How to improve skiing?

[LiquidFeet]

....What is inside leg shortening actually used for in relation to the ski specifically? Tipping and turning? Really? We are deciding where and how much to turn by how much we shorten our inside leg? Is that what some of us are thinking when initiating a turn? "Hmmmm .... If I soften/lighten/shorten my inside leg by this much, I should make the next gate/tree by six inches."....

You've never done this?

 

[karlo]

Try practicing the drill with the new inside ski off the snow from the top of the turn all the way through.

This is NOT the up & over drill but outside to outside balance

Love this video. Watch the skier at the top of the turn, starting way before fall line. And, not to beat a, ahem, dead horse with my , ahem, belt, watch the bottom of the ski jacket. Watch as the skier ski towards AND away. Jacket is level with the slope/floor.

I posit that Alex has no problem flexing an old outside ski leg. It's how to do it at the top of the turn while maintaining balance. Keep the torso upright, keep the waist level. Oh, and be free with the pelvis rotation of the outside leg. Obviously, Alex has no problem with internally rotating it after fall line. Externally rotate above fall line. Be "loose".

Ok, neither the dance analogy nor the equestrian are working. How's this

then

and with both skis down

Now, start thinking of the ground being tilted. Tilt with it.

Question for Alex. What is your intent when you turn? Why are you turning?

 

[4ster]

Ok, neither the dance analogy nor the equestrian are working

I liked the equestrian analogy and photos. I have had the pleasure of teaching more than a few horse people to ski. My limited knowledge of horse riding skills paid off during those lessons.

 

[alexz]

Today I tried to change edges in transition faster...

 

[4ster]

Today I tried to change edges in transition faster...

“Video is unavailable”

 

[alexz]

“Video is unavailable”

Thanks, fixed.

 

[karlo]

Nice effort. Looking at the video yourself, what do you see at the top of the turn? Mostly inclination or angulation?

I had previously asked, what is your intent when turning. Watching the turns, to me, the intent is for the turn itself, with the high edge angles after fall line, to control speed. Try something else. Think and use the turn as a means of Propulsion, not as a means of speed control. The heavy conditions you have are ideal. Find a shallow pitch, where you basically have to go straight to keep going, or where even that is insufficient, where you would not contemplate turning. Now, work on getting through that using just little parallel turns to Propel you through. Get to the point at which you really feel the outside ski start to bend at the top of the turn, and reach maximum bend at the apex, then letting it release to propel you into the next turn, then repeat. That will help develop fluidity in the hip (hula dance fluidity), levelness of torso (torso inclining this way, then that, will absorb and divert energy and propulsion, and prevent bending of ski at the top of the turn). Take that to steeper and steeper pitch. Get to the point like the football players up above. They are angulating, flexing one leg, extending another leg, to Propel themselves. That third football player, think of that as the apex of the turn (the belly), and the gradual angulation and flex/extension that got him (and you) there. In the steeper pitches, use direction across the hill to control speed, not high edge angle at the end of the turn; i.e., only decrease edge angle after apex, never increase it.

As all the photos I previously posted show, we are anatomically capable of angulation and keeping torso normal to floor/ground/slope. A change in mindset, when skiing, is needed to make that happen. Could help to do dryland stuff to convince sub-conscious that you can loosen up your hips and that you can angulate.

BTW, though the camera angle was not ideal, I think I saw a couple of particularly good turns. Almost makes me think that you nailed the turn relative to fall line perfectly, then lost track of where the fall line is (because it changed?) for the next turns. But, can't be sure without being there.

Good luck in your quest.

 

[alexz]

...Find a shallow pitch, where you basically have to go straight to keep going...

Unfortunately this time of year only one run/pitch is available - from top of Palmer down to Mid-station at Timberline ski area, pitch is about 20 degrees.

The public lane goes along the lift, then about 12 designated ski camp lanes, one mogul lane and other racing.

Racers leave about 11:30-12pm leaving heavy salted = quite hard snow, but with deep ditches

 

[Mike King]

Alex, we've given you our thoughts. Would you do MA on your latest video? What do you see?

Mike

 

[Mike King]

Alex, we've given you our thoughts. Would you do MA on your latest video? What do you see?

Mike

Since you are working on level 3, why don’t you analyze three phases of the turn focusing on foot to foot pressure and then the relationship of that skill to edging?

 

[Nancy Hummel]

Alex, I see some changes occurring.

Perhaps, add some outside pole drags to what you are currently doing and see what happens.

Also, check out the significant tip lead at the end of shaping/beginning of finishing. Perhaps play around with some tele turns or attempts to keep tips more even and see what happens.

