor paused the tape and pointed it out. My question was, "why is that a bad thing?" Didn't get a clear answer.

 

[freeskier1961]

Does not the femur follow , fib/tib which is following foot?
Starts with edge change the rest follows naturally as required?
Would there not be some femur rotation in hip socket to accomplish this?

 

[snowtravel]

Ligety mentions the same leg extension/push at the top of the turn a little later in the article, which I thought was interesting.

I'm kind of curious, just being the baby of this place – was there a culture of skiing pre-2000s where the inside ski was used more? I've heard a couple of skiers from that 2000s era who really emphasize the outside ski, and I can never tell if it's a reaction to actual novice questions, or if people were teaching the inside ski usage earlier on & the discourse pendulum has swung back and forth a bit.

Outside ski dominance has been taught and emphasized since at least the mid-1960s, when I took my first lessons at Badger Pass under Nic Fiore. It was definitely part of PSIA dogma in the "American Teaching Method" in use when I started teaching, and has carried over largely unchanged to ATS (the latter needed a name change to "system" from "method," because of course it did).

Crucially, foot-to-foot pressure control must have been practiced long before that. In the mid-1800s when Sondre Nordheim was demonstrating and popularizing the Telemark and later Christiana turns, he and other skiers of the day had to have felt and known the difference between the relatively even weighting and outside-ski lead that characterizes Telemark and the lighter, inside-ski lead in christie turns. (But no, I wasn't around then.)

In any event, since at least the 60s there have been tons of drills, progressions and written materials focusing on how and why to pressure the outside ski, big toe side, etc.

Lastly, it's telling that while Ligety and seemingly everyone continues to emphasize outside ski dominance, videos of top racers including TL often show surprisingly heavy inside-ski weighting, with telltale snow spray. I see these skiers edging before pressure with an obviously keen ability to ski on any of four edges at will. While weight naturally belongs on the outside of most turns, timing is key. Furthermore, in my own skiing and teaching a lack of comfort and finesse on the "weak side"—meaning the outside edges of our feet and skis—is the much bigger problem, especially among high-level skiers.

 

[freeskier1961]

intentional edge change, not intentional rotation, happens on it's own?

 

[David Kurtz]

I'm kind of curious, just being the baby of this place – was there a culture of skiing pre-2000s where the inside ski was used more? I've heard a couple of skiers from that 2000s era who really emphasize the outside ski, and I can never tell if it's a reaction to actual novice questions, or if people were teaching the inside ski usage earlier on & the discourse pendulum has swung back and forth a bit.

After shaped skis came out, some instructor groups started teaching equal weight railroad track turns. Old school was outside dominant, and that never really left competition skiing.

 

[snowtravel]

After shaped skis came out, some instructor groups started teaching equal weight railroad track turns. Old school was outside dominant, and that never really left competition skiing.

Sure. Note though, physics never left skiing, period.

More-or-less equal-weight carving works really well at slow speed. Ditto skiing on one ski: at slow speed, with practice carved turns are pretty easy.

As speeds increase, consequences do too. In my own skiing, when practicing one-footed carving, at some point the urge to put down the outside foot becomes irresistible. Turn forces, including centrifugal force (really just inertia) naturally push everything to the outside. In higher-speed turns especially, outside is where balance hangs out.

(Nevertheless I always remember: one leg is strong; two are stronger.)

 

[JESinstr]

PSIA Fundamental #2

• Control pressure from ski to ski, and direct pressure to the outside ski.

 

[markojp]

PSIA Fundamental #2

• Control pressure from ski to ski, and direct pressure to the outside ski.

Yep....

(But I do coach 'lateral versatility'.)

 

[snowtravel]

PSIA Fundamental #2

• Control pressure from ski to ski, and direct pressure to the outside ski.

Only, if it's "fundamental," as opposed to merely helpful, then how do snowboards work?

 

[mike_m]

The same, if there were two of them on your feet.

 

[James]

There’s a toe and heel side.
But like skiers, many don’t exhibit the fundamentals. They just slide heel side when it gets steep for them.

Next up- Applying outside ski fundamentals to a monoski. A 3 part lecture by Glen Plake.

 

[JESinstr]

There’s a toe and heel side.
But like skiers, many don’t exhibit the fundamentals. They just slide heel side when it gets steep for them.

Exactly, and sliding is a straight line movement pattern not a circular carving process movement pattern. Again, no one needs to be taught to go straight. They can figure that out by themselves.... with a little help from gravity.

I just love to watch a boarder that carves.

 

[bluefish]

Me, too especially the transition zone where there is seemingly no snow contact.

 

[snowtravel]

The point bubbling to the surface here is, foot-to-foot pressure control isn't fundamental: it's secondary at best (and in the case of single-board snowsports, impossible).

Edge, not pressure, makes skis turn.

 

[James]

^ Maybe read what you wrote?

This brings up the little known alt B side to America’s “Horse with no Name”, the “Edge with no Pressure”

“Because I been down the trail on an edge with no pressure, it felt good to slide off the trail…
In the woods you can’t remember your name
because it hurts real bad
and there ain’t no one to tell you your name…”

 

[snowtravel]

Sure. Did you?

(“It don’t mean a thing [if it ain’t got that swing].“ —Duke Ellington, Irving Mills.)