Tip Lead

[razie]

At the first look, that's a little on the wild side for a zipper line, but since we're having a geometry discussion, the hip angulation there could be on the small side even for said zipper line... I underlined the body parts for you

If anyone here likes to diss (lateral) separation when skiing bumps, please just say so, don't beat it around the bush... err bump...

@geepers pause this for reference

 

[markojp]

FWIW, in very short turns with not a whole lot of lateral offset (a la bumps), in general, your knees will stay more under your pelvis... not unlike an SL racer in a flush.

 

[geepers]

If anyone here likes to diss (lateral) separation when skiing bumps, please just say so, don't beat it around the bush... err bump...

@geepers pause this for reference

Hmmm... well, kinda think that's evidence supporting my assertion re bumps. Riding around the berm, not much edge angle, not much tilt to lower legs, very little difference in leg length.

 

[James]

Hmmm... well, kinda think that's evidence supporting my assertion re bumps. Riding around the berm, not much edge angle, not much tilt to lower legs, very little difference in leg length.

There’s angulation, but not counter balancing I suppose you could say. Angulation just from legs out to the side and upper body pretty straight.
Yeah, not much edge angle.

 

[razie]

It has become the usual word throwing exercise, not uncommon for page 7... so much so nobody remembers what the discussion was... it wasn't about big edge angles or riding around a berm

The discussion was that I said that angulation (nay, counterbalance) is very important in bumps and then a slew of posts trying to somehow disagree with that, but not by disagreeing, but by using words that are not directly disagreeing (well, one I think directly disagreed) but just beating it around the bush.

@geepers memory refresher:

That's what you were to find in that video I posted, not confirmation bias. Here's some help with taking of the relevant snapshots from that video:

There's a ton more angulation there than most people have on their best day.

Trying to argue that angulation is minimal/none in bumps, is not what I would have expected from an L2 trained in an organization whose second principle is "separation creates angulation". In bumps. What next? Separation is irrelevant in bumps?

There’s angulation, but not counter balancing I suppose you could say. Angulation just from legs out to the side and upper body pretty straight.
Yeah, not much edge angle.

Let me point it out to you:

That effort, the crunch of the sides to keep the body upright or crank it up over the outside ski, compressing the outside and extending the inside, at the right time, is what counterbalancing is. Ideally, hips are involved and, in other situations, we'd talk about hip leveling or whatnot, but hip mobility limitations generally complicate the discussion and in bumps, other physics reduce the hip leveling (guess what)... but now I'm totally curious to see how you survive in bumps if this is not something you associate with bump skiing

----

This simply proves the inability of the "standard dictionary" to explain skiing. This is likely why so many threads devolve into a word-throwing exercise...

At this point we should probably drop this (some will find it impossible, but we can try) and just enjoy some awesome bump skiing!

 

[James]

That effort, the crunch of the sides to keep the body upright or crank it up over the outside ski, compressing the outside and extending the inside, at the right time, is what counterbalancing is.

Yeah, but he’s not doing that is he? In the orig video.
You missed a golden opportunity to distinguish between angulation- angles, and counter balancing. Instead you made them the same. So, why bother with a different term like counter-balance?

In the orig instagram vid, his upper body basically stays neutral, and his legs go out side to side to create the angles, the angulation. That’s different than actively moving the upper body out to counter-balance. No?

 

[Erik Timmerman]

Random Austrian skiing moguls.

 

[geepers]

It has become the usual word throwing exercise, not uncommon for page 7... so much so nobody remembers what the discussion was... it wasn't about big edge angles or riding around a berm

The discussion was that I said that angulation (nay, counterbalance) is very important in bumps and then a slew of posts trying to somehow disagree with that, but not by disagreeing, but by using words that are not directly disagreeing (well, one I think directly disagreed) but just beating it around the bush.

@geepers memory refresher:

View attachment 187892

That's what you were to find in that video I posted, not confirmation bias. Here's some help with taking of the relevant snapshots from that video:

View attachment 187897

View attachment 187895
View attachment 187896

There's a ton more angulation there than most people have on their best day.

Trying to argue that angulation is minimal/none in bumps, is not what I would have expected from an L2 trained in an organization whose second principle is "separation creates angulation". In bumps. What next? Separation is irrelevant in bumps?



Let me point it out to you:

View attachment 187900

View attachment 187901

That effort, the crunch of the sides to keep the body upright or crank it up over the outside ski, compressing the outside and extending the inside, at the right time, is what counterbalancing is. Ideally, hips are involved and, in other situations, we'd talk about hip leveling or whatnot, but hip mobility limitations generally complicate the discussion and in bumps, other physics reduce the hip leveling (guess what)... but now I'm totally curious to see how you survive in bumps if this is not something you associate with bump skiing

----

This simply proves the inability of the "standard dictionary" to explain skiing. This is likely why so many threads devolve into a word-throwing exercise...

At this point we should probably drop this (some will find it impossible, but we can try) and just enjoy some awesome bump skiing!

'Cause when you post "angulate max" I visualise something like this which I don't see ppl doing in the bumps. Either real life or vid.

