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[Jamt]

Kind of like a white pass turn?

http://www.psia-c.org/white-pass-turn/

Can't remember having tried those. I think I can see how that might smooth out the transition issues. Can't wait to try. Will do on Saturday.

I'm pretty good at little toe edge turns on my right ski, but suck bad with the left ski. Feels like I'm more often ending up tilting the pelvis inside (viewed laterally) on the left leg turns little toe edge turns but manage to keep the pevis level on the right leg little toe edge turn. Curious to see if that drill will feel very in left and right hand turns.

Similar, but I want the weight shift to be made faster at the fall line so that you lift the new inside already at the fall line. Otherwise you will be tempted to initiate the transition by pushing on the inside and THEN lifting it. There is tendency in the demo that this happens.

Javelin turns with counter would be another good drill for you.

 

[Smear]

You drive a lot of your skiing by extending the inside leg before transition. Try the opposite. End the turn completely balanced on the outside ski, and balance on that ski all the way until you are in the fall line in the next turn. Then you switch weight to the new outside ski and repeat. I think it would be a good drill for you.

If you do the transition this way and lead the upper body out over the outside ski, leading with the inside hip, you will learn something about outside balance AND ending the turn facing down (see my signature below)

Doing that slow I guess will force me to use hip angulation (facilitated by counter) to manipulate balance until tipping over and by that letting COM and ski swap side. Instead of using pushing off the inside ski to power the tipping over to the new turn.

Kind of analogous to using early weight transfer to kill off a compulsory stem. Can't stem a weighted ski. But this time killing off a compulsory ILE. Can't push off a ski that doesn't have contact with the ground. I like in theory. I want to ski NOW. But the ski area closes in 50 min. Actually live close enough to get dressed, ready and ski one run but that would be a bit too silly....

 

[Smear]

A bit of experimenting today while cruising around for 5 hours with my 6 year old. She somehow never got tired so we just kept going and going until it was stop. Then she was really tired

I realize now how much I use early weight transfer as a sort of defense against bad skiing, especially at low speed and low edge angles. I think @Jamt is right that I often use a very abrupt inside leg extension too accomplish the early weight transfer. Tried to exaggerate that further and it felt very familiar. Can really relate the feeling of doing that to what I see in the videos.

In videos above I think it lead to very unsmooth skiing, especially MA1 up to 0:10 and very start of MA2.

Tried today to focus on still using early weigh transfer but to transfer it to a bent inside leg, which I guess mean relying more on outside leg flexion to accomplish the weight transfer. Combined with some discipline too not let the inside foot slide too far forward before transferring weight to it. Kind of worked, but a sometimes lead to a permanently low position. Need to let the legs extend later. Can't have flexion without extension.

Also tried not using early weight transfer at all in an extreme sense by trying the drill suggested by Jamt.

You drive a lot of your skiing by extending the inside leg before transition. Try the opposite. End the turn completely balanced on the outside ski, and balance on that ski all the way until you are in the fall line in the next turn. Then you switch weight to the new outside ski and repeat. I think it would be a good drill for you.

The drill really challenged my inability to time stuff in ski turns. Need to work more on that... Worked in larger turn, and a mess in shorter turns. As mentioned before.

Not too sure about being a dream student. Lot of unconscious ingrained habits and I'm horrible at trying to change things that should be changed at a specific time in the turn sequence. I have no conscious sense of timing when it comes to ski technique... I got where I am by just skiing a lot.

I think I need to become more aware on when I'm using early weight transfer and the effect it has on my skiing (sometimes good) vs letting the weight transfer happen more naturally (also sometimes good but different). And when using inside leg extension (sometimes good too) to tone down the abruptness of it.

Separation. Not much carving today but lots of low angle skidded turns. A preoccupation with roundness (not cutting top) and not forcing the skis around in "brushed" turns really hurts my ability to have rotational separation. Need to put the rotational separation back in while keeping the roundness and not forcing. Freeing up those femurs in the hip socket without forcing the turns. Hopefully that will transfer to better separation in the carved turns too.

 

[markojp]

A preoccupation with roundness (not cutting top) and not forcing the skis around in "brushed" turns really hurts my ability to have rotational separation. Need to put the rotational separation back in while keeping the roundness and not forcing. Freeing up those femurs in the hip socket without forcing the turns. Hopefully that will transfer to better separation in the carved turns too.