 

[Skisailor]

Hi Alexz.

I’m new here at Pugski. I was a long-time lurker on EPIC, and have now lurked a bit on Pugski too, so I’ve been following this discussion. I hope you won’t think it presumptuous of me to chime in. I’m a Level 2 instructor at Big Sky Montana. Many of you may be familiar with my mentor – Ursula Howland, who went by “Little Bear” when she posted occasionally on EPIC. I know Mike King has skied with her! Ursula has been teaching skiing for over 40 years and brings a full German Cert (with all that entails) plus her L3, clinician, retired examiner experience from her time in the US. Ursula’s tutelage has given me a somewhat different perspective on what she would call “the latest cat’s pajamas” which is currently coming out of PSIA by way of the Demo Team. I thought that somewhat different perspective might be of interest to you.

I’m just going to throw out three things that caught my eye, which, as a result of Ursula’s training, may be just a little different or have a different emphasis from the things you’ve heard already. One may have been mentioned, one may be new, and one may be the same observation, but perhaps a different way of talking about it and/or a different prescription.

1. I think Magi was the first (only?) poster to point out that you may want to consider your fore-aft balance over your skis. I would say that you are skiing pretty far back - a result mainly of your overflexed knees – overflexed, that is, relative to the amount of ankle flex. It looks like your CoM moves from a place somewhere behind your heels to a spot where you have just barely caught up to your feet (at transition), but then the knees flex again and the CoM moves back relative to the base of support. From this position, it is very difficult to engage the ski shovels and get that early edge engagement you’re looking for. It also makes it much harder to add rotation to the ski and effectively steer the skis into any turn with a radius smaller than what your ski’s sidecut dictates. The prescription? Unbend your knees a bit. OR, if you want to continue to bend them that much, you need to flex your ankles more and come forward in the hip socket so that you don’t allow you CoM to drift back so far. This fix has primacy over everything else IMHO ( i.e. over the edging-type things you have been tweaking in subsequent videos).
   
   
2. Shorten your poles. Your pole length is resulting in a pole touch (especially with your left arm) that adversely affects the timing and amount of angulation you can achieve. Your left hand is actually moving UP at the end of turns to accommodate the impending touch of your overly long pole, and that prevents you from angulating properly. Others also noticed that your upper body is not as level or as quiet as it should be. I think your pole length and pole touch are contributing significantly to that problem. Try a drill where you touch your outside knee with your outside hand during the second half of turns to get that angulation happening. Then back off that exaggerated move into more normal skiing but try to keep the feeling. Love Nancy's suggestion about the double pole drag to help with this problem too.
   
   
3. You are exclusively using an extension move to start your turns in an era when PSIA is looking for flexion to initiate. In my book, as trained by Ursula, (and I must say, I LOVE the simplicity of her approach to good skiing), there are ONLY 3 ways to change edge in skiing. Thinking of the edge change as the transition between the old turn and the new one, we can either:
   

• Extend both legs (it may be different amounts but the legs are doing the same thing)
  
  
• Flex both legs (it may be different amounts but the legs are doing the same thing)
  
  
• Flex one leg while extending the other (the legs are doing different things)
  
  I know a lot of folks here really admire Bob Barnes, so forgive me for this quick aside. Back in the old EPIC days, Bob threw out this question to posters in a thread – How do we start a turn? How do we change edge? After paragraphs and pages of verbiage about it by numerous posters, Ursula came on and gave her 3 simple bullet points that I listed above. Short and sweet. Bob’s response? BINGO!!

Extension is falling out of favor and is really a vestige of an older time when we HAD to more significantly “unweight” the skis in order to turn them. I believe that to go for your Level 3, you will need a bomb-proof flexion turn and a long leg/short leg turn initiation would be fantastic as well. I like to practice runs where I switch between the 3 initiation methods literally from turn to turn to ensure that I am totally comfortable with all 3 (although in my personal skiing I mainly initiate using long leg short leg because it is so effortless – especially in steeps). As a fun exercise, try a long leg/short leg turn initiation. That is, to start your turn, FLEX your old outside ski leg WHILE at the same time, extending your old inside ski leg. For the exercise, fix your eyes on something pretty far down the run. Ski short radius turns toward that thing. Stare at it and do not let your head move either up OR down. What has to happen with your legs to accomplish this?


Anyway – good luck. I’ve been practicing and having fun with all of the L3 tasks required in our Division and gleaning useful movement patterns and skills through that practice. But I doubt I will actually go for my Level 3. So I’ll be rooting for you.

