This webinar just blew my mind. Tom Gellie says for years he believed that leg steering was an important skill but that his understanding has evolved. He claims there are three ways to turn the ski: bend it by standing exactly in the center, use torque to drift the tails around a path that is wider than the tips by moving the pivot point forward, or push the tails to skid the tails into a path that is wider than the path of the tips. Rotating the legs simply digs the tips into the snow and moves the pivot point forward.
bigpictureskiing.com
Mike
Now had a chanced to look at that vid and understand why I didn't react much. I don't hear it quite the same way.
It's in the section on steered turns:
The 1st relevant bit (about 6 minutes) is the description of terms and the photo of MH with an edged skis on the race ice - wouldn't be able to pull (steer) the tips around. Too much resistance.
At 07:56 he discusses the only 3 ways for radius control: 1. Pivot it 2. Bend it; 3. A blend of both.
This leads on to a discussion on pivoting - torque is happening and the longer the lever arm the less force required. Use a longer spanner to loosen a tough nut.
The next bit then comes about 19 minutes in when the Canadian instructor asks a question referring to Canada: "... creating torque by rotating the femur in the hip socket - not what you are doing?"
Tom replies: "I'm not. I used to think that's what I was doing. What I'm trying to do here is give you guys another perspective, right. Being able to turn the legs sort of independently is a good skill. But it's not that hard to do in your living room so why is it difficult to teach a skier to do that? Why are they not doing that? This is where I'm coming from - why is that not working? It's a very simple thing to do . It's got to come down to some type of resistance. Things are not set up that way."
(He now uses a longer lever by going front side heavy to create a pivot point towards the tips and a displacement of the tails.)
He's spot on that femur rotation for a straight leg is not a powerful lever. Screwdriver, not ratchet spanner. Which is why the skis need to be (mostly) flat or tips free to move side to side like on the crest of a bump.
But he's not saying it's impossible ("... a good skill...") and he discusses it further in the pivot slip drill-inar. Besides there's vids of skiers rotating their skis in this way.
I think this is one of those things that could be quickly dealt with on snow. Could try the moves CSIA teach (there's a couple of different ways - one a perpendicular move and the other can be done with the knee flexed), try TG's approach and work out which works best.
My view there are pros and cons to each.
Aside: it seems to me there are a lot of folk here who are heavily invested in various particular belief systems, and after years of training building on their first taught fundamentals of those system cannot think outside the parameters defined by their particular system. Gore their sacred cows at your peril. You will have a very hard time convincing them to look at it from a different perspective, instead you will only cause them to dig in and staunchly defend the primary tenets of their system.