Generally any one ski skiing drills (javelin, white pass, outside ski to outside ski, etc...) will be a big help for someone with some nicely developing skills who is still chronically (not terminally by any means though! You're doing great with turn shape, etc...) back and inside as evidenced by the diversion the path of your skis and exaggerated ski lead after apex, and the push off to to get to the new outside ski. This works for a lot of folks, and indeed, many are completely satisfied with this until they challenge themselves with more variable terrain and conditions a la steeps, crud, bumps, powder, hard snow, and the like. All that tasty ungroomed in your vids would be a great place to test yourself from time to time.

One thing no one has mentioned is that you drop the inside pelvis/femur head toward the snow in every turn. While doing some outside ski to outside ski work, try to imagine the new inside 'femis'* stays the same distance from the snow as the outside through the arc. Applied to Josh's white pass turns in terms of what I'm talking about, try dropping the 'femis' and deliberately/accurately 'place' the outside ski on the snow at apex. You'll land 'angulated' over the new outside ski and ready to move across and flatten rather than push off your outside ski in transition later in the arc. When we're able to move across your outside foot just letting gravity do it's wonders pulling our CoM over our feet, or as Josh says, letting the outside ski cross beneath us, you'll be managing rather than creating forces, and alpine turns become so easy they should come with a cup holder!

Now all the above is said with the caveat that this can easily be misinterpreted. We also never stop skiing/feeling from out feet to begin and refine movements, but sometimes we have to develop an awareness of where our big joints need to be to successfully stack and align ourselves over those great tipping feet to maintain dynamic balance and accurately manage the forces pushing against us.

Anyhow, enough for now!


* 'femis' is a word I first heard yesterday while skiing with a friend and got a chuckle. It's a shorthand for the joint where femur head and pelvis meet. If you have two legs, you have have two of'em, so we can talk about them as 'inside' and 'outside' just like we do with pretty much everything else in bipedal skiing.

(Edited for simplification)

 

[Fuller]

I like the inside butt cheek cue, I hope I can remember it 9 months from now...

 

[Smear]

Hi,

Thanks for your perspective. Have enjoyed reading your posts over the years, respect your opinions and was hoping you would chime in

The dropping of the inside pelvis/femur head sounds familiar. I think I often manage to have the shoulders somewhat level and facing down the hill in the second half of the turn, but then inside "femis" is dropped and pelvis facing to much inside. Appearing to have counter and angulation because of the shoulders, but then not really... Suspect those two are related, that it's easier to have the pelvis pointed towards the outside when the inside "femis" is not dropped and vice versa. Will try working on both and see what happens.

All that tasty ungroomed in your vids would be a great place to test yourself from time to time.

Yes It's looking very tasty in the video, doesn't it. But very deceiving. Lots of fresh snow, then turned into rain up to high elevation. Then complete weather shift with 7 days bluebird and very cold nights. The joys of a coastal climate. Cold enough that only the steepest sections at low elevation, facing directly towards the afternoon sun would get a little bit soft in the crust. Above rain line accessed through skinning it was delightful, and there was still 1000m vertically from rain line to the top of most mountains in the region. Only got one skinning tour in during Easter but will live on that for a long time

Applied to Josh's white pass turns in terms of what I'm talking about, try dropping the 'femis' and deliberately/accurately 'place' the outside ski on the snow at apex. You'll land 'angulated' over the new outside ski and ready to move across and flatten rather than push off your outside ski in transition later in the arc. When we're able to move across your outside foot just letting gravity do it's wonders pulling our CoM over our feet, or as Josh says, letting the outside ski cross beneath us, you'll be managing rather than creating forces, and alpine turns become so easy they should come with a cup holder!

At the moment I have more than enough getting the outside ski down at approximate correct timing. Not much mental energy left for moving correctly. The falline comes awfully fast. But challenge accepted. Seem like a great drill when it's getting there.. Riding around on the little toe edge kind of promotes inclination or even reverse angulation (when you want to skid). But when putting the outside ski down early and moving and eventually crossing over that ski by angulation, it has many aspects of good skiing. Going from inclination to angulation and increasing that angulation to the very end of the turn. And it probably gives lots of "balance estimation training" for estimating transitions that is needed in good skiing in a very condensed format. I understand it in theory, I think... Execution is another matter.

BTW It was @Jamt not @Josh Matta. Josh is stuck on a groomer somewhere trying to do one-footed brushed turns without additional contact points. Or sitting in front of the computer searching for youtube clips.

