Just spied this... interesting stuff and completely ski nerdy! 
How quickly can we get to page 5?
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How quickly can we get to page 5? 1.
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Feet stuff with Tom G.
Thread Starter
TS
Crickets? Really?
Thread Starter
TS
I just watched... no big deal. Maybe start with #3.
Yes, that channel owner puts up an amazing amount of video, not always with the tightest of editing. Still, it's a repository of some great stuff for those with time and patience.
A short summary - what does pressure over the parts of your foot tell you about your balance? (Which is a bit like summarising War And Peace as "A Russian called Pierre tries to shoot Napoleon but doesn't.")
In the meantime... this guy can really ski... Very distinct upright style, stands out on the hill.
A short summary - what does pressure over the parts of your foot tell you about your balance? (Which is a bit like summarising War And Peace as "A Russian called Pierre tries to shoot Napoleon but doesn't.")
In the meantime... this guy can really ski... Very distinct upright style, stands out on the hill.
Tom Gellie is a great skier who focuses most of his concepts on the biomechanics related to his body alignment specialty which strikes a chord with my penchant for the skeletal architecture associated with alpine skiing and inline speed skating.
Some guided discovery with an “open skilled” approach and somewhat conceptional. I much prefer, for myself, training in that coordination more directly and let the body speak to the mind rather than the other way around. Through effect and and cause rather than through cause and effect. The positive and negative reinforcement of real time balance and control with its steady flow of rewards and punishments is the teacher that we want to “learn” to listen to. When we intellectually pre-conceptualize something too far before we apply it to our biomechanical function, we can be mislead in certain ways that force us to go back over it again and again. I believe “body first, mind second” is a quicker “drill down” to the relevant factors and easier to facilitate the individual “deliverables” to each student. That’s not to devalue anything he has to offer. This is how many lessons are conducted. My brain only works a certain way. It is what it is. That said, I like his focus on the anatomical architecture of the foot and how it is used to, among other things, gain stability.
The 3 point “stability” triangle of foot sole:
I also like the heel to outside ball and inside ball triangle in regards to tipping. We have the larger inside ball for our foot to carve the heavier outside ski and we have a smaller outside ball of foot that is, aptly, about an inch aft to carve the lighter inside ski. Biomechanically, the size difference between the larger inside ball and arch compared to the smaller outside ball and arch is equal to the differences in load they bear in a turn. I take that what Gellie is saying is that when a skier only carves on #1 and #3, there is less stability. I think that I do #1 to #3 on the outside foot and #1 to #2 on the inside foot and am tipping the “3 legged table” side to side. How balls #2 and #3 (inside and outside) are tipped: left, right, neutral, equal, “A” frame, etc. is our first proprioceptive opportunity and closest to the ski for us to feel the tipping orientation of our forefoot. For me, the ankle motors the tipping but it is the vertical orientation (in comparison to each other) between the inside ball and outside ball, #2 & #3, that tells me how much the “plane of the sole of my foot” is tipped. On inline speed skates, I know that my wheels are always perpendicular to the sole of my forefoot. I have tipped the sole of my forefeet (balls #2 & #3) with my ankle enough times on skates that I always know what is happening down there in a manner that translates to directly to achieving the control of equal tipping in my skiing. A developmental tact I would highly recommend.
I also like how he explains that adding rotary to the foot in a pure carved, edge locked, no skid turn helps the ski bring “it” around a touch more at the end of the turn which is an aesthetic touch that Gellie likes to use in most of his turns. It increases the “driving” of the bent shovel and helps to produce a higher degree of turn with a rounder shape which provides better speed control in pure carved turns. As he has purported before, he shows the rotary isolation possible from the knee/thighs down for that lower leg coiling that we can use to ad that last rotary “zip” to the end of a carved turn that also sets up a touch of pre-transition counter steering (if we allow). He also seems to be saying that we coil into a rotary “stiffness” in a way that adds a “stabilizing” tension to the body until it begins to travel back in the other direction and the body lossens up for transition. Too bad we only get side views of Gellie that doesn't really show what he does with this. It, secondarily, ads to the aesthetic for those who wish to preen. Though, I only spend money on motor patterns that affect the bottom line as this one does.
