yes there is a lot I agree. It can be like a golf swing with slightly different ways about it all and also we are all a little different. Even the best have some of their own version or style of what and how to. In part is why the only way one can describe things sometimes is to say 'its a feeling". A feeling of just knowing the forces are being applied in the right place at the right time.. Problem is,... that doesnt exactly help someone understand how to get there..lol and I'll let you know if I ever become perfect at it..lolThere are so many things one can attend to while skiing.
Shin-tongue pressure. Heel pressure.
1st met pressure. Ball-of-foot pressure. Ankle tipping.
Inside foot. Outside foot. Long leg. Short leg.
Dorsiflexion. Shovel grip. Tail grip. Ski bend.
Inside half. Outside half.
Turn completion. Turn initiation. Symmetry of turns.
Rhythm. Pulse. Float. Traffic. Obstacles. Line.
Wind in the ears. Song in the head. Joy in the heart.
But honestly, I think most people are not good at paying attention to a number of things at
once, despite what this guy below seems to be doing. We have to make choices about
what's most important. If ball-of-foot is your thing, you have lots of company. But there are
other things to focus on to stay forward. We've covered a bunch of them in this thread.
If there's something NSFW on these monitors, I didn't mean it.
I like this demonstration. It does bring home the bacon in some ways, indeed, I'm focusing more on my heels for a while now, than my BoF. BoF implies plantar-flexion and that is a compensation mechanism, not a getting forward mechanism. Heels also pull the boots back etc. The demo however also highlights an issue: when you're dug deep into the front of the cuff, your range of movement is over. You can't absorb anything, nor release the skis... in reality, you'll want to be off the cuffs by the apex, otherwise your release is botched.
---
Especially on the steeps, getting forward is not a matter of... well, "getting forward". It is a matter of being able to release the skis in a way that allows the COM/hips to travel down the hill and ahead of the boots. Anything else will be artificial and you won't really be "usefully forward" if you botch the release, no matter how hard you try.
You may find that this simple thought will "put" you forward again and able to keep the skis underneath you and controllable, on the steeps.
cheers
I can agree somewhat. Its really about balance, movements creating energy, and applying forces to meet that built energy in the right places at the right times. Not sure if that made sense but..lol..it sounded good while I thought it. But hence part of the problem as its not so easy to explain but needs to be felt in order to best understand it imo.I dont think it is a "keep your weight forward" thing at all. It is a put your weight on your whole ski thing.
The mental problem that you have to get around is that if you are standing on a slope, to be balanced, you stand up straight putting the hill at a angle to your feet.
To keep your weight on your skis, you have to overcome the desire to stand, and get your weight on the whole of the skis. When you do that, the control comes screaming up and slaps you in the face and yells "SEE, I TOLD YOU SO"
I like to think of it as simply to say "READY" and not defensive or aggressive individually but actually both.In non technical lingo, from a non-instructor who will probably always struggle with this issue: I like to feel my shins against the boot cuffs. I'm not saying fully closing the ankles, but definitely touching the cuffs.
The second I don't, I pull my legs back and try to turn shoulders down the fall line. I've found that as soon as my shoulders start twisting then I'm back on my heels. The other thing I do is take a half-second to raise both my tails at the same time heading down the fall line -- to do that you have to pressure the tips, and gravity pushes my upper body ahead of my lower half.
But, as I said, this is my bugbear, as it is for most intermediates. I agree that it's not so much "weight forward" as "centered and balanced." You're in that "defensive crouch" that you find in every sport, ready to react to any challenge and move in any direction.
Then he took a broom handle and stuck in down into the boot, pressing its end downward where the heel of the foot would be. He tilted the whole broom handle forward so it pressed into the front of the cuff at the same time. When the two volunteers tried to lift their ends of the ski, neither was successful. Both the shovel and the tail were "pressured" downwards. The heel pressure came from the end of the broomstick, and the shovel pressure came from the front-of-cuff pressure. Note: there was NO ball-of-foot pressure; nothing was in the boot in that area. Worth repeating: no ball-of-foot pressure at all.
His point: you can give both ends of the ski a chance to grip the snow if you stand on the rear of your foot while successfully pressing forward into the front of the boot cuff. Doing that involves "closing" the ankle, which moves the entire body from the ankle up forward -- all that weight causes the lower leg to press into the boot cuff which keeps the shovel weighted.
but are not different skis with bindings more or less forward/back?If we want to apply pressure to the center of the ski, something everybody seems to agree upon, then the ball of foot is what is over the center of the ski. Period. Even isolating pressure to the arch is, architecturally, back seat over the ski. Therefore, applying any pressure to the heel that is more pressure than what is over the ball of foot puts the skier in the back seat. Now, that is OK for the skier who works the ski fore-to-aft to get a higher level of carving performance out of the ski and riding the tail a bit in turn phase three, that of which, however, is a level of skiing beyond most of “today’s - shaped ski” advanced intermediate skiers. That said, even many or most of today’s expert skiers on shaped skis are skiing “only” from the center.
Focussing on only cuff and heel pressure eliminates much of the anatomy that expert skiers use to control ski pressure along the ski. When we compare the fore-aft leverage we get over the ski from A. cuff to heel and B. from cuff to ball of foot, only the cuff to ball can provide leverage simply because we can pressure the cuff and ball at the same time. Though, when we try to pressure the front cuff and heel at the same time, we find that, in “reality” this is not possible. We cannot obtain nearly as much fore/aft leverage over the ski because we have to have pressure on both points with which to create that leverage.
Therefore, applying any pressure to the heel that is more pressure than what is over the ball of foot puts the skier in the back seat.
Nope.If we want to apply pressure to the center of the ski, something everybody seems to agree upon, then the ball of foot is what is over the center of the ski. Period. Even isolating pressure to the arch is, architecturally, back seat over the ski. Therefore, applying any pressure to the heel that is more pressure than what is over the ball of foot puts the skier in the back seat. Now, that is OK for the skier who works the ski fore-to-aft to get a higher level of carving performance out of the ski and riding the tail a bit in turn phase three, that of which, however, is a level of skiing beyond most of “today’s - shaped ski” advanced intermediate skiers. That said, even many or most of today’s expert skiers on shaped skis are skiing “only” from the center.
Focussing on only cuff and heel pressure eliminates much of the anatomy that expert skiers use to control ski pressure along the ski. When we compare the fore-aft leverage we get over the ski from A. cuff to heel and B. from cuff to ball of foot, only the cuff to ball can provide leverage simply because we can pressure the cuff and ball at the same time. Though, when we try to pressure the front cuff and heel at the same time, we find that, in “reality” this is not possible. We cannot obtain nearly as much fore/aft leverage over the ski because we have to have pressure on both points with which to create that leverage.
You don’t apply pressure. The snow reaction force applies pressure to you. !
You don’t apply pressure. The snow reaction force applies pressure to you. The only question is whether or not you are properly aligned to deal with it. If you are, that force vector passes directly along the tibial axis which means that you feel it where the tibia intersects with the foot - just forward of the heel. Ron Kipp actually explains this pretty clearly in the video you linked.
Don’t worry LiquidFeet, you and Matt Boyd aren’t wrong!
But the reaction force/s are only created by your initial applied pressure (or force/s). The snow is just sitting there until we come by and place forces on/into it and in turn we receive that back. So we are applying and creating the pressure (or force/s).