 

[Superbman]

Kind of like a white pass turn?

http://www.psia-c.org/white-pass-turn/

A bit more fluid with Josh Foster:

Can't remember having tried those. I think I can see how that might smooth out the transition issues. Can't wait to try. Will do on Saturday.

I'm pretty good at little toe edge turns on my right ski, but suck bad with the left ski. Feels like I'm more often ending up tilting the pelvis inside (viewed laterally) on the left leg turns little toe edge turns but manage to keep the pelvis more level on the right leg little toe edge turn. Curious to see if that drill will feel very in left and right hand turns.

I think he meant this Josh.... Man I never get tired of Josh Fosters Ski Tips, Good post.

 

[markojp]

I think he meant this Josh.... Man I never get tired of Josh Fosters Ski Tips, Good post.

Yes, Josh Foster's wp turns.

 

[PTskier]

To me pulling the inside foot back and tipping it into the turn would be skiing more two footed.

These are steps 2 & 3. Step #1 is to lighten the inside foot and keep it lightened by continuing to flex the inside leg more and more as the turn progresses.

Smear, all good skiing starts with the feet. The upper body amplifies what the feet are accomplishing. Get the feet doing the right thing, then add upper body movements. A good drill for the footwork is, at the transition, lift the tail of the downhill ski an inch or two off the snow, just the tail and just that much, then make the turn. Keep the tail an inch off the snow. Totally balance on the outside ski. Take your time, don't go too steep until you're ready for it, and be sure to lift the tail of the new inside ski before you begin the new turn.

For flailing arms, try skiing with your poles held across your body in both hands, palms up, hands wide. Ski with your feet and calm your arms. Keep your feet moving correctly, keep your arms calm, and add upper body movements. Another good drill is without poles with your hands on your hips, thumbs forward (to bring the shoulders forward). This also greatly helps the skier feel and see how their hips are twisting for the counter.

 

[razie]

\One thing no one has mentioned is that you drop the inside pelvis/femur head toward the snow in every turn.

Hey... here's what I said, even before you said that:

anyways, like markojp says, don't drop the inside hip

 

[Smear]

I'm lucky enough to have started the season with some GS-skiing on a glacier No video, but made animated GIF's out of some serial images.

Felt fine on hard snow but I really struggled to make tight turns on the grey-blue stuff. Still have lots of work to do to get that inside hip up and forward, keep the inside ski edged and not let the inside ski slip forward.

Made a carpet slope this summer to try to ingrain better angulation movements, but too absorbed with mountain biking to bother using it. Now I'm enough stoked on skiing to actually start using it. Around 4 weeks until the season starts for real.

Bought protection shirt and wrist guards on the way home and will try to get closer to the gates and get that inside hand up and forward. Hope that will save me a lot of time. Until now I have skied with a helmet as the only protection and skied far away from the gates like in the pictures above.

 

[Nancy Hummel]

Looks fun. Do you feel your outside ski slipping away at the 2nd half of the turn?
Try flexing your new inside knee earlier in the turn and stop leaning the upper body to the inside. This will allow your weight to go to the outside ski and you will have edge engagement of both skis.

 

[Doby Man]

Like not seeing the forest for the trees, you are not seeing the race course for the gates. Don’t worry about your proximity to the gates until you can first ski the line that will bring you to them.

Also, I recommend that, instead of your primary objective being that of manipulating gross body movements to control the ski, that you build your turn from the ski up. First ask yourself what it is exactly you need “both” skis to do regarding tipping, edging and pressure control. Secondly, ask yourself what your feet and ankles need to do to make that happen. Third, ask yourself where your center of mass needs to be to support and give power to the ankle/foot. Lastly, what rotation, flexion, angulation and inclination is required for that CoM position throughout the turn. When we first focus on what we want the ski to do and train our feet and ankles as the primary objective to make this happen, we find that many of our fundamental movements will naturally occur without nearly as much focus required. We want to work from the closed end of the chain at the bottom, to the open end of the chain at the top. When we work our movements from the top down, we are working from the open end of the chain to the closed end of the chain where kinesthetic options are grinded to a halt like trying to snap a whip from the wrong end.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....Also, I recommend that, instead of your primary objective being that of manipulating gross body movements to control the ski, that you build your turn from the ski up. First ask yourself what it is exactly you need “both” skis to do regarding tipping, edging and pressure control. Secondly, ask yourself what your feet and ankles need to do to make that happen. Third, ask yourself where your center of mass needs to be to support and give power to the ankle/foot. Lastly, what rotation, flexion, angulation and inclination is required for that CoM position throughout the turn. When we first focus on what we want the ski to do and train our feet and ankles as the primary objective to make this happen, we find that many of our fundamental movements will naturally occur without nearly as much focus required. We want to work from the closed end of the chain at the bottom, to the open end of the chain at the top. When we work our movements from the top down, we are working from the open end of the chain to the closed end of the chain where kinesthetic options are grinded to a halt like trying to snap a whip from the wrong end.

