Moving along the ski.

[Paul S.]

Bob Barnes’ primary rule in the “Crudology” vimeo is to “keep them going in the direction they are pointed”.

How do you teach this? What exercises? How do you explain it?

 

[fatbob]

Ask them in relation to any vehicle is it easier to manoeuvre it sideways or in a forward direction with a little momentum?

 

[Jilly]

Remind them to keep turning...uphill. Give them a visual, like that tree or lift pole. Whatever you've got around. Ever better is cones or ski poles..that way you can trace out the turn and make them follow the curve.

 

[geepers]

Up and over drill?

 

[David Chaus]

Bob Barnes’ primary rule in the “Crudology” vimeo is to “keep them going in the direction they are pointed”.

How do you teach this? What exercises? How do you explain it?

IIRC what @Bob Barnes states in his video(s) is to point the skis where you want to go, and that doesn’t work, go where they are pointed.

It is one of many principles about skiing crud, rather than ‘the primary rule.”

 

[David Chaus]

Bob Barnes’ primary rule in the “Crudology” vimeo is to “keep them going in the direction they are pointed”.

How do you teach this? What exercises? How do you explain it?

IIRC what @Bob Barnes states in his video(s) is to point the skis where you want to go, and that doesn’t work, go where they are pointed.

 

[David Chaus]

Here’s a post from B.B. a couple years ago:

Adopt and live by the "50% Rule": fifty percent of great bump and crud skiing is skiing it well; the other fifty percent is skiing it anyway. Pick your stopping point before you start, and commit to it, no matter what. Remember that, if you had enough control to stop, you could have also kept going. Ski through the imbalance. Don't stop until you get to your pre-determined spot, unless you fall (which is certainly an honorable excuse for stopping). With practice, you'll gain the confidence to ski through the chaos!

 

[Paul S.]

It is his primary rule because he states it twice!

My question: how do you teach moving the COM along he ski as opposed to moving it aterally?

 

[Steve]

Articulation - all of the joints working together, not "close your ankles" but flex and extend ankles, knees, hips, sternum as a single articulated unit. Like a backhoe or an extending lamp.

Open and close the hinge (but it's actually a set of hinges all working together.)

This promotes conscious pressure management and a moving-forward mentality - to compliment tipping and rotation.

 

[LiquidFeet]

It is his primary rule because he states it twice!
My question: how do you teach moving the COM along he ski as opposed to moving lit aterally?.

I don't think that's what Bob means. He means don't try to muscularly turn the skis across the snow surface. Tip the skis and let them do their thing. Allow the skis to head in the direction they are pointing, and you go with them. They will turn because they will bend. Tipping the skis will be a lateral move, of course. What gets people in trouble in crud is trying to manually turn the skis when they are embedded in a type of snow that resists that rotation.

To teach this, teach them to carve on a low-pitch groomer. Tip the skis onto their new edges to start a turn, wait, find out what they do. No pivoting, no rotarizing, no femur rotating to manually "turn" the skis. Tip them more, find out what they do. Tip them more and go faster, find out what they do. Do this on progressively steeper terrain. Learn what turning powers your skis have built into them. Discover how to manipulate turn radius with tipping and bending the skis, instead of rotarizing them when they are mostly flat. Purge the pivot. This is very hard to teach if the skier has been manually rotating skis to start turns for years; it has become unconscious and they don't realize they are doing it.

Your thread title sounds like you want to address moving the underfoot pressure from tip to tail, along the ski, or something like that, which is another issue.

 

[Doby Man]

Technically, “moving along the ski” and “moving along with the ski” are two different things (that can happen together). Moving “along” the ski means that the fore/aft position of the CoM is running its pressure along the ski from tip to the tail through each turn and boosts effective carving and penetration. However, moving along “with” the ski means that the CoM is being carried with the same speed and direction of the BoS (skis). This is arc to arc skiing that does not attempt “edge rotation” that is not feasible in crud where the resulting viscosity would be too much of a bear to handle requiring laborious up-unweighting to facilitate. As a result, interestingly enough, the clean and quiet edge locked carving that we use for racing and technical freeskiing is the technique on firm terrain that is also best for turning in crud. Something to keep in mind as well is that because we do not have the power of edge rotation for changing direction in crud, we must maximize all the travel within the turn to be tipping and bending the ski which means that the transition or, the “edge change” depicted below, is very short and quick, otherwise, too much speed will be picked up and that of which cannot be diminished with, again, rotary based skidding.

Photo Credit: YourSkiCoach.com Glossary

 

[tromano]

I love the quote because its such a simple statement but so good. Technique is an outcome of having an intention. You have to want to go there.

 

[Mike King]

I don't think that's what Bob means. He means don't try to muscularly turn the skis across the snow surface. Tip the skis and let them do their thing. Allow the skis to head in the direction they are pointing, and you go with them. They will turn because they will bend. Tipping the skis will be a lateral move, of course. What gets people in trouble in crud is trying to manually turn the skis when they are embedded in a type of snow that resists that rotation.

I think this is part of it, but not all of what Bob means. He means to move with the skis. That means that the body stays over the ski and travels along the path of the ski -- not exactly, as the feet will travel a longer distance than the body, but it DOES MEAN that the skis are not being pushed away from the path of the body.

Personally, this has been probably the biggest issue in my own skiing and I see it in the vast majority of skiers, including level 3 certified skiers. One of the differentiating factors between those who can truly manipulate the ski to take them where they want to go is their ability to keep the connection to the skis so that the snow is traveling along the length of the ski rather than across the width of the ski. Given how few people I see can actually ski this way, and given how long it has taken me to start to get this element of ski performance, I don't think it is an easy thing to learn or master.