 

[alexz]

Alex, we've given you our thoughts. Would you do MA on your latest video? What do you see?

That is segment from left to right apex:

1.

less edge angle caused by
less angulation knees and hips; shoulders too banked; left arm behind

2.

too high pressure caused by less flexed ankles and knees; max pressure is too late, at the end of the turn, rather than closer to apex.
arms more static

3.

extension knees and ankles up rather than flexion by Eric

4.

too high knees reduce edge angle; too high contr-angle cause larger inside ski lead; not stable enough upper body - pelvis and shoulders; right elbow is too wide and high reducing upper body tension.

I was working with problems:
1. keep constant ski separation
2. faster transition with retraction
3. initiate change edge in transition from feet up
4. keep elbows narrower and lower

keeping focus on one of the issues during each segment.

Probably the next week I need to set main focus on shifting max pressure to earlier, closer to apex, and start flexion and transition earlier.
In dry training work on stretches increasing flexibility (mainly abduction) in hips.

 

[karlo]

Unfortunately this time of year only one run/pitch is available - from top of Palmer down to Mid-station at Timberline ski area, pitch is about 20 degrees.

ok, then, make really small, slow turns, slowing by direction across hill, not be post-fall line edge checking. So slow, that you will topple over if you incline. Focus, at the top of the turn on Propulsion with a parallel turn. Basically, as with on a shallow slope, you want a situation in which inclination is not your friend while at the same time you are in the mindset of propelling yourself.

I agree with all the movement suggestions. But, in my view, changing mindset, while limiting what you can and cannot physically do, restricting the degrees of freedom that are available to you, will get you there, in a way that you will own it.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Alexz, you just wrote:

I was working with problems:
1. keep constant ski separation
2. faster transition with retraction
3. initiate change edge in transition from feet up
4. keep elbows narrower and lower
keeping focus on one of the issues during each segment.
Probably the next week I need to set main focus on shifting max pressure to earlier, closer to apex, and start flexion and transition earlier.

my comments:
1. stance width .... Yup.
2. faster initiations .... Can you do shorter radius turns? If so, good. If not, work on that, so Yup to this as well.
3. initiate with feet and legs .... Yup. Ankle-tipping inside the boot can come first, and some say this is the only way to start turns. A larger movement is leg action, which I focus on because we can see it and because it producdes reliable bigger effects. Initiating turns with either is good; tip at the ankles then work on the leg action, or work on leg action and use ankle-tipping as a supplement; see below for more of my thoughts on your leg action. As far as deleting the head-and-shouledrs-into-the-turn first, Yup, that needs to go and it looks like you've been working on it.
4. narrower arm position .... sure, do that too.

Now for the biggie: That part in dark blue in your last sentence ... it refers to something I noticed this time watching your new video. Do you think it's important where in the turn you "put" maximum pressure? I think you do. You are getting tall between turns, then dropping down to place "max pressure" on your outside ski at apex or thereabouts. After transition you drop low as if landing after a jump, and you lean in with torso aligned with outside leg you do this as - using your whole body to press outward on that outside ski, to max out the pressure under it. It looks like this is your intent in every turn, to place max pressure at some point near apex, and your words above seem to confirm that this is your intent.

Have I got this right?

If so, as you morph your turns into PSIA LIII-approved turns, you'll need to let go of this way of thinking altogether. You'll need to let go of the idea that it's your job to "pressure" (verb) the ski at some important point in each turn. You'll need to "allow" pressure to be strong at some point, while focusing on other things instead. This will be a paradigm shift in your thinking and in your movement patterns.

Skisailor is right, PSIA is looking for flexion turns. In such turns, the skier stays LOW in transition and does not pounce on the outside ski at apex or at any other time. The skier sinks low to initiate a turn instead of standing tall. The skier shortens the old outside leg/new inside leg to do this sinking, and leaves the old inside leg short; there's no way to get tall while doing this. As a result of the new inside leg shortening, the body moves downhill, crossing over the skis. The skier can hold the torso upright as this happens (you should), thus allowing angulation to grow as the turn progresses. The skis tip to new edges, turn downhill, and the skier keeps shortening that inside leg and tipping its ankle onto the little toe edge as the turn continues.

The skier lengthens the outside leg not to "pressure" it but to keep its ski in contact with the snow. You'll do this because your new outside leg knows what to do. Pressure will come to that ski on its own. The leg attached to that outside ski will be getting long as the pressure builds, the inside leg will be continually shortening and tipping onto its little toe edge. Hopefully your torso will be more upright than your legs, your "weight" will be directed onto that outside ski because of the torso not leaning in, and the outside ski will grip better than it currently does because of that angulation. You'll have your flexion turn. It will feel quite different; if it doesn't you aren't doing it yet.

This movement pattern can produce high edge angle carved turns, it can produce "steered" turns, it can produce slow basic parallel turns, it can do all kinds of things for you.

My guess is that you are not yet doing a flexion transition (this is the #3 type turn mentioned by SkiSailor/Ursula) because you still are thinking about "pressuring" that outside ski at apex, and to do that you need to pounce on it, so you go up in transition and come down at apex. When, instead, you simply shorten the new inside leg and leave the other leg short, you will be using a whole new movement pattern. You might need to try this out in non-threatening conditions since it will be so different. I hope you can find that on the glacier at this time of year.

SkiSailor is right on another point; you are a little aft. Someone else did mention it upthread, but I can't remember who. This video shows you from the side more so it shows up now. Pay special attention to holding/pulling your inside foot back. Using the flex-to-release movement pattern and letting go of the "pressuring" of the outside ski may help with the aftness; I'm not sure.

You are lucky to have Palmer glacier to ski on. Wish I were there too!

 

[Nancy Hummel]

There are many good suggestions in prior posts. Some of it seems a bit complicated.

I suggest:

1. If you change your movement patterns, the pressure issue will resolve.
2. You start your turns with the upper body which leads to your weight going to the inside.
3. Deal with the fore/aft issue which should allow you to release your edges and start the turn by tipping.
4. As you tip your legs, flex the old outside/new inside leg which will allow the weight to go to the outside ski.
5. Be mindful of the tip lead. Don’t allow the new inside leg to slide too far ahead.

 

[skix]

PSIA is looking for flexion turns. In such turns, the skier stays LOW in transition and does not pounce on the outside ski at apex or at any other time. The skier sinks low to initiate a turn instead of standing tall. The skier shortens the old outside leg/new inside leg to do this sinking, and leaves the old inside leg short; there's no way to get tall while doing this.

Liquidfeet's post really hits on alot of themes I worked on myself in 2017/18. I knew I was working too hard to control speed and was tired of having quad burnout cut my days short. My focus going into the season was to expand where I carved and remove z-turns wherever possible. I worked on using less skidding and pivoting and on having turns "finish" in a traverse or uphill direction. The goal was to be able to carve edge-to-edge on increasingly difficult terrain.

What made the biggest impacts for me were things that have already been mentioned in this thread. First I had to greatly reduce banking/inclining into the hill and level my hips. From the video this also looks to be a problem for the OP. Along with that I worked on flexing my lower body into transition. With a flexed transition I ended up with the body low when the skis are flat. An enhancement on that basic move was to concentrate on flowing into transition with ankle/knee rolls off of the old edge, to flat, to rolling onto the new edge. (See Shiffrin video for perfect examples.) To make sure there's no "park and ride" happening be sure to mix in quick turns in the other direction from different points in the turn. That will also serve to make back seat driving move obvious. Hard to turn quickly when your mass is too far aft.

In order to keep balanced with the more flexed position I also needed to adjust my upper-body while skiing. In ski boots that constrain the angle of the lower leg my lower body COM moves aft as knee flex is increased. To compensate I had to keep arms forward and even move my upper body forward somewhat. As you work on a flexed transition be aware it's not just the legs that will need adjustment in their movements to find good balance. You may need to tweak your stance as well.

 

[alexz]

Alexz, you just wrote:

...

Now for the biggie: That part in dark blue in your last sentence ... it refers to something I noticed this time watching your new video. Do you think it's important where in the turn you "put" maximum pressure? ...

I meant that my pressure during the turn is mainly rather in "Emergency use only" zone" than in "Mandatory" :
so I need to prevent pressure in "Emergency use only" zone using recommendation of @karlo above about Propulsion across fall line.

 

[Mike King]

I meant that my pressure during the turn is mainly rather in "Emergency use only" zone" than in "Mandatory" :
so I need to prevent pressure in "Emergency use only" zone using recommendation of @karlo above about Propulsion across fall line.

So, looking at your video, why do you think you are getting pressure in the "Emergency use only" zone? What are the movement patterns that are leading to it? And, for extra Level 3 MA credit, how is it related to fore/aft balance?

Mike

 

[alexz]

So, looking at your video, why do you think you are getting pressure in the "Emergency use only" zone? What are the movement patterns that are leading to it? And, for extra Level 3 MA credit, how is it related to fore/aft balance?

Mike

IMO at frame 2 above, in "Emergency use only" zone, Eric is flexing/retracting knees more, releasing the pressure and starting the transition. I am late with that.