^Best. Ever. description of why to focus on feet/ankles first.

 

[L&AirC]

Smear,

You've gotten some great feedback and like others have said, you're doing well and most of what needs fixing can be done without great effort, but they will take time to work out.


One of the things that stuck out to me when I first watched your videos, is that you ski inside leg to inside leg. Picture a person walking up a flight of stairs taking two steps (only to get a longer stride) at a time on a spiral staircase. You also need to pretend it is a magical Harry Potter type of spiral staircase that changes direction after each step. Pretending the spiral first goes counter clockwise (left) and their right foot (outside leg) just landed on a step. They now push off with their right foot as they are turning to their left. This is similar to what you should be feeling and doing on a left turn. I'm not saying you should push off with your outside leg. I am saying that the majority of your weight should be felt on your outside leg and you should be able to pick up your inside leg and not fall (like changing steps on the stairs). Think of it more as skiing from outside ski to outside ski. I think if you go back and watch the video with that in mind, you see you are going inside ski to inside ski.


I took a snippit of one of your turns and added some lines. Apologies for crooked lines but you should be able to see what I’m talking about. The red lines are what I see you doing, and the blue lines are what you should be doing. What I couldn’t draw is that your upper body needs to be facing down hill and not the side of the trail.

Though not from the same angles, I also grabbed a snipit of JF from about the same point in the turn. You can see where you are looking (top red arrow) and where you should be looking (top blue arrow). You can kind of tell that JF is doing that. It doesn’t need to be a laser focus and alignment, but you get the idea. You can see his upper torso is squarer to his general direction of travel (downhill) and not following his skis (across the hill). Just doing that will probably fix the next two lines (shoulder and waist).

Now look at your feet and legs. The red arrow pointing down has the majority of your weight as compared to JF’s feet. He could pick up his inside leg and continue to ski. If you wanted to pick up your inside leg, you would first have to transfer all the weight to the outside ski. This is also why I think the image of climbing stairs on the inside leg comes to mind. You need to eventually do this, but you should be out of the turn and into transition when the transfer of weight to the inside/uphill ski is happening. You do this because the inside/uphill ski is becoming the outside ski and you need to get the weight there. Remember, don’t push – weight it.

I’ll admit that getting the inside ski out from under is a leap of faith. Sort of like getting rid of training wheels. You have to trust is will work and you can still hold an edge.

 

[Josh Matta]

Telemark skiing is not really like alpine skiing.....

in alpine skiing the separation of the upper and low body comes from the Femur to pelvis bone joint(hip socket) is telemark its a combination of that and the lower spine. Also alpine skiers should be balanced on the outside foot where as Tele is very close to 50/50.

The alignment being shown is pretty "soft" ie the your on your inside edges basically all the time which makes it difficult to get any real grip or energy from your outside ski. This cause you to rotate and push off the outside ski instead of flow from on stance ski to the other stance ski. correcting that alignment issue via boot canting and then learning how to ski on each foot separately one at a time will basically correct 99 percent of the not great movement patterns being seen and build on all the good stuff you are already doing.

Some questions for you @Smear .

Do you push on your outside foot or do you balance on it?

still havent done a brushed one footed turn with no additional contact points or seen anyone else do so

 

[Smear]

Telemark skiing is not really like alpine skiing.....

in alpine skiing the separation of the upper and low body comes from the Femur to pelvis bone joint(hip socket) is telemark its a combination of that and the lower spine. Also alpine skiers should be balanced on the outside foot where as Tele is very close to 50/50.

Well, also in telemark skiing it's important not to let the inside hip get to far behind. Doing all the separation with the spine, is a common fault in my opinion and leads to a really weak position. In my mind the telemark position makes keeping the inside hip forward even more challenging, foot back, hip forward. And 50/50 weight distribution on hard snow doesn't work very on telemark either. But agree that in telemark in general it makes sense to have more weight on the inside ski compared to alpine skiing.

