Well, much thread drift here, but I'm going to try to maintain a focus on the question raised in the OP--the relationship of the COM to the BOS. Featuring the fore-aft and lateral aspects of that.
Don't know what to make of this one. Are you creating Centripetal force when you do Pivot Slips?
No, not if doing them correctly, because your COM is traveling in a straight line.
Skidded turns are not pivot slips. They are real turns, where the COM traces an S-shaped (one hopes) path. Hence, they produce centripetal force. Again, it's a question of how much. With that in mind, you might look again at what I wrote earlier.
I don't believe for one second that a beginner WANTS to use friction. Friction is a failure to carve. Friction (straight line travel) is one of only two options and beginners know nothing about option 2 (creating centripetal force) but they instinctively know about defence of straight line force, ergo bracing through the heel.
Well, I have to disagree, because the beginners I observe appear to be intentionally creating a lot of skidding to slow themselves. And that's my memory from my own early days. Probably they don't have the word "friction" in their minds, but they know what skidding feels like, and they know the result. Skidding doesn't have to be in a straight line. Realistically, most turns, even for the most expert skiers, are somewhere on the spectrum between straight line sideslipping and pure carving.
I see no good in having [beginners] unconsciously adjust their COM to the inside away from the outside ski through the active tipping of the inside ski. More often than not, the beginner will end up leaning over the inside ski. IMO. ...Not saying tipping the inside first doesn't work, just think one needs a higher skill level to make efficient use of the move.
Let's talk first about lessons and mental focus for skiers at a more advanced level. Advocates of a focus on inside ski tipping certainly aren't looking to produce leaning to the inside--that is to say, an excessive movement of the COM to the inside of the turn, resulting in too much weight on the inside ski. The training I have received with this focus has simultaneously sought to achieve just the opposite--outside ski dominance, balancing on the inside edge of the outside ski, and pivoting of the upper body over the outside ski hip joint as the turn develops.
We would be teaching beginners very badly if our instruction led to them to CONSCIOUSLY lean into the hill. So the question becomes, does teaching inside ski tipping result in them unconsciously overadjusting their COM to the inside? First, I'm not persuaded that there's a tendency for there to be any difference in the amounts of inside leaning problems resulting from foot tipping created through the two approaches--an inside foot focus or an outside foot focus. Second, many of the drills using an inside foot focus are expressly designed to avoid leaning in. For example, if I were having beginners start the shallow, descending traverse I described earlier, I would first have them stand balance on a side slope, with skis directly across the fall line. I would have them practice some tipping (knee angulation) to get a strong grip on the snow, standing still. I would have them notice that their weight would naturally go mostly to the downhill ski. I would have them face their upper bodies a bit down the hill. I would have them put ski pole tips out for balance, and pick up the uphill ski, balancing only on the downhill ski. Only then would I ask them to move, to start a traverse, and make the same movements (absent picking up the uphill ski). As another example, one can have the student stand on a flat, with skis on or off, pick one foot up entirely off the snow, bring it close to the other foot, and tip it to the outside. As I spoke of earlier, this is likely to result in the student falling over the first time, but the student will quickly learn some angulation to achieve balance on the one edge of one ski. All of this is intended to counteract any tendency to lean into the hill.
Again, I advocate a softening then shortening of the inside leg vs tipping it first. Especially at the beginner level.
No argument there. At a more advanced level, training can include exercises much like the "Get Over It" drill featured above. In the video, you'll observe softening first--in the exercise, to the point of lifting the new inside ski off the snow--and only then, with a brief delay, the tipping.
You might have unintentionally misrepresented what I have said. I never said I don't teach tipping. When you place your skis in a wedge configuration, you are tipping. And IMO, this is the place where a beginner, for the first time, can really feel the outside ski BOS because when we are on the inside edges, the BOS is primarily between the Big ball of the foot and the inside edge of the heel. It is in the much maligned wedge that, if you teach it properly, students can really feel their outside ski BOS and establish a home base for what is to come.
Yes, IMHO that's a very important point, and thank you for bringing it up. (This message will teeter on the brink of turning into a rant.) Personally, I would have loved to have more opportunity to try direct to parallel lessons for beginners, but in the real world we're often constrained to use a wedge-based approach. Some are perfectly happy with that, while others question it. But if we are teaching with a wedge, it's CRUCIAL to have a STRONG focus on tipping the feet--and skis--to create nice edge angles. I always liked showing my students that there was fundamentally no difference between a good wedge turn and a good parallel turn. Each relied upon outside ski dominance, and in each case getting the outside ski to perform properly required a sufficient edge angle. In a wedge turn, the inside ski isn't creating any turning force--it's just sort of along for the ride. The main thing to avoid is overreliance on the "training wheels" by leaning over on that inside ski.
But--it's not NECESSARILY true that "when you place your skis in a wedge configuration, you are tipping." It is quite possible to create a wedge without turning the femur--by instead turning only the foot, below the knee, which is principally done in the subtalar joint. This results in flat skis, which don't work worth a damn to create turns or slow the skier down. Go out on any bunny hill, and you'll see lots of wedge skiing beginners struggling mightily because they aren't turning the legs from the hip sockets. And--I witnessed all too many instructors who didn't recognize the difference, and didn't show their students the simple correction that would have allowed them to make EFFECTIVE wedges. As you say, the required move is to tip both feet inward, toward each other. That's really all it takes. Once a skier can make rudimentary turns this way, it's possible to move immediately into teaching rotational control, including incipient upper-lower body separation, and things will get better fast.
And what facilitates that foot tipping? I say--functional tension! Bringing us full circle.
So JES--do you like teaching parallel moves of any sort to beginners and novices? Again, I like to do so, because I wouldn't want students to get stuck into thinking that staying in a wedge was the only way to ski.
