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 agree with what you say here. Further, I think we need to look at the sort of skis that skidad was on. I think he was on SL skis. These can be a crutch that builds bad bad habits... I recently went out and put on the 30m GS boards, and skied some steeper slopes. Prior to this...I had been exclusively on my SL boards for quite a while. Sure enough, being on SL skis had caused me to pick up some bad habits, which made speed control a real problem when I got on GS skis....
As you note, if you maintain arc to arc carving, the only way to slow yourself down is get in and out of the fall line as fast as possible. If you are arc to arc carving, it is simply average slope vs air drag. There is nothing else. So, to control speed, you must decrease your effective/average slope. "Slow line fast"...."Big Cs"...etc. In fact, if the hill is free of people...you can even go beyond traversing...and ski UP the hill. What these lines do is reduce the average slope of your path. You are travelling a longer distance for an amount of elevation drop. This will result in a lower "terminal velocity".
Technique wise, you must decisively start the new carve above the fall line. Any delay, any float, any extended period trying to start the new turn will result in you picking up speed because you are not carving strongly before the fall line, and by the time you get to the fall line, you are not fully bending the ski. The net result is too much time in the fall line, and speed gain. When you do not start the turn decisively and effectively, you end up making the effective slope greater, and terminal velocity is higher.
So, it is ALL about starting the new turn decisively. On SL skis you can do this a lot of ways. They develop turning forces so easy/quickly. You can just jump on the new ski with edge angle up, and it will "catch" you. But on GS skis, this does not work. They are too damp, and do not develop turning forces in pure carving quick enough. So...when I got back on the 30m GS boards...this is exactly what I was struggling with. What I found is that I had picked up bad habits from being on SL skis. I was I was finishing the turn, and transitioning to one ski to early (sort of like a one ski "Get Over It Drill"...whcih I had been doing a lot of to practice stacking....) and the GS ski was taking forever to start a new turn. Speed would get out of control instantly. So I had to remind myself to start the turn on two skis....like a RR track drill....but for just a TINY amount of time. This is literally just a split second of using that technique when you are in transition.
When doing a low transition, if you are smooth, and keeping the skis on the snow, when you get to that point that you have the skis flat, and are in the "toilet seat" position, the most effective technique for me was to use the exact same technique as used in the "RR tack drill". With weight on both skis, you use aggressive tipping of both skis, feel that new inside leg really "curl" and dont forget active hip hike so you are not impeding tipping. In other words, get the skis to start the turn, to build SOME forces...THEN transition to one ski. This completely changed the turn entry which had been influenced by spending so much time on SL boards. I would get the GS skis to develop turning forces way QUICKER ...and then as soon as they did, I could continue that inside knee motion drive into the inside leg shortening motion, get more aggressive with the hip hike, and smoothly transition to a high edge angle with the outside ski fully loaded, the inside ski just skimming, and a stacked strong position.
So I disagree with some of the other prior comments about "RR track technique" going "out the window" on steep slopes. It is still part of turn...but only for a tiny tiny but important phase of the turn. You use that swoopy two ski turn initiation for just a split second, and the instant you feel turning forces develop, then you will have confidence (stability) to transition again to a different mode...which is the long-strong stacked position on one ski, before the fall line. But if you try to stand on one ski too soon, and tip that one ski, your goose is cooked. The turn initiation will be way to slow, and you will gain speed. There is one caveat to this of course... If are going REALLY fast...and have the talent, you can of course jump on one ski at an insanely high angle to start and get it to turn...but we are talking WC level skiers who can do that on 30m GS skis. I am not strong enough to handle 3Gs on one leg....
So I spent two days skiing GS skis, and doing a ton of Garlands and RR track drills, really working on getting a quick "two ski" turn initiation from flat. It is all about getting the skis to develop moderate turning forces as fast as possible. Then I started doing what I call high speed RR tracks...doing them down a steeper slope, and after a few turns when speeds get out of control, continuing that RR track initiation, but transitioning into a one ski stacked carve, and holding it all the way around till I carved back up the hill and stopped, like the "fish hook" or "J" drill. Eventually I ingrained that two ski RR track initiation into my normal turn, and it was the answer to getting the fastest turn initiation possible on a GS ski. Finally, when I went back to SL skis, I found that using the same RR track feel initiation, for just a split second, made SL transitions even faster. After going through all this, my confidence in the steepness of slope I could still arc to arc on was greatly improved because my turn inititation was so much more decisive. I was getting in and out of the fall line as fast as possible. At this point, I feel the limit on how steep of a slope I can arc to arc carve is physical/athletic. Next step = stivot.
Hundreds of years old physics will suffice, Newtonian physics, taught in high school (at least it used to be). Now if you were skiing close to the speed of light, you would need Ph.D. level physics.