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AmyPJ

Skiing the powder
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Yeah, you're getting it. You *know* you've "got it" when you realize you didn't have to do anything to start a new turn... your skis just start turning the other way, and -- like Bob said above -- all you focus on is finding the next spot for the paths to cross. Turning just happens.

It's definitely not a groomer-only thing either.. . once you get it, the whole mountain opens up to you. Bumps, crud, it all becomes, well, not "easy", but not "impossible". You'll start to see possibilities that you never considered before. The "infinity move" is my favorite thing ever in skiing.
Well I can't wait for the rest of the mountain to open up to me. I was finally getting to that point last season until...injury! Anyway, I'm so excited for this season, it's just not even funny. I definitely don't have to give a whole lot of thought to turns on groomers anymore. It just happens. Yaay!

And I have no idea why my original post says "angule" instead of angulate. Coffee must not have kicked in yet. Yeah, that's it.
 

MattL

Booting up
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Harrisburg, PA
I don't have time to read all of these probably great replies right now ( will come back) but for me this is a mental game. A Zen thing. Stop fighting gravity and HARNESS it. But don't tell yourself that or it will be impossible. Just let go and let it happen. Trust your turns, your equipment and the snow. Stop thinking (not hard for me to do lol).
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
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Not to be too simplistic but you know how my mind works, (scary, eh?)
Is there some kind of bullet point of things a skier should work on for this "feeling" to happen?

For me (I think) it was finishing the turn and upper body/lower body separation. Not necessarily in that order.
But I could be wrong. I've been wrong more than once.
 

AmyPJ

Skiing the powder
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For ME, it was focusing on the upper body which made me STOP thinking about the lower body/feet. The cafeteria tray passing drill works wonders for me. Another was to widen my stance AND my knees, as if I was on my horse. Exaggerating that helped me find my edges.
 

Tricia

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For ME, it was focusing on the upper body which made me STOP thinking about the lower body/feet. The cafeteria tray passing drill works wonders for me. Another was to widen my stance AND my knees, as if I was on my horse. Exaggerating that helped me find my edges.
Widening my stance definitely helped a ton.
 

crgildart

Gravity Slave
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The Bull City
Not to be too simplistic but you know how my mind works, (scary, eh?)
Is there some kind of bullet point of things a skier should work on for this "feeling" to happen?

For me (I think) it was finishing the turn and upper body/lower body separation. Not necessarily in that order.
But I could be wrong. I've been wrong more than once.


It's kind like learning to whistle. For many it just happens spontaneously, but after all of the elements are in place to allow it to happen. I think I was listening to a song through headphones and timing my turns to the rhythm when I first had that mind blowing actualization that the effortless turn transitions were just happening without any thought at all.
 

LiquidFeet

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New England
Back in the day, I skied with my feet ahead of me all the time. My body never crossed over my skis to their downhill side. The "infinity move" wasn't happening, and I knew it. I read everywhere that one needed to RELAX the downhill (new inside) leg in order to start turns; that doing this would delete the aftness and the braking. Just relax that leg, doggone it! I read somewhere this very "helpful" visualization: relax it as if it had been shot out from under you. Let it go.

My mind said NO. Just NO. It wouldn't allow that leg to "relax." My brain was in self-preservation mode and didn't want my body to fall downhill. This was very frustrating, as I did not think of myself as a frightened skier.

Eventually a solution popped up. If that leg refused to "relax," then perhaps it could be muscularly flexed. It could slowly, in a controlled way, be shortened without alerting the head that death and destruction were imminent. The hip on that side could be lowered deliberately and slowly, as if it were on an elevator traveling downwards. It worked!

Finishing the turn with upper/lower body separation (holding onto the old counter), as Tricia mentioned above, was helpful. I've taught this two-part way to get the body to cross over the skis (skiing into counter, then lowering the hip by shortening the leg slowly) with some success.
 
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KevinF

Gathermeister-New England
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Not to be too simplistic but you know how my mind works, (scary, eh?)
Is there some kind of bullet point of things a skier should work on for this "feeling" to happen?