I relate to his “foot stiffness” in terms of maintaining ankle tension on both feet through the turn and, for me, the entire turn. Here Ron Kipp discusses an overlapping significance of the ball of the foot and ankle tension starting at 2:48
Some guided discovery with an “open skilled” approach and somewhat conceptional. I much prefer, for myself, training in that coordination more directly and let the body speak to the mind rather than the other way around. Through effect and and cause rather than through cause and effect. The positive and negative reinforcement of real time balance and control with its steady flow of rewards and punishments is the teacher that we want to “learn” to listen to. When we intellectually pre-conceptualize something too far before we apply it to our biomechanical function, we can be mislead in certain ways that force us to go back over it again and again. I believe “body first, mind second” is a quicker “drill down” to the relevant factors and easier to facilitate the individual “deliverables” to each student. That’s not to devalue anything he has to offer. This is how many lessons are conducted. My brain only works a certain way. It is what it is. That said, I like his focus on the anatomical architecture of the foot and how it is used to, among other things, gain stability.
The 3 point “stability” triangle of foot sole:
I also like the heel to outside ball and inside ball triangle in regards to tipping. We have the larger inside ball for our foot to carve the heavier outside ski and we have a smaller outside ball of foot that is, aptly, about an inch aft to carve the lighter inside ski. Biomechanically, the size difference between the larger inside ball and arch compared to the smaller outside ball and arch is equal to the differences in load they bear in a turn. I take that what Gellie is saying is that when a skier only carves on #1 and #3, there is less stability. I think that I do #1 to #3 on the outside foot and #1 to #2 on the inside foot and am tipping the “3 legged table” side to side. How balls #2 and #3 (inside and outside) are tipped: left, right, neutral, equal, “A” frame, etc. is our first proprioceptive opportunity and closest to the ski for us to feel the tipping orientation of our forefoot. For me, the ankle motors the tipping but it is the vertical orientation (in comparison to each other) between the inside ball and outside ball, #2 & #3, that tells me how much the “plane of the sole of my foot” is tipped. On inline speed skates, I know that my wheels are always perpendicular to the sole of my forefoot. I have tipped the sole of my forefeet (balls #2 & #3) with my ankle enough times on skates that I always know what is happening down there in a manner that translates to directly to achieving the control of equal tipping in my skiing. A developmental tact I would highly recommend.
I also like how he explains that adding rotary to the foot in a pure carved, edge locked, no skid turn helps the ski bring “it” around a touch more at the end of the turn which is an aesthetic touch that Gellie likes to use in most of his turns. It increases the “driving” of the bent shovel and helps to produce a higher degree of turn with a rounder shape which provides better speed control in pure carved turns. As he has purported before, he shows the rotary isolation possible from the knee/thighs down for that lower leg coiling that we can use to ad that last rotary “zip” to the end of a carved turn that also sets up a touch of pre-transition counter steering (if we allow). He also seems to be saying that we coil into a rotary “stiffness” in a way that adds a “stabilizing” tension to the body until it begins to travel back in the other direction and the body lossens up for transition. Too bad we only get side views of Gellie that doesn't really show what he does with this. It, secondarily, ads to the aesthetic for those who wish to preen. Though, I only spend money on motor patterns that affect the bottom line as this one does.
I relate to his “foot stiffness” in terms of maintaining ankle tension on both feet through the turn and, for me, the entire turn. Here Ron Kipp discusses an overlapping significance of the ball of the foot and ankle tension starting at 2:48
I would like to say the little I've watched so far is CSIA speak for sure.
Thread Starter
TS
If I recall, Tom is quite tall, so he's going to give a very distinct visual compared to JF, Jonathan, Reilly, and many of the other well known tech skiers.
Thread Starter
TS
I think what's interesting, is he's carefully framing what he's talking about into CSIA language for the group. I'm guessing if he were down here, he'd frame it in PSIA'ese.
Well the video's are from Whistler and some participants are in uniform.
Sure, but Tom Gellie is Australian and a member of their interski team.
It's not so much his height as much as the very straight upper body. Deliberately.
CSIA seem to prefer more hunched over - the 'bad dog' posture as one instructor put it.
I'd only ever seen a couple of his youtube vids, but picked him out on the hill in an instant the 1st time I saw him in real life.
Some folks' style just lodges in the mind. Can pick them out on a crowded hill at long distance. (Unfortunately not always the good styles.
)
@Doby Man - love the 3 point stability triangle!
This is something that really intrigues me & I’m currently choking on some humble pie after using the concept so extensively in lifting/conditioning/running & then crashing & burning wrt skiing.
I recently measured my feet vs my boots & wow am I lost......
I’m working to resolve this over the summer.
Will watch videos later!
This is something that really intrigues me & I’m currently choking on some humble pie after using the concept so extensively in lifting/conditioning/running & then crashing & burning wrt skiing.
I recently measured my feet vs my boots & wow am I lost......
I’m working to resolve this over the summer.
Will watch videos later!
Not everyone's foot touches down at those three points to make a nice stable triangle. It's an ideal. What about your measurements of foot and boots makes you feel lost?
Personal story about that pressure point triangle: I either have to lift the heel or lift the BOF to get three points in any kind of triangular configuration. There's a downward protruding bone in between the BOF and the heel (the proximal end of the 5th metatarsal) that intrudes rudely and destroys any chances of a triangle of pressure points like the ideal one people say we all have. When I started skiing I noticed that my normal stance in shoes on dry land is on my toes with heel lifted. This translated to ski boots rather directly. (You have to stand on a machine that produces a color-coded pressure picture of the bottom of your foot to see what your anatomy makes happen... Dr. Scholls markets these machines to pharmacies.) Given my right foot's anatomy, it's impossible to balance on this foot without collapsing the knee to the inside -- when barefoot or in shoes or in ski boots.
One would think a custom footbed would easily solve this as it has a flat bottom, but no.
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By the way, Tom G. is also a very talented Telemark skier (he has some very good videos on YouTube).
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Wow, that's difficult. Could not a thick insole be made with space for that bone?
Those pressure map readouts were ubiquitous is shops 5-15 yrs ago. You don't see many today. I guess the benefit was small and wasn't worth the cost. It was too easy to change the pressure map. It was also done standing on a piece of glass with a tilted mirror underneath.
I could see in your case it would throw up a red flag though.
Short version: I’m using the ‘tripod foot’ in my training more & as I’ve gotten older, focused on “working with my body”.
I’ve struggled in ski boots, yet thought I was doing an ok job in fitting my boots. I recently had molds of my feet made & have tried to use them for boot work. Basically my feet in the boot look nothing like my feet out of the boot.
Even widening the boot, I can’t get near the natural body habitus of a barefoot.
Then I looked again & measured everything up & to my shock, my liners at the widest part (yes they will spread w feet & weight) are only 80mm on the sole, yet my foot is >100mm at the widest part.
Essentially I’m looking for a better, wider system. Yes I can cram into a 93 lasted boot (likely 90-91mm in my size) with 80 mm liners & stretch/grind to hammer a day on out the hill, but I don’t think that’s a sustainable method.
Yes, my footbeds and orthotics do get the whole foot contacting the bottom of the boot, and that's how I ski now. But the right knee still rolls inward dramatically when attempting to ski one-footed. So the knee-roll must be caused by more than the 5th met being in the way for a triangular base-of-support on the bottom of the foot. There's a forefoot varus thing going on as well. I've moved to doing my own in-the-boot manipulations now to counteract the effects of that forefoot varus twist. I tweak one little thing at a time, then go out to test whether the results are better or not. I spent much of March and April doing this, one tweak a day. Whereas before I could ski on one foot on the left, but not on the right, and couldn't even traverse on the LTE with the right foot, now it's much better and I'm getting close to having my right foot actually functional in that boot. There's hope.
Brian, you say your feet in the boots "look" nothing in the boot like they do out of it. How do you know?
I presume the molds you took were out of the boot. Did you do the molds the orthopod's way, just molding the bottom of the foot with that plaster-soaked cheesecloth, or did you do the whole 3-D foot?
3D to mid shin!
Basically you can’t barely get em in the boot w/o a liner. Plus looking only at my feet in the liners, hey are all squished & supinate to fit.
Have you seen CARV? It's foot-shaped pressure sensing pads in each ski boot, linked to a smartphone app that monitors/records pressure. Supposedly the app is able to give real time feedback to the skier - a sort of virtual ski instructor.
