Inside out turns

[geepers]

When first met this drill last year must admit I disliked it. Recently revisited this drill during a course and now it's my favorite carving drill.

This is about as good an example and explanation as I've seen.


What I can't quite figure out is why a drill that completely disengages the outside ski through the top of the turn has such a positive impact on carving. When the outside ski is placed back on the snow there's a real feeling of that ski engaging and providing a solid platform to balance against. Which seems counter-intuitive given most other drills are all about ensuring engagement of the outside ski early in the turn.

Anyone else find this drill useful and have any other insights into why it seems to work?

 

[karlo]

I think what he says, says it. Develops patience when rolling from one edge to another, with the stated benefit, the edges get a good grip of the snow. I think the same could be said of pressuring the little toe edge of the old inside ski before transition, then rolling to the big toe edge of the new outside ski. Impatience wrenches the edges out of the track, resulting in skids.

 

[Josh Matta]

these are also called white pass turns

 

[Fuller]

I've been working on various ways to strengthen my balance on the little toe edge. Up and over drill, white pass drill, rollerblade turns all require your COM to take a very unfamiliar trajectory. The best I can do is a bit of traverse on the LTE and the beginning of the transition to the BTE before my other ski hits the snow. Even though I'm not doing them well it does have a residual effect on my regular skiing.

The other day I spotted one of the race kids from the chair with an incredibly narrow stance making these snake like turns with a surprising amount of angulation. A closer look revealed he only had one ski but was doing completely symmetrical turns and was equally at ease on both edges. I can only dream of such innate balance.

 

[Mike King]

Sad to see that -- Horstman T-Bar hasn't run for the last couple of years due to the melting of the glacier...

@Doby Man might chime in on the role of the inside ski and the importance of a strong inside half.

Mike

 

[slowrider]

The other day I spotted one of the race kids from the chair with an incredibly narrow.....youth has its advantages. @Fuller

 

[slowrider]

Lately I have been doing alot of 1 ski drills with my level 5 &6 clients. It sure helps my balance as well.

 

[Smear]

To me it's useful because it breaks up my pattern of using more and more outside knee angulation of the outside ski toward the end of the turn and then extending on the inside ski to get out of the turn.

Mikaela calls it "Norwegian drill" and used it as medicine against "hippy skiing".


When one are on the outside edge of the inside ski there is usually enough platform angle. So it promotes an "inclinded" without angulation position in the start of the turn and in the end of the turn it promotes increasing hip angulation/counter to help move over the ski and at the same time decreasing knee angulation to end the turn. So if hip angulation comes too early, this drill can help to delay it and at he same time make it stronger in the second half of the turn.

She advice against lifting the ski too high cause this will cause you to end up with reverse angulation at the top of the turn. Tipping the upper body into the turn, and at some point there is no need to tip the ski from legs either. Lifting lower keeps it closer to normal skiing and still possible to tip the feet at the top of the turn. And also important to put the outside ski down early enough to keep it closer to real skiing.

I try to take the drill back to normal skiing by not lifting and just floating between the turns without a pronounced weight shift in transition but still ending the turn completely on the outside ski. I feel that it minimizes the bad side effects and helps to bring the benefits back to normal skiing.

 

[razie]

What I can't quite figure out is why a drill that completely disengages the outside ski through the top of the turn has such a positive impact on carving. [...] Which seems counter-intuitive given most other drills are all about ensuring engagement of the outside ski early in the turn.

Anyone else find this drill useful and have any other insights into why it seems to work?

If you think about it, contrary to what it seems, you have in fact engaged the edge early in the turn, establishing balance, so there is no skidding or lateral displacement of the hips above the apex, which is the usual cardinal sin you're trying to fight. Therefore you enter the new turn in balance on a carving edge. Which edge? That's less relevant for this! and it comes so naturally because all you do is just not disengage the edge at the end of the turn.

This is a perfectly valid transition (well, in regular skiing you wouldn't raise the leg that high, for no reason), especially useful in bad snow or GS - it has specific tactical advantages.

The one usual drawback of this drill is emphasizing inclination - as not many are able to balance on the little toe and tip the feet... so take it with the respective grain of salt. Good drill otherwise!

 

[Kneale Brownson]

I've been working on various ways to strengthen my balance on the little toe edge. Up and over drill, white pass drill, rollerblade turns all require your COM to take a very unfamiliar trajectory. The best I can do is a bit of traverse on the LTE and the beginning of the transition to the BTE before my other ski hits the snow. Even though I'm not doing them well it does have a residual effect on my regular skiing.
.

Besides using the progressive application described in the video, I like to use tracer turns to become more adept at little toe edge skiing. Tracer turns are where the weight is on one ski for turns in each direction, but the other ski remains in the "normal" position and just touches the snow. The focus is on what you do with the lower legs, not on moving the torso.