The alignment being shown is pretty "soft" ie the your on your inside edges basically all the time which makes it difficult to get any real grip or energy from your outside ski. This cause you to rotate and push off the outside ski instead of flow from on stance ski to the other stance ski. correcting that alignment issue via boot canting and then learning how to ski on each foot separately one at a time will basically correct 99 percent of the not great movement patterns being seen and build on all the good stuff you are already doing.

Thanks for the alignment comments. I think I also see a overrotated outside knee issue in many frames. Also got feedback form other sources to try a less "soft" alignment. Going to try to align the knees 0,5-1 degree further out. Have cantco shims under the binding and left/right ski. Curious to see If that still feels good, not hooky at the top of the turn and not chattering. Did I understand your comments correctly?

Our local green groomer usually opens weeks before the rest, so there will be plenty of time and place to practice one-legged skiing. And I think that's a good way to start the season.

Some questions for you @Smear .

Do you push on your outside foot or do you balance on it?

I try to balance on it ;-) In the video I see more pushing off the old inside ski. Do you have a specific time-point in the video where the pushing on outside foot is prominent?

 

[Josh Matta]

On the alignment, you are for sure understanding, but you should cant the boots and not the between the ski and bindings if possible. It not possible then between the binding and skis does the same thing but forces you to have a L and R ski. From my eyes it looks closer to 1.5 -2.0.

You may start to feel the inside ski get hooky as you get closer to an "O" frame but the simple solution is to just take more balance off that inside ski quicker into the turn. This is somewhere between opinion and fact but I believe the best alignment is to have it ever so slightly "O" framed when running straight. This lets the outside ski grip the best when the skis are tipped on to edge.

 

[Smear]

On the alignment, you are for sure understanding, but you should cant the boots and not the between the ski and bindings if possible. It not possible then between the binding and skis does the same thing but forces you to have a L and R ski.

Yes the L and R ski thing sometimes suck. Like after carefully turning and sideslipping one time down this slope:

And then the edges would be kind of dull, and it sucked not to be able change skis and get a fresh set of outside edges... The people running gs-gates on that slopes are doing a different type of sport than what I'm doing ;-)

Will consider fixing it on the boots when I have something that I know works. Or get new boots from a bootfitter.

You may start to feel the inside ski get hooky as you get closer to an "O" frame but the simple solution is to just take more balance off that inside ski quicker into the turn. This is somewhere between opinion and fact but I believe the best alignment is to have it ever so slightly "O" framed when running straight. This lets the outside ski grip the best when the skis are tipped on to edge.

More concerned that outside ski will feel hooky after moving the knees out?

 

[razie]

Two things: one technical and one tactical.

In your second sequence, pay attention to the new outside leg when the skis are flat: it is already long and locked, even before you switch the edges! There is nothing you can do with your feet or knees at that point, not as much because of the weight but also because they can't tip the boot anymore - all you can do is drop the hips and drag the skis on edge that way, basically skiing with the upper body! That's very slow and it impairs balance. Bend ze kneez, otherwise, you can focus on the feet all you want and they won't help! The outside leg should be long and strong only at the apex, otherwise continuously shortening and lengthening throughout the turn.

Second - tactical, line: look at your first sequence and see that you're going straight at the gate, which makes you end the turn well below the gate and leaves no time for the next gate, where you'll be even more late etc. Never aim at the gate. Aim two ski lengths above the gate - that's where you turn!

^Best. Ever. description of why to focus on feet/ankles first.

A good description as to why some movements should be considered primary and some secondary, but if you look at the kinetic chain, in transition, the chain should be open at both ends, unless you're standing on the ski already as the OP does - which is not optimal: it's a lot harder for the feet to do anything, when they're under all that weight and pressure!

Basically, it's hard to tip the ski on edge if you're already pressuring it:

The kinetic chain is not just a vertical notion, thinking that as long as you have snow under the feet, it is closed at that end is true only if you're bouncing up and down and never "floating"... not true for tipping - if it were, you could not tip the skis on edge at all!

JF Beaulieu has a good piece on this, part of the Projected productions - How to Ski series, "Resistance", where he explains the need for relaxation (bend the kneez) etc. Strongly recommended!