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Re-seeking advice for my bump skiing

agreen

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Thanks for restarting this thread over here. I enjoyed it on epic and I'm enjoying it here as well. I love your athletic skiing and super quick feet. I think shorter poles will do a lot of good for you in terms of keeping you more forward. Your hands are really high especially on the biggest bumps and they seem to be pushing you back. The hands are also quite wide but they need to be with the length of pole you are using. If you chose to ski with a much rounder line you could get away with the longer poles but not the more aggressive zipperline technique you are utilizing. If you want to continue with that approach then the short poles will help tremendously. I have adjustables so I've played around with a lot of different lengths. The bigger the bumps, the shorter I go, although going too short sucks because your low back starts flexing too much and can hurt. With bumps that size I'd be at 110 and I'm 6'1".

I think I may have had an "Aha" moment from @karlo post above with the impala vids. He talks about standing tall for more room for absorption. When I begin my bump run I tend to start out with my knees significantly flexed. I was doing this with the thought process of getting in an athletic position and engaging my legs. But this may become my set point or base line amount of knee/hip flexion. Then as I approach the 1st bump I don't have as much room for absorption as I could have if I started taller. The other option is I could start on the crest of a bump in an absorbed position and then focus on getting tall in the trough. Either way I think will help me compared to what I'm doing now. Thanks!
 

jack97

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I have some misgiving about signing up however some of these replies reminds me of times when I was trying to sort things out. That said here it goes.....

IMO, the OP needs to get forward and pressure the front part of the skis, granted parts of the bumps had crud so I can understand going toward a neutral stance to prevent the handlebar however the line looked packed in while the ankle had little flex when it needed it the most. The drill I would do on the flats would be the tail lift shown below.



Again, from a epic debate at epic.... the dolphin turn drill is some thing I have not seen a freestyle mogul coach promote, it does nothing in terms of getting into muscle memory the application and pressure control at the front part of the ski. A movement that is needed to start the new turn in tight quarters. Here's the Korean mogul coach doing this to form moguls from the flats starting at 0.48 sec. And if getting forward is still a problem then it could be the boot itself, such as a little flex or no forward lean.


As for wanted to ski a rounder line getting the forward pressure controls the line you take along with the descent down the trail. You have to get the tip to bite to control the path of the turn. Again, a Korean mogul vid, starting at .040 sec, first three skiers are applying pressure at the front of the ski to the point they are "sticking" (slowing down) at the crest of the bumps then the rest of the vid, the focus on other things.

 
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jzmtl

jzmtl

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The bigger the bumps, the shorter I go, although going too short sucks because your low back starts flexing too much and can hurt. With bumps that size I'd be at 110 and I'm 6'1".

Ha, we are exactly the same height. I was on 120 poles, going to try 110 and see how it goes next season. When I go into bumps I like to ski a few yards with legs completely straight and jump straight up and down a few times to dial in the "tall" position, not sure if it helps or not.
 

jack97

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.....I was on 120 poles, going to try 110 and see how it goes next season....

That's ~ 4 inches difference to us metric disadvantage. It's worth a try or go with an 'OK' grip, thumb and index finger wraps around the pole grip while the remaining three fingers are quasi wrap around the shaft of the pole. Below is one of the Lapointe sisters using this type of grip. There are variants such as the number of fingers on the handle and adjusted pending the size of the bumps.

Chloe+Dufour+Lapointe+Winter+Olympics+Freestyle+8XYKvJsIOL-l.jpg


The advantage of this grip is it promotes tapping the bumps (near the top to backside) and prevent using the poles as a crutch. Only time I use the wrist straps are to hang them on skis when they are stored on the racks.
 

karlo

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other option is I could start on the crest of a bump in an absorbed position

For speed control, try flexing as little as possible when hitting and topping the bump. Work on progressively flexing less and less. Of course, no flex is impossible. I am no physicist, but I think I get better speed control this way because my COM is lifted by the bump, converting kinetic energy into potential energy. If I flex more, the bump doesn't lift my COM as much, hence, more of the kinetic energy is retained; I go faster.

The cool thing about being extended as much as possible at the bump is, that the potential energy becomes kinetic energy going down the backside. It's like a roller coaster, except that you are in control, not just a passenger. And, the bigger the bumps, the more thrilling the ride, not on account of speed, bit on account of the feeling of weightlessness.
 

Rod9301

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I have to say that this advice( not to flex) goes against what every good mogul skier does.
 
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jzmtl

jzmtl

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I have to say that this advice( not to flex) goes against what every good mogul skier does.
It work to some degree, give it some resistance when going up the face of the bump does slow down the skier a bit. Probably not a good technique, and can send the skier out of control quickly if overdone.

Whether it has any place in good mogul skiing, I'll let you know in 5 to 10 years. :D
 

Jilly

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It work to some degree, give it some resistance when going up the face of the bump does slow down the skier a bit. Probably not a good technique, and can send the skier out of control quickly if overdone.

Whether it has any place in good mogul skiing, I'll let you know in 5 to 10 years. :D

I was always told to use the terrain, ie the back of the bump to slow down. We're not talking zipper lines here, just controlled bump skiing.
 

agreen

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Hmm I think what @karlo Is saying is to flex the least as possible while still achieving absorption. Obviously there is no way to absorb a bump without flexion. But, if I have more extension in the trough I may not need to be fully flexed to absorb SOME bumps. But, with that said, if I take the approach of trying to hit a bump without much flexion I would catch quite a bit of air which would then increase my speed.
 

karlo

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I would catch quite a bit of air which would then increase my speed.

Air actually slows you down. That's why those who race make every effort not to lose contact with the snow. One cool thing is to absorb just enough to lift you up and glide over the top, but not so much that you can still, as close to the top as possible, "reach" and connect with the backside for the next turn. So cool. It's why I like the roller coaster imagery in Katy Perry's Chained to the Rhythm video so much!
 

jack97

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I can think of two ways flexing in the bumps slows you down, first is the conservation of angular momentum where lowering the CoM reduces your angular speed. Pending on the shape of the trough to the front side of the bump, one can easily have the skis jet out from under. By keeping off the backseat and dropping the CoM, this prevent the skis from jetting out. The other flexing is to mitigate the impulse from the pending difference in linear momentum, in this case, skier carries some speed into the bumps, and by flexing (preferable the knees but I've skiers do this with their lower back) they dissipate or prolong this change in momentum. By doing so, the speed has been reduce given skier's mass has not changed. An analogy to this is jumping from a set of stairs, when landing letting the knees flex or give in. By not flexing the knees, the force from the jump would by at it highest since the speed is brought along during impact.

Hence, the act of getting air does not slow you down but what was done prior.
 

john petersen

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I think I may have had an "Aha" moment from @karlo post above with the impala vids. He talks about standing tall for more room for absorption. When I begin my bump run I tend to start out with my knees significantly flexed. I was doing this with the thought process of getting in an athletic position and engaging my legs. But this may become my set point or base line amount of knee/hip flexion. Then as I approach the 1st bump I don't have as much room for absorption as I could have if I started taller. The other option is I could start on the crest of a bump in an absorbed position and then focus on getting tall in the trough. Either way I think will help me compared to what I'm doing now. Thanks!

I would say you are correct here....I have started in both a very tall stance and focused on flexion, and conversely, started in a very flexed position to focus on extension....

range of motion and versatility are what you're after I would imagine.....

as an aside, I love the dolpin move. It directly correlates, but you have to add it to your repertoire as part of your versatility....not replace what you do in the bumps with it.

JP
 

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