For me (I think) it was finishing the turn and upper body/lower body separation. Not necessarily in that order.
But I could be wrong. I've been wrong more than once.

My focus for a while was feeling the back of my boots on the back of my legs during turn transition. I've since focused on trying to stay fore/aft neutral (i.e., no real pressure on either my shins or my calves) throughout the transition, which basically means you have to make the COM move accurately (i.e., not too far ahead or behind where your skis are). That said, if I can't manage the perfect COM movement, I'd rather feel my boots on my calves then feeling my shins on the boot tongues (during transition at least).

Right or wrong (probably more the latter, but it works for me...), that's what I'll be thinking about should the Northeast ever get cold and snowy.
 

Monique

bounceswoosh
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In the interest of getting myself more down-the-mountain oriented, I've been visualizing - especially in bumps - a GI Joe doll. Remember how they had a rubber band so that if you twisted the hips in one direction and then let go, they'd snap back into place? This seems like a helpful way to think of building up potential energy to help the skis cross underneath. BUT I just realized it's flawed, because you want your femurs to turn in their sockets, not your hips. I'll have to pay attention to what I'm doing next time I ski.
 

Tricia

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@KevinF That is really interesting. I've spent a lot of my skiing time learning to pressure and be neutral but haven't thought much about the back of the boot.
 

Chris Geib

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Dillon, CO
In the interest of getting myself more down-the-mountain oriented, I've been visualizing - especially in bumps - a GI Joe doll. Remember how they had a rubber band so that if you twisted the hips in one direction and then let go, they'd snap back into place? This seems like a helpful way to think of building up potential energy to help the skis cross underneath. BUT I just realized it's flawed, because you want your femurs to turn in their sockets, not your hips. I'll have to pay attention to what I'm doing next time I ski.


Hi Monique,

Not flawed at all.

The coiling in the torso is anticipation and it is not bad. You can use both anticipation and steering. I would not exclude anticipation and would develop skill with both.

As an interesting exercise, while you are working on your independent leg steering (ILS) try rotating your femurs all the way left or right in their sockets. Then once you get them all the way to the “stops”, now try to deeply flex as if you were sucking up a huge mogul.

What did you find? Were you able to maintain that countered orientation? No, I thought not. The hips wanted to square up with the femurs didn’t they.

Now imagine this happening as you compress to absorb the backside of a mogul and you can use that to wind the hips up (coil the spring) so that as you roll over the top of the mogul and the skis let go you can let (if you want to) the spring uncoil. And, as the legs lengthen again add steering (if you want to).

Give it a try!

Chris
 

Monique

bounceswoosh
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Hi Monique,

Not flawed at all.

The coiling in the torso is anticipation and it is not bad. You can use both anticipation and steering. I would not exclude anticipation and would develop skill with both.

As an interesting exercise, while you are working on your independent leg steering (ILS) try rotating your femurs all the way left or right in their sockets. Then once you get them all the way to the “stops”, now try to deeply flex as if you were sucking up a huge mogul.

What did you find? Were you able to maintain that countered orientation? No, I thought not. The hips wanted to square up with the femurs didn’t they.

Now imagine this happening as you compress to absorb the backside of a mogul and you can use that to wind the hips up (coil the spring) so that as you roll over the top of the mogul and the skis let go you can let (if you want to) the spring uncoil. And, as the legs lengthen again add steering (if you want to).

Give it a try!

Chris

I'll see if I can put that into action Thursday :)
 

Living Proof

We All Have The Truth
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Avalon - On The Way to Cape May
I really enjoy reading/watching Bob Barnes posts/video as his fertile mind leaves me with much to think about. It's a downer that it will be several weeks before I can test the infinity concept on the snow.