So, in response to the original question, how do you get folk to achieve this? I'll relate what my own experience was.

• It started with outside ski drills. Skiing tons of terrain to work on the relationship between the CoM and BoS. You are most likely pushing the ski around if you are on the inside ski. So, start with getting pressure to the outside ski.
• It continued with learning to drive the turn with the inside ski. Not that it has (much) pressure on it, but the inside ski/femur can "pull" the turn. JF Beaulieu calls the inside ski the decider, while the outside ski is the rider. It's the external femur rotation of the inside leg coupled with its shortening (pulling out and up) that gets turn shaped.
• Next was angulation. You've got to learn how to continue to direct pressure to the outside ski through body alignment. This means that the upper body has to remain over the ski, not dive in. You want to create edge by tipping the ankles and lower leg, not by tipping the upper body in.
• For that tipping move, you need to really work on tipping the lower leg. For this, I worked a lot on very short skis (136cm) that we use in teaching beginner lessons. Start with skating and learning how to create a platform against which you can push. That means you've got to learn to tip the lower leg first. Next, take it into J turns. Really focus on getting the outside knee to go in and down. Once you've got that, you can bring the inside leg back into the fold.

This is what I've been working on for over 5 years. It's not a simple process and I'm only now starting to put it all together.

Mike

 

[cantunamunch]

Ask them in relation to any vehicle is it easier to manoeuvre it sideways or in a forward direction with a little momentum?

You've been to the US enough to realise this will not work. Everyone here starts their car turning by by stepping on the brake. And that pernicious brake-inorderto-turn habit carries over into every other mode - from bicycles through inline skates even into kayaks.

That last is not a joke, BTW. Derek Hutchinson would come over to teach two day clinics. He spent a full quarter of the time -half a day- on breaking people's braking habit - putting a straight up|down blade in the water before doing anything else. With mixed success, even after he demonstrated that a braking paddle is a great way to become one of the swimming public.

There is an obvious corollary here. Of course, if OP gave the take home exercise 'drive using as little of your brakes as possible' to his students he'd get sued silly.

 

[mdf]

... arc to arc skiing that does not attempt “edge rotation” that is not feasible in crud where the resulting viscosity would be too much of a bear to handle requiring laborious up-unweighting to facilitate.

I thought this was true, but I learned at the recent Mother's Day event that it is not quite that absolute.

If you get to a true neutral at transition, you have a lot of options. You can tip onto edge immediately. You can do a little steering from the center of the ski and then progressively tip the ski. You can go straight for awhile. Yes, even in thick, heavy mashed potatoes.

clean and quiet edge locked carving that we use for racing and technical freeskiing is the technique on firm terrain that is also best for turning in crud.

I agree, once you start to turn, being committed to your edges is mandatory. Trying to heel-push in the bottom of the turn leads to disaster.

And when you are learning crud, those options at transition are a dangerous temptation that should be rejected.

 

[Steve]

To me the big thing in crud is not to pressure the skis too soon. To be patient and build the pressure up gradually.

 

[4ster]

Sorry for the interruption but that is actually my photo from years ago. I remember Rick asking if he could use it & he is the one who added the graphics.

As the skier who made the tracks, I will add that although the blue line may mark the direction of the skis travel, the COM is moving in a more direct path down the falline. No braking involved .

Anyway, fun to see it pop up a decade later .
Good thread, Carry on

BTW, The analogy to American drivers is spot on! "Ski the slow line fast"

 

[James]

It is his primary rule because he states it twice!

My question: how do you teach moving the COM along he ski as opposed to moving it laterally?

Teach speed control through line, not braking, and general glissment.

And, sometimes you go sideways. It can be fun if intentional. Like a stivot.

Up and over drill?

Not done like that. I showed that exact video to Bob a few years ago. His comment, "She [Mikaela] doesn't ski like that."
The movement along the ski in that video - in direction of the ski tips, is ridiculous.

 

[fatbob]

You've been to the US enough to realise this will not work. Everyone here starts their car turning by by stepping on the brake. And that pernicious brake-inorderto-turn habit carries over into every other mode - from bicycles through inline skates even into kayaks.

Fair enough. I could never quite put a finger on why average US drivers seemed to be so poor on winding roads. I put it down to auto transmissions which I guess is the same thing not enough practice being in the right gear to corner without scrubbing speed.

 

[Doby Man]

Sorry for the interruption but that is actually my photo from years ago. I remember Rick asking if he could use it & he is the one who added the graphics.
View attachment 46316
As the skier who made the tracks, I will add that although the blue line may mark the direction of the skis travel, the COM is moving in a more direct path down the falline. No braking involved .

Anyway, fun to see it pop up a decade later .
Good thread, Carry on

BTW, The analogy to American drivers is spot on! "Ski the slow line fast"

Your good work is timeless! That is the best photo out there for its purpose I have seen. Yes, you are right that the CoM always has to travel inside of the BoS but not a further complexity I wanted to address in regards to moving "with" the ski. ... and I was just wanting to ask if that super square transition mark was digitally enhanced. It is too perfect.

Good to know you have worked with Rick Schnellmann. Don't know him personally but have always respected his drill mastery building block approach to dev. Smart stuff. Everybody seems to think that some magic some guru mentor says to them is going to make a lasting difference. Yet, the only time I really notice someone who moves ahead in coordination development quickly, it is always from pounding in the drills.