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Pivot slip demo

4ster

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Why did your opinion change?
I began teaching in what I would term as a Rotary-based system (sideslipping, uphilll christes etc.) as a path to parallel. at the same time I was realizing that the best skier’s carved their turns & all this skidding and slipping seemed contradictory. I quickly became a believer in an edge and pressure emphasized approach both for my own skiing & that of my students. As my experience & horizons expanded I realized that versatility is the real key to enjoying all conditions and pivoting (along with all other instructor tricks both old and new) is a part of that.

I don’t teach pivot slips because I have been retired from ski teaching for a few years. I don’t practice them in their regimented form but I certainly employ the movements every day in my free skiing.

Would you agree that someone who has difficulty with pivot slips is lacking in some area?
 
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Chris V.

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I began teaching in what I would term as a Rotary-based system (sideslipping, uphilll christes etc.) as a path to parallel. at the same time I was realizing that the best skier’s carved their turns & all this skidding and slipping seemed contradictory. I quickly became a believer in an edge and pressure emphasized approach both for my own skiing & that of my students. As my experience & horizons expanded I realized that versatility is the real key to enjoying all conditions and pivoting (along with all other instructor tricks both old and new) is a part of that.

I don’t teach pivot slips because I have been retired from ski teaching for a few years. I don’t practice them in their regimented form but I certainly employ the movements every day in my free skiing.

Would you agree that someone who has difficulty with pivot slips is lacking in some area?
I believe there's a distinction to be drawn between teaching versatility to experienced skiers, and a rigorously designed, focused teaching pathway for beginners and novices. The latter need training in a narrower set of skills, all directed toward the goal of building a single excellent go-to turn style. Throwing too much at new students of skiing is confusing for them, and limited and precious lesson time needs to be utilized efficiently. Even many "advanced" students will benefit from a straight and narrow pathway directed at rebuilding fundamentals.

Every sound teaching method I've encountered uses sideslips as an important component--not just rotary-based methods. Sideslips aren't just about rotary movements.
 

jimtransition

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I began teaching in what I would term as a Rotary-based system (sideslipping, uphilll christes etc.) as a path to parallel. at the same time I was realizing that the best skier’s carved their turns & all this skidding and slipping seemed contradictory. I quickly became a believer in an edge and pressure emphasized approach both for my own skiing & that of my students. As my experience & horizons expanded I realized that versatility is the real key to enjoying all conditions and pivoting (along with all other instructor tricks both old and new) is a part of that.

I don’t teach pivot slips because I have been retired from ski teaching for a few years. I don’t practice them in their regimented form but I certainly employ the movements every day in my free skiing.

Would you agree that someone who has difficulty with pivot slips is lacking in some area?

Interesting, fair enough.

Yes I can imagine that, but I also know from personal experience, it's quite common to be able to do a very good pivot slip, but still be very bad at short turns. If they were a good exercise, wouldn't mastery of the exercise lead you towards good skiing?
 

razie

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I do not see it as just learning how to slide, its about learning how to turn your legs while stabilizing the hips. Why would you want to grip all the time?

...because grip is what controls the speed and fun - just in case it wasn't obvious: it could be 100% grip or 80% grip, but without it you are not going to either slow down or get a direction change across the hill! And the less you are using your bodily efforts, the more you are using the ski design and the bigger the grin factor!

This drill certainly teaches different things to different people, but if you are too learn higher level skiing, then it will teach separation, not twisting the skis around - twisting the feet is something I have seen pretty much any low level skier do without a big issue (albeit without skill). What they can't do is separation!!! Or slaying the run!
 
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markojp

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Maybe a wrench in the works, but sometimes pivot slips with a different focus can really open doors. How do we release the edge? Can we play with lateral weight distribution other than 50/50? Can we talk about pressure and edging vs. rotary? Definitely interesting to play with.
 

Chef23

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I tried them again today on a trail with a bit more pitch and had a few that went pretty well. The edge control wasn’t the problem but the pivot could be at times. I had a few times when I got the pivot feeling right. Conditions weren’t perfect like they looked on the demos.
 

Dean

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I was introduced to pivot slips in a lesson a couple weeks ago. It was not pretty. The gentle pitch made it worse. The challenge for me is neutral edges. So that was my takeaway as the main point.

Think I liked the 2nd video better. Why? Uhhhh.... watched it first. Liked the voice over. The technique struck me as cleaner. Maybe it looked closer to that of my instructor. Not sure I really saw the rotational differences being discussed - it did look like the skiers in the first video were leading more.

I expect I'll play with these some more to get a better edge feel and control.
 

Bendu

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...because grip is what controls the speed and fun - just in case it wasn't obvious: it could be 100% grip or 80% grip, but without it you are not going to either slow down or get a direction change across the hill! And the less you are using your bodily efforts, the more you are using the ski design and the bigger the grin factor!

This drill certainly teaches different things to different people, but if you are too learn higher level skiing, then it will teach separation, not twisting the skis around - twisting the feet is something I have seen pretty much any low level skier do without a big issue (albeit without skill). What they can't do is separation!!! Or slaying the run!

Flat skis are what control speed and fun when there isnt enough space to uses the skis sidecut.
 

Mike King

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I tried them again today on a trail with a bit more pitch and had a few that went pretty well. The edge control wasn’t the problem but the pivot could be at times. I had a few times when I got the pivot feeling right. Conditions weren’t perfect like they looked on the demos.
@Chef23, did someone watch your pivot slips and give you feedback on them? This is a drill that is quite hard to self-assess. What may "feel" like a success can be quite far from the mark. Often, the pivot comes from rotation of the upper body (and yes, the hip is part of the upper body) and/or the direction of travel is not directly at the target (virtually always straight down the fall line). There can also be a deviation in the line of descent when the edges are changed in the fall line (like virtually all of the videos of this drill in this thread). It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to self assess these factors, so this is a drill that really benefits from someone watching and assessing performance.

Mike
 

Kneale Brownson

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I tried them again today on a trail with a bit more pitch and had a few that went pretty well. The edge control wasn’t the problem but the pivot could be at times. I had a few times when I got the pivot feeling right. Conditions weren’t perfect like they looked on the demos.
Can you recall where your pelvis was in relation to the feet when you had a "good" feeling one? Most folks who have pivot slip difficulty have trouble allowing their center of mass to move down hill enough to flatten the skis sufficiently to permit their rotation.
 

T-Square

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Can you recall where your pelvis was in relation to the feet when you had a "good" feeling one? Most folks who have pivot slip difficulty have trouble allowing their center of mass to move down hill enough to flatten the skis sufficiently to permit their rotation.

For me I know I’m not far enough "forward" when I notice a hesitation/glitch when my skis are straight down the fall line. Swing, glitch, swing - stop - swing, glitch, swing - stop - swing, glitch, swing. instead of a smooth swing - stop - swing - stop - swing.
 

Kneale Brownson

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Terry, I'd expect you are a little too tensed because you're expecting the glitch. I know it's hard, but you have to make a slightly more relaxed effort and it'll come. Once it does, you'll be: :yahoo:
 

razie

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Flat skis are what control speed and fun when there isnt enough space to uses the skis sidecut.

...maybe it's tomato, tomahto, but... I don't agree... a flat ski has little to no snow interaction so there can be no force to slow you down. To slow down, we need a force with a component that's opposite the direction of travel. A flat ski simply slides away. I think it's a misunderstanding: the fact that the ski is twisted to point from the left to the right, it doesn't mean the skier changed direction and is now moving strongly to the right (in fact, in pivot slips it's quite the opposite, as the skier still slides straight down). In fact, it happens more often than I'd like that I find myself skiing at a certain speed and with a certain turn shape for that speed and have to radically change direction to avoid someone that decides to randomly change direction and cut into my line - and the best way to do that is to drop into angles, let the ski grip and carve away... anything less than 100% grip will not change direction quickly enough! If I'd ski slow enough and look ahead long enough, I could maybe get away with a skid, but not often enough...

The more you tip it on edge, the more it grips and the more it creates this force. At the extreme, the hockey stop... can't be done with a flat ski...??

p.s. I'm now curious what L3 has to offer, so these days I'm skiing more bumps and shorts than usual, so I have a better appreciation for the differences...
 
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Bendu

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you do not always have enough room to carve though, or want the speed even a brushed carved will give you.....

I am not even talking about Hockey stops, you can really steer a flat ski around, and control precisely where you want to go, at any speed including crawling to down right speedy. yes by flat I mean slightly on edge, but no where near where say what your picture shows. I would even contend most bump runs can be done with mostly edging and balance moves but get on something actually serious, like Misery Whip at the Loaf, or Staircase glade at Jay, with out much fresh snow and you will not be doing anything remotely closed to carved or brushed carving.
 

