Give Me a New Drill

[Wilhelmson]

I really should take a lesson soon, but in the meantime what's a good drill to work on?

I am an expertish skier and have been doing javelin turns since a lesson last year. They seem to help and I think I am ok at them though sometimes get a little tripped up on steeper slopes.

 

[geepers]

 

[Josh Matta]

what are you struggling with?

 

[Mike King]

Hop (spiess) turns. Not only will they help your rotational separation, they'll give you a workout.

Do some for me, as I cannot.

Mike

 

[Wilhelmson]

Well I only have 7 1/2 years left in my forties so I better get to work on those right away. I couple weeks ago I was goofing around showing my daughter jump turns and she actually used them a couple times in the woods!

 

[Mike King]

I used them on Saturday to navigate around a bunch of rocks at the top of AMF -- about 45 degrees at the top.

That being said, there's a difference between a hop turn for survival/navigation and the drill to skill exercise of a spiess turn. Here's a video...


Note how all of the rotation is coming from the lower body -- the pelvis may eventually rotate, but that's because the range of motion of the femurs has been used up and causes the pelvis to slightly follow at the end of the rotation. The legs absorb the pressure of the hop. There's a plant of the downhill pole that is coincident with the landing.

Good luck!

 

[Uke]

Even better than the hop turns shown, do the same pivot of the skis using active retraction and spring from the skis rather than the extension of the legs and upward propulsion of the body's mass. Less work, more in line with modern ski technique and to my eye more pleasing to watch.

uke

 

[socalgal]

Even better than the hop turns shown, do the same pivot of the skis using active retraction and spring from the skis rather than the extension of the legs and upward propulsion of the body's mass. Less work, more in line with modern ski technique and to my eye more pleasing to watch.

uke

Do you have a link to a video? For those of us who need to see it in order to "get it"?

 

[geepers]

I used them on Saturday to navigate around a bunch of rocks at the top of AMF -- about 45 degrees at the top.

That being said, there's a difference between a hop turn for survival/navigation and the drill to skill exercise of a spiess turn. Here's a video...


Note how all of the rotation is coming from the lower body -- the pelvis may eventually rotate, but that's because the range of motion of the femurs has been used up and causes the pelvis to slightly follow at the end of the rotation. The legs absorb the pressure of the hop. There's a plant of the downhill pole that is coincident with the landing.

Good luck!

It's exhausting just watching that...

Do we need a spiess emicon? (Meaning "That's far too much hard work".)

 

[Josh Matta]

those are some of the quickest hop turns I have ever seen.......

the good news is, when you have to do them its generally fairly steep and much easier to get off the ground.

 

[Stacks]

Dolphin turns?

 

[Dudeabides]

I'm a pretty firm believer in the good 'ol up and over drill-

Traverse across the hill on the pinky toe edge of your uphill ski, with the tip of your downhill ski lightly touching the snow. Now complete a turn, balancing on the old inside ski as it rolls from pinky toe edge to big toe edge and becomes the new downhill ski. Throughout the turn, make sure the tip of the ski you are not balancing on stays lightly touching the snow- don't let it come off or be forced to place the rest of the ski back down. If the tip of the ski picks up, its likely you let yourself get in the back seat (probably at the top of the turn). If you have to put the ski down flat on the snow, you are no longer balancing on your outside ski (probably at the end of the turn).

Do this slowly on easy terrain at first. Make sure you do not rush the top of your turn- embrace the part that feels like shit and live there until it no longer feels like shit. A nice progressive motion from beginning to end is what you are looking for- no forced or awkward motions.

 

[Chef23]

I did a few dolphin turns today they were fun. I also demonstrated some hop turns for a friend. I don’t generally do drills though. I would imagine they would help and I should have some things to work on when I ski with my wife who skis much slower than I do.

 

[Mike King]

I did a few dolphin turns today they were fun. I also demonstrated some hop turns for a friend. I don’t generally do drills though. I would imagine they would help and I should have some things to work on when I ski with my wife who skis much slower than I do.

I'm sure it will be a hit with her if you are doing hop turns while she is skiing down in front of you...

 

[Josh Matta]

I'm sure it will be a hit with her if you are doing hop turns while she is skiing down in front of you...

How would she know?

 

[Kneale Brownson]

The clatter.

 

[Wilhelmson]

The hop turns helped a lot.

After getting up at 5:30 to drive 2 1/2 hours my legs didn't feel like turning much at 3 degrees Fahrenheit. In the woods I was more turning to avoid rocks than turning for a purpose. After lunch I did some hop turns for maybe 700 vertical feet and all of a sudden my legs came alive. The moderately steep slope made them pretty easy, although I have to work on getting more jump into them.; my skis weigh almost 6 pounds each.

And haha I see the hop turns are the next drill after javelin turns in the psa book.

 

[Chef23]

How would she know?

I can’t do them for more than a couple hundred yards. I could do more dolphin turns.

 

[Mike King]

Well, if you could successfully do them for 700 vertical feet, then perhaps you need to up the difficulty...

 

[Wilhelmson]

I tried some of the standing still hop turns to stay warm yesterday and I still need a lot more practice.