It has occurred to me that one of the things that separates good skiers from hacks, and from most non-skiers as well, is the constant and intense awareness of both the location and the motion of their feet and their centers (the two paths highlighted in the Infinity Move clip).
T
The above is the synthesis, at least for me, of the Infinity Move. My take of the video is that the key movement is the ability to get the feet working around the body center and offset from the hips, and, the more the better. This is clearly visible in the trampoline video skiing and still photo's of WC skier positions. Not a quick learning process process, maybe a lifelong search, and compounded by non-flexible bodies as we age. While I agree that intent and awareness have to be present at the start of the process, i.e. knowing what you would like to change, we all know that body habits die a very slow death. Even when we think we have "it", photo's generally prove us wrong.

The default position used everyday by 99% of the skiing public is much closer to upright walking. I've read, many times, that good skiers ski "stacked" with feet, hips and shoulders over each other. While that may be true looking at a side and frontal profiles of a typical skier, the Infinity movement would show a offset between hips and feet in aggressive skiers in a front of view . I remember trying to follow Bob Barnesand Chris Geib during the Epic Big Sky morning warm up runs and very quickly realized I can't get into their positions.

I would like to better understand Bob's vocabulary and thinking about a complete turn, my understandings of his writings are subject to my internal translations. @bbinder asked what are the next steps, and perhaps baby steps, in getting out of the rut of skiing with feet under hips. So, Bob. please, any coaching tips? Final disclaimer, any of the above is just my take, if I've not gotten it correct, set me straight.
 

bud heishman

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Tahoe
Hi Trisha etal,

One of the hazards of breaking turns down into singular elements is we lose the flow between turns. One way I have found to put the flow back into the transitions and the ability to feel the infinity move is to change the thought process so that we ski through the edge change as one holistic movement with our turns beginning and ending in the fall line rather than across the fall line. Try it for a run or two and see what you think?!

Happy Thanksgiving!
 

markojp

mtn rep for the gear on my feet
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PNW aka SEA
Hi Trisha etal,

One of the hazards of breaking turns down into singular elements is we lose the flow between turns. One way I have found to put the flow back into the transitions and the ability to feel the infinity move is to change the thought process so that we ski through the edge change as one holistic movement with our turns beginning and ending in the fall line rather than across the fall line. Try it for a run or two and see what you think?!

Happy Thanksgiving!


Exactly!!! And Happy Thanksgiving back! (Go Lions! :doh: )
 

Tricia

The Velvet Hammer
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Hi Trisha etal,

One of the hazards of breaking turns down into singular elements is we lose the flow between turns. One way I have found to put the flow back into the transitions and the ability to feel the infinity move is to change the thought process so that we ski through the edge change as one holistic movement with our turns beginning and ending in the fall line rather than across the fall line. Try it for a run or two and see what you think?!

Happy Thanksgiving!
I completely get that Bud, but if you recall, there was a time when I thought I was doing this and felt like I was flowing, but you, Bob, and other instructors were clear that it wasn't "it"
When I was on a chair lift with an instructor that I hand't skied with before(Greg Felsch) he offered to take a few runs with me and take a look at the things I was discouraged about. He broke it down to
  • Do this
  • Now add this (this is when I felt the thing that I hadn't felt before) [darlin' thats adequate]
  • Then add this last thing - BOOM!
  • The next run I didn't break it down, I just skied it and felt the flow, because once you get it, you get it. [darlin that's it!]

After breaking it down (for me) I got that feeling and I knew what everyone was talking about. For others, the flow may come naturally.
 

LiquidFeet

instructor
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New England
I completely get that Bud, but if you recall, there was a time when I thought I was doing this and felt like I was flowing, but you, Bob, and other instructors were clear that it wasn't "it"
When I was on a chair lift with an instructor that I hand't skied with before(Greg Felsch) he offered to take a few runs with me and take a look at the things I was discouraged about. He broke it down to
  • Do this
  • Now add this (this is when I felt the thing that I hadn't felt before) [darlin' thats adequate]
  • Then add this last thing - BOOM!
  • The next run I didn't break it down, I just skied it and felt the flow, because once you get it, you get it. [darlin that's it!]

After breaking it down (for me) I got that feeling and I knew what everyone was talking about. For others, the flow may come naturally.

This is the way I want to be taught, and it's the way I teach... art, no less. And skiing (minus the "darlin"). We are on the same page.
 

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