Chef23

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@Chef23, did someone watch your pivot slips and give you feedback on them? This is a drill that is quite hard to self-assess. What may "feel" like a success can be quite far from the mark. Often, the pivot comes from rotation of the upper body (and yes, the hip is part of the upper body) and/or the direction of travel is not directly at the target (virtually always straight down the fall line). There can also be a deviation in the line of descent when the edges are changed in the fall line (like virtually all of the videos of this drill in this thread). It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to self assess these factors, so this is a drill that really benefits from someone watching and assessing performance.

Mike

Nope it was really just me doing it. Next time I ski with my BIL who is a L2 instructor I will get him to take a look. I did try to keep the upper body very quiet and only pivot the lower body mostly keeping the lower body facing downhill.
 

Chef23

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Can you recall where your pelvis was in relation to the feet when you had a "good" feeling one? Most folks who have pivot slip difficulty have trouble allowing their center of mass to move down hill enough to flatten the skis sufficiently to permit their rotation.

I didn’t think about it but I will next time.

I have been skiing for 48 years but never did drills. I believe that even as a good skier I can always get better. A lot of these would be good to do when skiing with my wife who isn’t as aggressive a skier as I am.
 

Mike King

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For me I know I’m not far enough "forward" when I notice a hesitation/glitch when my skis are straight down the fall line. Swing, glitch, swing - stop - swing, glitch, swing - stop - swing, glitch, swing. instead of a smooth swing - stop - swing - stop - swing.
Well, the issues is how much and when. Here's a video from Tom Gellie that might be illuminating.
 

Loki1

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The reality is that practicing pivot slips with the idea to bringing the skills back to regular skiing is vitally important to ones development as a skier. If one looks at the way people move in day to day funtionally, the hip/pelvis always move first when changing direction. In skiing we need to train the feet/leg to move first (through femur rotation). When people normally move, the hip/pelvis leads the way and the feet follow, that is why it can be so hard to teach people to steer their legs. Sking we need to move the legs/femur first so we can direct pressure to the outside/dominate leg. This is also why in another thread I mentioned that having too active of an inside half can result in poor skiing. Leading with the inside half, as we do when we normally walk, leads to pelvis/hip rotation. This leads to the inability to balance over the outside/dominate leg. Having an active inside half is important but it cannot be so dominate it doesn't allow us to balance on the outside leg/foot/ski.
I would challenge you all to think of the idea of countered/square/rotated in the confines of skiing. What do they all mean. Mainly can one truly be square in skiing? Or are we always either countered or rotated/ Think in terms of how do we move? How does the idea of equal and opposite reactions guide your thoughts on this question?
 
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LiquidFeet

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... Sking we need to move the legs/femur first so we can direct pressure to the outside/dominate leg. This is also why in another thread I mentioned that having too active of an inside half can result in poor skiing. Leading with the inside half, as we do when we normally walk, leads to pelvis/hip rotation. This leads to the inability to balance over the outside/dominate leg. Having an active inside half is important but it cannot be so dominate it doesn't allow us to balance on the outside leg/foot/ski....

I agree with you when you say we need to move the feet/legs first. But @Loki1, when you say "leading with the inside half ... leads to pelvis/hip rotation" I think leading... means the new inside hip moves ahead of the new outside hip, and I don't think of that as hip rotation. When the new outside hip rotates in the direction of the new turn, ahead of the skis, dragging them around, thus having the skier's hips pointing in the direction the skis are pointing, that's a problem, plus it's what I have known as "hip rotation." There is a confusion here as to what you are saying, at least in my mind.

Don't you want to see the new inside hip farther ahead in the turn, with the new outside hip back relative to it, and the upper body (including pelvis) pointing more downhill as the skis point to the side of the hill? Having the inside hip ahead and the outside hip back allows the skier to angulate over the outside ski in a natural way, directing pressures to the outside ski. Of course there are variations in the amount of such "counter" a skier needs in short, medium, and long radius turns.

You seem to be saying the opposite. Have I read you wrong? Maybe you are objecting to "countering" and "angulating" as a way to start a turn, doing it early, with the focus on the hip area, before doing anything with the feet/legs? This works to start a turn, but it leads to hip dump and park-n-ride. Maybe that's what you are warning against.

Would you mind clarifying?
 
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