What you learned at Taos ski week (or any other recent lessons)?

[dbostedo]

can you please elaborate more on “not tall enough” part? When does one need to be tall on skis?"

"tall" is relative... I was tending to crouch too much (too much leg flex and bending at the waist) when skiing bumps to the point where I was losing the ability to absorb and was sometimes out of balance... so my instructor was also trying to get me to ski "taller" as a way to stay more in proper position.

 

[Seldomski]

"tall" is relative... I was tending to crouch too much (too much leg flex and bending at the waist) when skiing bumps to the point where I was losing the ability to absorb and was sometimes out of balance... so my instructor was also trying to get me to ski "taller" as a way to stay more in proper position.

@Pasha
This is part of it. Getting tall is an action and not constant position. If you settle at end of turn one and don't get tall again, you have lost up/down flexion. Once you are low, you can't get lower to absorb when you need to. Staying low also can quickly result in moving aft.

So the idea for me is to think about getting tall at the start of the new turn. What really happens is I am moving my body down the hill and extending the outside leg as my skis keep moving. Hopefully I end up at 'maximum tall' and forward with extended leg at apex of the new turn. When I think 'tall' at start of turn, it doesn't happen immediately. Takes a bit for my body to move and hopefully the timing gets sorted out.

So this is what I meant by my notes being useful to me, but they aren't a description of good skiing. I think about the various cues/tips at a moment in time during the ski turn and hopefully it prompts the movement.

The counterpoint is to also get low (but try to stay forward) after apex. Then start over again. For whatever reason, getting tall once then settling low is ok for 1 turn. But I get lazy and forget to stand up again. I think this is a pretty common technique problem - staying static up/down, either tall always or low always.

On steeper terrain, more up/down is required and fore/aft moves are bigger. So the cues in my mind have to get louder or I flail (even more than usual).

 

[Noodler]

I think the mental thought of being "tall" is not going to get skiers into high performance ski turns. I personally never think of "tall", rather it's about what my legs are doing; where should they be long versus short. Once you start skiing with higher edge angles, you're never fully standing over your skis at any point in a ski turn. This goes for on-piste or off-piste. I think the focus is better spent on the degree of flexion for the inside and outside legs at different points in the turn. It is this flexion that provides the ability for tipping movements to be successful. Watch any SL racer (and many GS racers) and watch what they're doing in order to efficiently tip their skis. There isn't a whole lot of "tall" going on...

 

[Chris V.]

It takes a tiny hip move upwards to unweight one ski and, therefore, shift the weight to another ski.

Tiny, if that's the only objective. But can you do more with the movement? See Noodler's posts ##134 and 136. And what if in addition to raising the one hip, you assertively lowered the other one?

 

[Sanity]

I think the mental thought of being "tall" is not going to get skiers into high performance ski turns. I personally never think of "tall", rather it's about what my legs are doing; where should they be long versus short. Once you start skiing with higher edge angles, you're never fully standing over your skis at any point in a ski turn. This goes for on-piste or off-piste.

Many mogul skiers talk about being tall before coming into a bump, because you need full range of motion to absorb. High edge angles aren't the focus, but instead absorption and extension is the focus. For quick turns on big bumps at high speeds, if you stay crouched the whole time, you're dead. Racers are extended at the apex, at least for the outside leg, and often crouched through transition. The same is true for mogul skiers. It's just that without high edge angles, both legs are extended. The turn is vertical, because of 3D snow instead of horizontal. High edge angles end up happening on the backside of the bump, because of the surface contour, not because of body angulation or inclination relative to gravity. It's a fact that for many people, if they don't focus on getting tall then they will defensively crouch and not have enough range of motion to absorb the bump.

 

[Noodler]

Many mogul skiers talk about being tall before coming into a bump, because you need full range of motion to absorb. High edge angles aren't the focus, but instead absorption and extension is the focus. For quick turns on big bumps at high speeds, if you stay crouched the whole time, you're dead. Racers are extended at the apex, at least for the outside leg, and often crouched through transition. The same is true for mogul skiers. It's just that without high edge angles, both legs are extended. The turn is vertical, because of 3D snow instead of horizontal. High edge angles end up happening on the backside of the bump, because of the surface contour, not because of body angulation or inclination relative to gravity. It's a fact that for many people, if they don't focus on getting tall then they will defensively crouch and not have enough range of motion to absorb the bump.

The context of the conversation and my replay was not about mogul skiing. I agree that staying stacked and getting "tall" between the moguls is absolutely a good mental key.

 

[tromano]

@Noodler was able to mess with the inside hip lift the last few days. It felt alright more like an exaggeration of what I normally do vs something new. But it's a drill right? Thanks.

 

[tromano]

The turn is vertical, because of 3D snow instead of horizontal. High edge angles end up happening on the backside of the bump, because of the surface contour, not because of body angulation or inclination relative to gravity.

The more I ski bumps, the this simple geometry it's one of the key insights of bump skiing. It's about taking a 2d short turn and translating that into 3d snow.

 

[Lvovsky /Pasha/Pavel]

Bumping the thread for 2023 Taos ski week graduates to share what they learned