 

[JESinstr]

Besides using the progressive application described in the video, I like to use tracer turns to become more adept at little toe edge skiing. Tracer turns are where the weight is on one ski for turns in each direction, but the other ski remains in the "normal" position and just touches the snow. The focus is on what you do with the lower legs, not on moving the torso.

Yes. These kinds of drills are great for building one's dynamic balance envelope in support of independent leg action. Nothing more.
Independent leg balance is especially important when you get into tight situations and rotary is in play like in the bumps.

However, in the context of carving a turn, the inside leg plays a different role. It is the shortening of the inside leg that enables edge angles via angulation until the completion phase where the inside ski re-engages in preparation for transition.

And that is what kinda bothers me about the norwegian video. This is a skill building drill even though It visually portrays a carving situation on the inside ski.

 

[Kneale Brownson]

As JES says, it's a drill, not a way to ski.

 

[geepers]

Came to the conclusion a while ago that many drills have unwanted side effects. Thing is to understand the positive aspects and be alert to the unwanted.

@Smear (with a little assistance from MS voice over) and @razie posts help clarify the All Track's explanation. Razie's comment "there is no ... lateral displacement of the hips above the apex" seems especially relevant for those, like me, with that tendency to come to the inside too quickly. Do that with this drill and there's no 2nd inside leg to play catch.

Taking on MS's point about minimum lift of the new outside ski.

@Kneale Brownson , hopefully no-one is suggesting we ski this way!

 

[Seldomski]

My opinion ... this drill prevents/inhibits steering at the top of the new turn. Just tipping is possible. So when you add the other ski, you are still in the same mindset of tipping only + patience. No steering chopping off the top of the turn.

 

[geepers]

My opinion ... this drill prevents/inhibits steering at the top of the new turn. Just tipping is possible. So when you add the other ski, you are still in the same mindset of tipping only + patience. No steering chopping off the top of the turn.

Perhaps, although as Hetherington notes at the beginning this is an advanced drill and should only be introduced when comfortable with a one legged roller blade turn. By which stage twisting the ski should not be an issue.

 

[Doby Man]

Came to the conclusion a while ago that many drills have unwanted side effects. Thing is to understand the positive aspects and be alert to the unwanted.

@Smear (with a little assistance from MS voice over) and @razie posts help clarify the All Track's explanation. Razie's comment "there is no ... lateral displacement of the hips above the apex" seems especially relevant for those, like me, with that tendency to come to the inside too quickly. Do that with this drill and there's no 2nd inside leg to play catch.

Taking on MS's point about minimum lift of the new outside ski.

@Kneale Brownson , hopefully no-one is suggesting we ski this way!

Geepers, do you know what the hips are laterally displaced from? The term “displacement” references at least two points such as one thing or space is displaced by another thing or space, otherwise it is an incomplete statement. Let’s just skip past that lack of relevant inclusion and assume what is meant such that the lateral displacement of the hips are to the “feet”, (ultimately meaning, in the more relevant biomechanical context, CoM displacement to BoS as the hips are not exactly where the CoM is and the feet alone do not represent all that is the BoS ).

It makes no sense that there will be no lateral displacement of the hip to the feet, or the CoM to the BoS,”until apex” because the apex in turn phase two is where the maximum lateral displacement occurs such as illustrated below and therefore need time for that max displacement to build which happens in turn phase one or the initiation phase. So, in a “real” turn, such as the diagram below, it is not true at all that there is no “hip displacement” until apex, the presumption of which is quite inconsistent with any substantive alpine technical acumen. The only time that the hips and feet, or the CoM and BoS, are not “laterally displaced” is very briefly during transition, or turn phase “zero”. Regardless of all that, the Inside Out Turns video is not at all about hip displacement of any sort nor does he say anything of the like as well as he uses ample amounts of both inclination and angulation to perform the Inside Out Turns Drill. Maybe you are mistaken about which video tip you are talking about?

 

[Doby Man]

All the six basic one ski drills: 1. outside ski to outside ski, 2. outside ski to inside ski, 3. inside ski to outside ski, 4. inside ski to inside ski, 5. left ski only, 6. right ski only, challenge and develop the three main areas of athletic dev which is strength, balance and coordination. These six drills are listed in their general order of level of difficulty which is the path of progression. Other difficulty modifications with all these drills are progressing from doing them with a skidded turn to doing them with carved turns and with to without pole plants/use as well as the difficulty level modifications Hetherington mentions. Ultimately, this progression trains an advanced intermediate to carve turns at a more advanced level of technical skill. Some of the skills that the above one ski drills progression teaches is: 1. The ability to carve either the inside or outside ski at anytime in the turn 2. How to utilize significant use of the inside ski without dropping too much pressure to the inside. 3. A progressive, overlapping, inside/outside pressure distribution that builds and dissipates with the forces of the turn such as:

(not sure if the following chart will post with correct alignment) Edit: Nope, it didn't

Transition Phase One Phase two Phase Three Transition

Inside Ski: 50% 30 - 40% 10 - 20% 30 - 40% 50%

Outside Ski: 50% 70 - 60% 90 - 80% 70 - 60% 50%

Above we see a much more natural distribution of pressure, still very outside dominant, that is more aligned with the force of a turn for which a 100% pressure shift almost never is. Keep in mind that the first progression to making turns like these are learning outside single foot balance.

 

[geepers]

Geepers, do you know what the hips are laterally displaced from? The term “displacement” references at least two points such as one thing or space is displaced by another thing or space, otherwise it is an incomplete statement. Let’s just skip past that lack of relevant inclusion and assume what is meant such that the lateral displacement of the hips are to the “feet”, (ultimately meaning, in the more relevant biomechanical context, CoM displacement to BoS as the hips are not exactly where the CoM is and the feet alone do not represent all that is the BoS ).

It makes no sense that there will be no lateral displacement of the hip to the feet, or the CoM to the BoS,”until apex” because the apex in turn phase two is where the maximum lateral displacement occurs such as illustrated below and therefore need time for that max displacement to build which happens in turn phase one or the initiation phase. So, in a “real” turn, such as the diagram below, it is not true at all that there is no “hip displacement” until apex, the presumption of which is quite inconsistent with any substantive alpine technical acumen. The only time that the hips and feet, or the CoM and BoS, are not “laterally displaced” is very briefly during transition, or turn phase “zero”. Regardless of all that, the Inside Out Turns video is not at all about hip displacement of any sort nor does he say anything of the like as well as he uses ample amounts of both inclination and angulation to perform the Inside Out Turns Drill. Maybe you are mistaken about which video tip you are talking about?

I took the displacement to be relative to the position the hips would be if we were a rigid body, centrally positioned over one ski, and inclining to balance against the centripetal force of the turn.

About 3 seasons back a CSIA instructor told me we should always be moving in or moving out during a turn. Getting into a static lateral position is not the way to go. At the time I didn't understand what that really meant. If we are turning a constant radius corner in our car we don't keep winding the wheel in and out - we end up turning into the corner and then holding that steering until we need to steer out of the corner.

Of course I've now seen that wide S BoS, narrow S CoM diagram many times and had time to think about how the centripetal force waxes and wanes during a ski turn. So "always moving in or moving out" makes a great deal more sense.

Last year some-one who really does know his stuff (a member of this year's CSIA Interski team) said he thought one of the good things about my skiing was rapid edge to edge transitions. Unfortunately there's no such thing as a free lunch so I have a tendency to come to the inside too rapidly taking up too much lateral movement too quickly and ending up laterally static.

That drill is helping me fix that so I have some lateral movement remaining for when that centripetal force arrow in your diagram above is longest. The "patience" aspect of the drill. I don't think about arrows doing that drill - I think about balancing on the outside ski and I notice I'm still moving in later in the turn. It's the same feeling I get following exactly behind one of the CSIA L4s doing some advanced speed wide radius carving turns.

So, short version... I believe we are on the same page.

 

[razie]

I took the displacement to be relative to the position the hips would be if we were a rigid body, centrally positioned over one ski, and inclining to balance against the centripetal force of the turn.

Yup, that's what I meant.

 

[Average Joe]

Mikaela calls it "Norwegian drill" and used it as medicine against "hippy skiing".


So it promotes an "inclinded" without angulation position in the start of the turn and in the end of the turn it promotes increasing hip angulation/counter to help move over the ski and at the same time decreasing knee angulation to end the turn. So if hip angulation comes too early, this drill can help to delay it and at he same time make it stronger in the second half of the turn.

She advice against lifting the ski too high cause this will cause you to end up with reverse angulation at the top of the turn. Tipping the upper body into the turn, and at some point there is no need to tip the ski from legs either. Lifting lower keeps it closer to normal skiing and still possible to tip the feet at the top of the turn. And also important to put the outside ski down early enough to keep it closer to real skiing.

This video in a series of BMA drills that Mikaela narrated (with demo done by BMA students) are superb.

It's the finer elements of the video drill that make the difference.
Holding the outside ski just above the snow, instead of a straight legged inclined position, brings the hips closer to level, and the transfer to the other ski is smooth and balanced. And there is minimal upwards movement during transition/transfer.

Undoubtedly Mikaela practiced and perfected this drill, and was able to put it to good use to win her (so far) only Olympic Gold medal in SL: