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Josh Matta

Skiing the powder
Pass Pulled
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Dec 21, 2015
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4,123
so then why do the knees being together have to do with ski performance?
 

geepers

Skiing the powder
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May 12, 2018
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Location
Wanaka, New Zealand
Speaking of Karpy, check out this page of his on mogul skiing.
http://bumpbusters.com/bb-packet.html

Good find. There's some interesting info in those pages. It's well worth reading. Does appear that those camps teach a variety of approaches to bumps.

Tip 1 - There are (5) primary techniques to ski moguls and the lines within them. The trick; learning each
one, applying it to the terrain, and to mix and match techniques as the terrain changes and steepens.

(1) Around The Mogul, a turn that is smaller than the radius of the trough. The size of your
turn is the same size as the mogul. Starting at the head (Flat Top) of the bump, finishing at the tail or
new head of next bump downhill. Initiate your turn on the flat, snowy top of the mogul, steering the,
inside ski (left to go left, right to go right). Pivoting the skis to perpendicular or more to the fall line following
the shape of the mogul, using the shoulder of the bump to scrub speed to the flat top of a designated mogul below.
Where you will regain balance and initiate your next turn. Using very soft drifting edges throughout the turn,
balance creates necessary edge angle. This is usually a 10 to 15 foot corridor. This is the slowest form of mogul skiing.
Creating patience rather than fast reflexes. Also the foundation of Bump skiing.

The others are: Bank Turns; Trough; Skip & Rip; Zipper Line.

Also, this is probably relevant:
Tip 4 - We sit down in front of the TV and watch your Men and Women absolutely rip mogul courses at the Olympic
Games and say, "I want to do what they do". But since they train 4 hours a day in the gym, 5 hours a day
on the mountain 275 days a year, lets rethink. Hate to say it but age and fitness HAS TO BE CONSIDERED
when choosing your techniques for bump skiing. Any age/fitness person can run the local Nastar course over
and over again. Those same people won't even attempt one run on a similar mogul run. Conventional thinking
says that the way you are suppose to ski a bump run is to ski the troughs between the moguls, that can be a
good strategy if you are in your 20's or 30's some 40's a just a few older folks. But not being the best approach
in most cases if you are in your 40's, 50's 60's or older.
Here are a couple of reasons why: First skiing the troughs are the third fastest route through the bumps, just behind
Skip & Rip and the driving Zipper Line. It requires, strength, endurance, and very fast reflexes. The other, if your
mogul skiing is based upon power and fast reflexes, then you run into a huge problem. As the pitch of the hill increases
causing your reflexes to be even faster, relying on more power.

There are a great many more tips to do with technique, tactics and equipment. Like this:

Tip 10 - This will be controversial, because it is not conventional thinking, but here we go. Determining the appropriate length of your skis has little to do with your height and weight - unless your goal is to ski fast. If you are an aging Baby Boomer, selecting the length of your skis should be a function of two things: your age and the number of days you ski each year. The older you are and/or the fewer number of days you ski each season are all arguments for shorter skis. Now "short" is a relative term. Skiers who used to ski on 210cm skis and who now ski on 180cm skis think they are on short skis. But, when we say short, we mean short. If you are skiing in-bounds in a ski area, with today's ski technology, we find that there is no penalty for skiing shorter skis. You gain much more maneuverability and because a shorter ski length typically correlates with a smaller turn radius, a shorter ski spends less time in the fall line, which means that the skier is not going as fast and, which, in turn, lowers anxiety. These are all desirable benefits if you are a Boomer skiing in moguls and powder. Let's re-calibrate your thinking about ski length. For aging Boomers (age 50+) we are seeing great results with mid-fat skis in a 150cm - 160cm length for men and 146cm - 150cm for women

Tip 50 - Many mogul skiing lessons emphasize that mastering "flexion", "extension" and "absorption" movements are an essential prerequisite to good mogul skiing. While basic "flexion", "extension" and "absorption" movements are obviously necessary for skiing on any terrain we do not share the opinion that your ability to master these skills is the major determining factor in your ability to ski the bumps. Why? The answer is that "flexion", "extension" and "absorption" movements become more important the faster and more aggressively you ski a mogul run. Conversely, "flexion", "extension" and "absorption" movements become less important the slower and less aggressively you ski a mogul run. BumpBusters techniques enable you to maintain a balanced, centered stance and avoid being launched (the goal of "flexion", "extension" and "absorption" movements) by using proper routes and wider skiing corridors in combination with less edge angle (drifting) to maintain speed control.


Pages of these tips.
 

geepers

Skiing the powder
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Wanaka, New Zealand
^ Standby for how that's not really mogul skiing...

Ok, to head off any claim of bias I'll post this.

Here's an example of folk with less than stellar athletic abilities skiing a direct line.

As skiers we can get off the development path anywhere between this and Micheal Kingsbury, depending on our desires and latent physical abilities. It won't get us down every bump field - need room for the ski tails - but I expect it can be applied many places.

Youtube is filled with examples like this. Seems to be more common in Asia - don't see much of this coming from Nth America and Australia. Maybe they don't post as much.
 

Mike King

AKA Habacomike
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Louisville CO/Aspen Snowmass
As pointed out by @Noodler, Plake and Carmicheal establish their skill before joining PSIA, Stephen Karp was a competitive mogul skier in another place and time.

"Karpy has skied competitive moguls on the USSA Eastern & Far West Mogul Tour for four years, going to Nationals twice, and on the "World Pro Mogul Tour", "Toyota Mogul Tour", Budweiser Mogul Tour", "Red Bull Mogul Tour", over a nine year run. Working his way into the upper rankings. Now as an Certified Instructor at Copper Mountain Ski & Ride School high in the Colorado Rockies, and the founder and Head Instructor/Coach of "Bump Busters Mogul Camps" "

As with all three, its safe to say going thru the PSIA cert training did not get them the skills and techniques to ski a direct line.
Nope, but it might have taught them how to teach and coach.
 

jack97

Out on the slopes
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Nope, but it might have taught them how to teach and coach.

Keyword is might. I have an alternate suggestion for those who seek to learn the skills and techniques to ski a direct line, USSA coaches. Places that have a freestyle team will have former competitive mogul skiers, in addition would require them to have the proper cert.

A couple of local areas I go to have them ad they seem pretty cool guys. all have let me use their course, every now and then would shout out a pointer as I go down,
 

markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
Industry Insider
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PNW aka SEA
As pointed out by @Noodler, Plake and Carmicheal establish their skill before joining PSIA, Stephen Karp was a competitive mogul skier in another place and time.

"Karpy has skied competitive moguls on the USSA Eastern & Far West Mogul Tour for four years, going to Nationals twice, and on the "World Pro Mogul Tour", "Toyota Mogul Tour", Budweiser Mogul Tour", "Red Bull Mogul Tour", over a nine year run. Working his way into the upper rankings. Now as an Certified Instructor at Copper Mountain Ski & Ride School high in the Colorado Rockies, and the founder and Head Instructor/Coach of "Bump Busters Mogul Camps" "

As with all three, its safe to say going thru the PSIA cert training did not get them the skills and techniques to ski a direct line.

FWIW, there are many in the PSIA world that didn't learn their skills there, and PSIA doesn't really care. If one already has skills, they're more than welcome. Deb Armstrong certainly comes to mind.
 

James

Out There
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Dec 2, 2015
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24,453
Ok, to head off any claim of bias I'll post this.

Here's an example of folk with less than stellar athletic abilities skiing a direct line.

As skiers we can get off the development path anywhere between this and Micheal Kingsbury, depending on our desires and latent physical abilities. It won't get us down every bump field - need room for the ski tails - but I expect it can be applied many places.
Not sure the point of that example. So, "direct line", (if that's what we're calling when skis are at 90 deg to fall line), no matter how bad is better than anything else?
 

Seldomski

All words are made up
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Sep 25, 2017
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Location
'mericuh
I don't think he was saying it was better or best method, just giving an example for progression towards zipper line. I find it interesting to see the technique applied at low speed in competition style bump.
 

Seldomski

All words are made up
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'mericuh
I asked @locknload about this clinic a couple years ago. I haven't seem him/her post recently, so maybe they moved on. Responses to my PM below:

1) What ages are at the camp? I am XX yrs old and wondering if this camp is mostly for young kids and/or olympic hopefuls...
All ages were present at the camp from 22 yr olds up to 60 yr olds. I wouldn't use age as any determination for whether its a good camp for you. The main question should be: "Do I ski moguls the way I really want to AND am I really open to setting aside my ego and own ideas to go learn from olympic-caliber mogul skiers to begin to ski much better on the moguls than I do now?". If the answer is yes...then momentum is for you.


2) Is the camp on competition/manufactured bumps or natural moguls?
In the summertime, the camp was on manufactured bumps, however, they were manufactured not by machine, but by the coaches digging and shaping the course into moguls that were good enough to teach what they wanted to teach.

3) Was the camp fun? Would you do it again knowing what you do now?
It was incredible!! I learned so much and advanced my skiing (not just mogul skiing) light years. I am so much further along now after having learned the concepts from those amazing instructors. I should have taken it 20 yrs ago..that's my only regret. I understand how to ski well so much better than I did before.

4) For skis - does it really matter what you have? Are all mountain skis OK or should I rent something specific?
I skied on all mountain skis when I was there like many other students. Many students had mogul skis. You can rent mogul skis at many of the shops in the village and my recommendation would be to rent mogul skis if you can to maximize the work in the bumps. If for some reason you can't or you find them difficult to find, use your narrowest all mountain skis and don't get deluded into thinking the skis are the main thing holding you back. For all of us...its our own skills and ability that hold us back in the bumps.


5) Is the instruction quality good? Is it similar/better than a typical advanced group lesson at Whistler?
The instruction is WAY better then any lesson I've ever had anywhere. They break down the fundamentals of strong skiing--in the moguls and elsewhere--so that you understand the "why" behind the "what". No one had ever done that before to me in a way that made sense. I received mostly of a collection of tips from other ski instructors instead of an entire APPROACH to skiing the bumps that I got at momentum. The only bad part is that 2 days won't be nearly enough time to really work on what you learn.


6) Have you done the Extremely Canadian camp at Whistler? Did you like it more/less compared to Momentum Mogul?
See above. I'm sure extremely Canadian is great...but I wanted to learn to ski bumps which is a specific skill. While I'm still not a great mogul skier, I am MUCH better than I was before. the only thing holding me back no is not getting enough repetitions.

Bottom line:
This was the single best investment I have ever made in my skiing. My skill and confident level are significantly higher than they ever would have been AND I now know how to keep working on my skiing. I would definitely go again but time, family commitments and distance have made it harder for me to go back in recent years. I highly encourage you to go and I'd love to hear what you think.

Keep me posted!
 

tball

Unzipped
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Cost of the Momentum Camp is reasonable:

Momentum_Mogul_Clinics___Whistler_Blackcomb.png

https://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/plan-your-trip/ski-and-ride-lessons/momentum-mogul-clinics.aspx
 

geepers

Skiing the powder
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Posts
4,256
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Wanaka, New Zealand
Not sure the point of that example. So, "direct line", (if that's what we're calling when skis are at 90 deg to fall line), no matter how bad is better than anything else?

That was very good. Written without so much as a smiley. Almost fell for it.

;)
 

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