Will ask again - what do you actually mean by:

angulate max, counter max

 

[razie]

Yeah, but he’s not doing that is he? In the orig video.
You missed a golden opportunity to distinguish between angulation- angles, and counter balancing. Instead you made them the same. So, why bother with a different term like counter-balance?

Yeah, I tried to correct that, I've got to stop using "angulation"... you're exactly right, they're very different and that's the point !!! the counter-balancing is the movement, the action, the effort that often results in that look of "lateral angulation" or "hip angulation" or body staying upright/stable/quiet. That's 'cause angulation refers to angles all over the place and most include edging in that, which is done with the lower legs, knees, rotations in all planes whatever. C-B is very specific: upper body lateral action. Period.

In the orig instagram vid, his upper body basically stays neutral, and his legs go out side to side to create the angles, the angulation. That’s different than actively moving the upper body out to counter-balance. No?

This is the issue - slow it down and you'll see the body actively crunching either side from turn to turn as the feet do their thing. That's not "no effort". The outside lateral muscles don't "do nothing" - they actively pull the shoulder in while the other side activelly pushes the shoulder to stay up, as the hip drops! The shoulders doen't stay still because they're "anchored in the ether" or held together with strings or something else... the forces applied on the body are quite fierce in those active turns and the skier very actively counters the feet tipping with the upper body - that crunch is very active and visible... slow it down and you'll see the shoulder actually crunching.

We've I think gotten here before: the body doesn't just "stay upright" by itself with no effort! The body would very much want to follow the legs and incline opposite because it's connected at the hip, so as the legs and the hips tip in, the body would by default follow like a stick and incline to stay vertical to the hips it is connected to. The spine and all those big muscles don't just "curve". So the skier very actively needs to decouple those and the effort is to bring it outside to counter-balance the feet. That "outside" is from the line of inclination, which would be its "neutral".

Anyways... good one but now we're in the weeds as far as the uhh... where were we

------

Is this bird making movements to keep its head still?


Both the skier and the bird are actively making movements to keep the body in the same place relative to the head (or legs).

 

[Seldomski]

This is the issue - slow it down and you'll see the body actively crunching either side from turn to turn as the feet do their thing. That's not "no effort". The outside lateral muscles don't "do nothing" - they actively pull the shoulder in while the other side activelly pushes the shoulder to stay up, as the hip drops! The shoulders doen't stay still because they're "anchored in the ether" or held together with strings or something else... the forces applied on the body are quite fierce in those active turns and the skier very actively counters the feet tipping with the upper body - that crunch is very active and visible... slow it down and you'll see the shoulder actually crunching.

These comments remind me of this video:

 

[razie]

'Cause when you post "angulate max" I visualise something like this which I don't see ppl doing in the bumps. Either real life or vid.

View attachment 187930
View attachment 187931

Will ask again - what do you actually mean by:

Yeah - fair enough - I realized that and that's why I tried to backtrack from angulation realizing we're going down the geometry of it, which doesn't mean much, it's just an outcome... it's the counter-balancing effort of the upper body specifically that I was getting at. The timing of the movement and the violence between the bump turns, into tech turns etc gives you the intensity of it, that's what I meant "max".

In skiing, everything is relative to the tactics. Hip to snow is not normal in bumps or short turns, but it's common in medium and larger turns - "max" is relative to what would be a performance in the respective context, versus cruising in that context, so in larger turns you'd see that hip to snow and more vertical body, less in SL and even less in bumps - but as the punch ramps up (or the duration ramps down), the effort is often bigger, not less... that's why those inclined large radius turns, while very skillful, tend to impress me less than a really punchy quick set of SL turns at "max" counter (counter-this, counter-that). The effort is also through the roof, by comparison.

If we're to use my words to describe these, float-and-sting turns are harder and take more skill and effort than relax-and-stack turns. that probably leaves a lot to unpack tho

 

[LiquidFeet]

...
If we're to use my words to describe these, float-and-sting turns are harder and take more skill and effort than relax-and-stack turns. that probably leaves a lot to unpack tho

I like those terms. Easily remembered, and easily understood with a short explanation - for the uninitiated - of just three words - float, sting, stack.

I've used a term that I heard somewhere for easy turns for a tired recreational skier. "Comfort carve." They lean as a leaning tower of pisa and make lazy turns down to the base. Not really a carve.

Do you put high speed high-G hip-to-snow carved turns into the relax-and-stack category? I don't think of those as relaxing, but maybe racers do.

 

[razie]

Yeah - it depends... the relaxation concept is more related to how the turn is executed - to reach big angles you can't force them, you have to relax into them - I think JFB coined a term like "gravity drop" or smth like that, which seems appropriate. You have enough time to relax out of the previous turn and relax into the new one where you're more stacked than not and because you're not forcing much counter, there's more relaxation overall.

In contrast to... if the hip-to-snow is not that stacked, if there's more C-B and effort, for instance, it's less relaxed. It's more typical for SL turns where things happen too quickly to be overall relaxed, as you have to maintain more counter in transition, release earlier, resist the GRF while more counter-balanced so more muscle action etc.

When one's working towards making those hip-to-snow turns, one's generally less relaxed and more stressed because the timing and coordination are off, so you're tensing at the wrong time. After a while, you get used to stacking just before "the hit" and releasing at the right time, so there's less effort overall... hence the "relax and stack" sort of cue.

 

[Chris V.]

^^ A thread about "the hit" sounds like something I could learn from.

 

[razie]

^^ A thread about "the hit" sounds like something I could learn from.

Don't rely on me to start one or contribute a lot, but it is a good subject. The best thought on that is "to resist".

The progression that we all go through, is to fight angle creation less and less until the angles get bigger and bigger. Most of us fight it because it takes precision of timing... enabled by the confidence that it will be there just when needed to balance against - so we look for the confirmation of balance and support too early and screw everything up by pushing. The reason the ankles are so damn important is that you generally feel almost nothing until there's a lot of it, well, roughly. So when you "feel nothing" the subtle ankle action ensures there is snow contact and subtle engagement before "the hit". It is mostly a subconscious thing, but if you don't do it, the engagement will never be there on time and you'll be stuck fighting the angle creation, without confidence and being bounced from place to place. Or you're stuck grinding that turn late and hard to get speed control. So. As counterintuitive as it sounds, very strong ankle action is the key. In many planes

So - one way it feels is, think you're suspended from under the shoulders in the air. There are two people on either side ready to push your ski base when they see it. Your job is to bounce between these two "hits" while suspended (floating) and reorganizing your body, extending your ski base to the other side, stacking for the next hit, extract from it just what you need for offset and absorb the rest, which is most of it, so it doesn't throw you too much out of balance.

If you grind the ski from hit to hit, you failed. If you're bounced off the snow from hit to hit, you fail. When you see Goldilocks, say hi for me.

 

[geepers]

The progression that we all go through, is to fight angle creation less and less until the angles get bigger and bigger.

X100

Most of us fight it because it takes precision of timing... enabled by the confidence that it will be there just when needed to balance against - so we look for the confirmation of balance and support too early and screw everything up.

Please stop describing my skiing!

Self-preservation reactions are generally useful but at times can be a pita.

So - the way it feels is, think you're suspended from under the shoulders in the air. There are two people on either side ready to push your ski base when they see it. Your job is to bounce between these two "hits" while suspended (floating) and reorganizing your body, presenting your ski base to the other side, stacking for the next hit, extract from it just what you need for offset and absorb the rest, which is most of it, so it doesn't throw you too much out of balance.

Getting way, way less performance then you however a thing that helped my short turns was a similar Paul Lorenz idea - for short turns he views a pitch as a two parallel lines of mini-trampolines up on their sides down the fall line and he thinks of bouncing from side to side. A revelation the 1st time it came off.

 

[geepers]

I began to write a comprehensive answer to this but realized how completely futile yet another discussion of this in this forum would be. My suggestion, which I’ve made before, is for a skier in doubt to get on a moderately steep, groomed, slick slope; make a series of turns creating early counter at the top of the turn (assuming, a big assumption, that one has the skills to do so) and a series in which one rotates the upper body in the direction of the turn (this won’t require much skill!). See which one produces better edge hold and loading of the ski. This should show why WC skiers counter and angulate even in gs turns.

If we're going to invoke WC maybe we should listen to what competitors at that level have to say.

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TL;DL version:

Jimmy Krupka chatting with Sam DuPratt (both have been on the US ski Team) about counter rotating starting 31:30. These are Sam DuPratt's thoughts on the topic:

1. Rotating is bad
2. Countering is a speed control tool
3. Countering is slow
4. Only counter as much as absolutely needed just to keep grip
5. Countering should be used as minimally as possible
6. It is not how races are won
7. Coaches: if you have a kid countering you should teach them to follow the skis and then to use countering as a tool. 8. Countering is not a fundamental way to ski fast
9. If countering (assume this means anything over the bare minimum) at college level will lose every single race.

IIRC Sam is/was a GS-SG athlete.

 

[HardDaysNight]

1. Rotating is bad
2. Countering is a speed control tool
3. Countering is slow
4. Only counter as much as absolutely needed just to keep grip
5. Countering should be used as minimally as possible
6. It is not how races are won
7. Coaches: if you have a kid countering you should teach them to follow the skis and then to use countering as a tool. 8. Countering is not a fundamental way to ski fast
9. If countering (assume this means anything over the bare minimum) at college level will lose every single race.

The only pertinent point is no. 4 with which I agree entirely. The others are subsidiary. It is indeed worth listening to what athletes at the WC level have to say. Even retired ones

 

[geepers]

The only pertinent point is no. 4 with which I agree entirely. The others are subsidiary. It is indeed worth listening to what athletes at the WC level have to say. Even retired ones

Yeah, didn't see that #4 and #5 were that different to what Stephano Belingheri was advocating - which is indeed min counter rotation (going towards zero) - for that type of turn.

Interesting watching Greiner's recent winning WC GS run. There's several turns where she stivots on entry and when she wants the skis to grip she squares up and fires it out.

 

[HardDaysNight]

There's several turns where she stivots on entry and when she wants the skis to grip she squares up and fires it out.

Yup. That’s the way it works.