Traffic's not an issue on those pitches at SS. That's about as busy as it gets.
We'd kind of like to keep it that way.
-
For more information on how to avoid pop-up ads and still support SkiTalk click HERE.
Transitioning from Knee and Ankle Roll to …
- Thread starter tomahawkins
- Start date
Traffic's not an issue on those pitches at SS. That's about as busy as it gets.
We'd kind of like to keep it that way.
Hmmmm...I get what you are saying. You make a good point. Perhaps more of it is waist + counter than I think... I can see in that photo of MH that he is countered a lot by todays way of skiing.
But I am not sure spine bending is nearly as dangerous as you state, and I think there is more of it occurring than we recognize. The loads are high on the lower leg / foot when you are predominantly riding the outside ski in a strong, stacked position. All the forces are concentrated at that one point. But for the spine? Even at 2.5G+ the additional load on the spine is really not that much. You are only dealing with the portion of upper body mass that reacts through the spine, and some of that mass carried through soft tissues. Plus the lower spine is pretty damned strong. Everyone at the top level is skiing with less and less counter today, keeping the pelvic bone square to the direction of travel, and yet there is still a lot more variance in torso side angle to the ski force axis than there in pelvic bone angle variance to the same. I think there is some gray area here...
Personally, I find myself struggling with my torso remaining too square to the slope at apex/fall line (80s style) as I work on tightening the turn radius. If you are correct, then less counter and less waist break is an answer. I will try it. Thanks for the perspective. But ..... that would mean I need more forward lean in my boots to maintain good ski pressure balance. I think I could do this on my GS skis...but SL skis? No way. I tested on SL skis with boot forward lean spoiler thickness variance in 4mm increments...and found more was better...up to a max point, and then even a tiny bit more became nearly impossible. With even 4mm too much I can literally feel the wide tips on FIS SL skis fighting me when I tip on edge.
It is a very strange feeling when you get too much weight on the forward part of the ski in your neutral stance. I have since wondered if WC skiers who use really high forward boot lean compensate by moving the binding back a bit.
Last edited:
Ughh... just to point out that the "edge angle hero" you're picking on is Marcel Hirscher. I do like Davey, I think he's the best technical skier at the moment, but Marcel was the best WC skier, period.
this is Davey in beast mode:
If Dave had Marcel's athleticism and recoveries, he would dominate the sport... but... going back to Hirscher... it's this guy:
and we'll see everything, from this
to this
to this
Empirical relationships don't stand up to the range of possibilities in racing. And Marcel was strong as an ox, we can expect more than average.
Although his free skiing turn there is more what you'd expect in GS.
... but he's on hero snow, not ice - so how can he get his kicks from it? Maybe if we take the environment into account it starts making sense...
Last edited:
Thank you, Brian for the reality check. Every time someone claims that you should *always* carve clean turns I know that they don't ski real terrain, real fast, real steep and let alone a combination of any of those.
I ski like shit, but it suffices to watch the best skiers in the world in their freestyle skiing competitions, or any GS or Speed world cup events. They are not skiing pretty. They are not following a dogma. They are doing whatever works, and that includes back sitting, pivoting, slarving, whatever works at each time.
Last edited:
You'd be amazed at the hi level coaches who insist on Arc to Arc. I have been playing w coaching speed control this year & I get a lot of resistance. Funny, bc I get resistance from terrified intermediates and experts who are afraid to try to post & roll up to arc the top of the turn. I like focusing on carving the exit ( a la Joe Dunn ) and climbing the hill w/ carving as the student gets more skilled, but carving 100% - not going to happen.
It's important to get one's arc-ing ability as high up as possible. Pun intended! Especially racers! When the going gets tough we default to what the reptile brain can handle...
I was working on that inside leg curl thing after watching that Italian fellow a couple pages back…
It ain’t easy, but when you do it it really is like an amplifier ! or turbo charger. You can feel the increased thrust clearly. But it is not just a little dangerous. When I didn’t have that outside ski planted, concentrating too much on starting the inside knee movement above the apex the forces want to thrust you - right into the woods.
Kind of like driving a 930 Porsche Turbo.
I got about 2/3 of the way through the Ted Carv video. It's very repetitive.
Anyway, it might be more accurate to say that he's controlling his speed with line, and that his fine control of angulation and edge angles are enabling him to do that.
Marko and others are certainly correct that he is controlling his speed. If it's not obvious to you, you haven't ever taken a clean arc past the point where you are accelerating and into the phase where you are decelerating.
Not quite true. Example: standing up we resist falling into the earth. Same on a slope. Standing on and grinding the ski below the fall line does not allow gravity to turn into more speed and also we resist the body continuing as fast down the slope, i.e. speed reduction. The trick is bending and getting the ski very quickly past the fall line and then completing one’s turn.
Last edited:
Some snow spray appears just because the ski digs in and displaces snow from the tracks.
I do like ski dad’s “exotic maneuvers” notion… but I don’t think there is much slowing down going on during the exotic maneuver unless it is a full-on stivot. The snow engagement to oppose high speed is not really there until the ski is quite across the direction of travel. I think the point of it is really to get the skis quickly past the fall line.
Look, I get both your points in this and you're right, but its a matter of math. Acceleration is a function of gravity, speed (or rather velocity in this case) is restricted by external force whether that be from being perpendicular to the slope or from friction against the slope. I understand and have experienced the sensation of taking a clean arc past the acceleration point, but to do so you need space, and a lot of it. Every time you point the tips down hill you're accelerating, and turning perpendicular to the fall line is not slowing your gained momentum without friction reducing your speed. This is physics.
If you want to just emphasize that folks like Ted are just incredibly comfortable turning at break neck speeds, sure I'll bite on that, but that's not the same as "controlling your speed", that's controlling your motion.
If you stand on a chair and jump off, you accelerate towards the ground. You achieve some momentum and then land on the ground and come to a stop. Do you feel “friction” is what neutralizes the momentum and stops you on the ground in this case?
Last edited:
I've played around with using Joe's style since watching that video, it definitely requires more strength and can be fun if you want a good leg workout. It looks like he keeps his high speed turn lane pretty narrow, so it makes sense to him to use "Joexotic Maneuvers" to stay within it, especially given his racing background. I wouldn't get too wrapped up in his "high speed ankle roll" comments, his perspective & style are just a little different.
Last edited:
He could be carving into the fallline better then he is in this video and keep the narrower lane. He says he can’t get into the fallline quickly enough. His ILE transition is the reason he is unable to do so quickly enough. He therefore chooses to hop to the fallline directly. Staying low through transition would allow him to carve to the fallline more quickly.
I think it’s highly debatable whether his approach is actually controlling speed any better than say Ted can while carving to the fallline. There are various factors involved. I feel his approach, causes him to get to the fall line quickly and linger there, before finally carving out of it. He seems to want to call this kind of non arc to arc skiing with a redirect as “base” skiing. His exotic maneuvers are other things.
The video with Ted is hard to say exactly if he is going faster or slower then skidad, it is very well produced, a lot of it in slow mo and is truly excellent high level carving but also I feel very speed controlled in a much smoother way then ski dad was endorsing here.
speed control is not all about how to “brake”, it is about preventing a runaway train to begin with by blocking gravity from speeding you up during crucial phases of the turn. Staying out of fall line. Skidad goes right to the fall line, ends up there longer and then has a lot of work to do in the turn finish to slow down, which further compromises his ability to imitate the next turn quickly. His explanations of what he is talking about are not congruent. To me it just seems he wants to endorse his methods of base skiing with a redirect and a collection of exotic maneuvers useful in a racing context. And I feel his methods come from a racing background where he likely heavily endorsed stivoty moves for the sake of winning races. He is missing the beauty, elegance and grace of carving into the fallline. Something Ted does masterfully of course. I feel Ted’s idea of base skiing is mo betta. A redirect should be considered the exotic maneuver.
If you are unable to go low and tip the skis early and carve into it upside down, then perhaps you will need to use skidad’s exotic maneuvers to hop yourself to the fallline. If you are slow to develop edge angles then that will cause you to linger in the fallline longer. And speed up more.
I think it’s highly debatable whether his approach is actually controlling speed any better than say Ted can while carving to the fallline. There are various factors involved. I feel his approach, causes him to get to the fall line quickly and linger there, before finally carving out of it. He seems to want to call this kind of non arc to arc skiing with a redirect as “base” skiing. His exotic maneuvers are other things.
The video with Ted is hard to say exactly if he is going faster or slower then skidad, it is very well produced, a lot of it in slow mo and is truly excellent high level carving but also I feel very speed controlled in a much smoother way then ski dad was endorsing here.
speed control is not all about how to “brake”, it is about preventing a runaway train to begin with by blocking gravity from speeding you up during crucial phases of the turn. Staying out of fall line. Skidad goes right to the fall line, ends up there longer and then has a lot of work to do in the turn finish to slow down, which further compromises his ability to imitate the next turn quickly. His explanations of what he is talking about are not congruent. To me it just seems he wants to endorse his methods of base skiing with a redirect and a collection of exotic maneuvers useful in a racing context. And I feel his methods come from a racing background where he likely heavily endorsed stivoty moves for the sake of winning races. He is missing the beauty, elegance and grace of carving into the fallline. Something Ted does masterfully of course. I feel Ted’s idea of base skiing is mo betta. A redirect should be considered the exotic maneuver.
If you are unable to go low and tip the skis early and carve into it upside down, then perhaps you will need to use skidad’s exotic maneuvers to hop yourself to the fallline. If you are slow to develop edge angles then that will cause you to linger in the fallline longer. And speed up more.
Last edited:
Why? I'm curious. Everything stevo posted makes sense to me. Has stevo misunderstood SkiDad in some way? Is it what stevo thinks about carving into the fall line that is problematic? Is it that last paragraph?
Carving is carving. It's hard to do slow anywhere if you're really executing it. Ever seen a hardboot snowboarder whip across the hill?
Above there is zero speed control into the turn; I'm in the in the fall line for 1/2 a ski length or less & coming all the way across the hill..... Look @ what happens to my skis - near boot out. That's why speed control above the apex or better yet in the transition is needed. Its not sustainable, not safe & is highly energy consuming to ski in this manner.
YMMV
Yes, for most skiers I recon that it would require a lot of space, true - that's why the big secret is getting the skis quickly past the fall line so they no longer point down, but engaged as early as possible. But simply standing on the ski after the fall line turns your down the hill momentum into lateral momentum. Let's say your linear speed of the ski doesn't slow down much, like a bucket spinning on a string, so you're no longer going down the hill, but sideways. The quicker you can get the skis to bounce from side to side, the slower you're moving down the hill, like a pinball that spends its time bouncing from side to side. The down the hill speed is the one that matters, methinks.
I think I like the pinball analogy, I think the first skier below paints that picture nicely, with the slow motion there to show there’s no slowing-by-skidding, he’s just bouncing from apex to apex and we can see the down the hill speed is quite slow in contrast to the energy:
The impulse, is not spread out more or less evenly over a long curve, it’s localized in a precise spot.
Granted, that’s not easy or common, I have a hard time following in those footsteps. Snow condition matters a lot too, this was hard snow but not stupid ice.
Going into physics, the snow compressing also slows you down (bouncing is not perfectly elastic). Being more forward also slows you down as the skis bend further ahead of your feet, adding to the resistance etc.
Last edited: