Break it through: ride the skis

Like disski, I'd also put $100 on Fastman in any fair race.

Of course, when challenged, people who are full of hot air will weasel out of any fair race by doing everything they can to make it seem like their opponent is the one doing the weaseling. There is a long history of this technique over on rec.skiing.alpine. So, as this new aspect of this thread evolves, I would suggest that folks acquaint themselves with the incredibly novel techniques employed by someone who really wants to get out of a race.

In this case, I would expect TCS might try to add new and unexpected conditions to make the race "fair". For example, Rick, since the purity of your soul is obviously questionable to your opponent and since one can not race against such a person, the suggestion might be made to have the priests of the Temple of Ding Bats examine you and adjust the length of your dong just before the race as a suitable handicap. "Whaddya mean, 'dong' doesn't mean 'skis' !?!?!?"

Tom / PM

How about a skiercross for $10,000? As a handicap, I'll race on my snowboard...:

Dead serious, this is not Internet BS.

This is the opportunity you've been looking for; to prove the superiority of your flatboarding technique over my inefficient, old school carving. We can even give the race a title; THE EAST vs WEST CHALLENGE.

We will compete on a slope to be determined in Summit County, Colorado. The format will be timed individual runs through a GS or SG type course on a groomed blue or black slope. Our best one run time out of three attempts at the course will be used determine the winner.

You will employ your flatboarding technique and I will use a carving technique. To ensure the quality of the event, either of us observed employing pervasive use of the opponents technique (you carving, or I flatboarding/sliding) will be disqualified, the run time will not count. If a competitor is disqualified in all 3 runs his opponent is awarded the win. Neutral referees with extensive knowledge of the sport will be positioned along the course to make this determination.

We both will put up $10,000 prior to the competition, to be held by a mutually agreed upon 3rd party. All our travel costs, lift tickets, meals, and race administration costs will be covered out of the $20,000. The remainder will all go to the winner.

Yikes, you found about the only thing that could persuade me to back out of this race! :

Still, I'd wait to see the type of adjustment needed before I'd decide. I have nothing against a longer ski

HAHAHA! Longer ski!

purity of soul

.

Roshi Yuki gives his blessings to Rick and deems his soul pure.

By virtual "I shin den shin" ... from my soul to your soul.

and....

Like Mammy Yokum .......... "I has spoken!"

.

er' foremat?

.

Conventional by the book USSA for J-1/J-2's .... ??

.

SL just may be a more interesting but it would be easier to watch for technique variation/violation with a GS.

A hybrid that combines 1/2 SL & 1/2 GS may even it out.

Terrain suitable for the J's (older kids) ... would be a good split. In that foremat it would have to be challenging blue/black.

Or, you could split ... first part of the course SG, where flatboarding may have some slack and the lower course GS ... to illustrate turning ability.

.

define precisely what the inside ski is doing here

I read this and am trying to understand what you mean by a slipping turn but you're using the same unclear term in your answer. You slip the inside ski. What exactly do you mean here. And the outside ski - the runner - is running - the breaker breaks. I'm not learning anything here and I want to understand what you're describing.

Pretend I don't have a clue what you are describing and tell me what movements each leg is doing to create this change of direction that is different than a pivot turn.

Here are some non-pivoting methods you can use to create a pivot looking turn that is not a pivot turn. Tell me if this is anything like what you are saying.

You can balance on the uphill LTE primarily and the downhill leg will match the angle and concentrate on modulating that angle of the uphill ski and get a very controllable side slip. You can then add to this and shift to the front of the boot - just feel more pressure on your toes while in the side slip and you'll create a strong change of direction. Your tips will dip towards the fall line. Do the reverse, weight to the heels and the tails will seek the fall line. You can modulate this and do all maner of pivot and falling leaf effects all while maintaining full balance. This is what John Clendenon teaches in his private lessons that I mentioned before.

How is your slipping turn similar or dissimilar to this? I understand you're not imparting any pivot force to create your change of direction.

Oh, here is another thing Clendenon teaches. In your side slip drill, the action of pressuring the downhill ski closer to your uphill ski in a sideways motion creates a very strong change of direction down the hill. Is this brushing pressure closer of the inside ski part of it?

Oh, I'd skip the race thing. A butter knife ski approach by it's nature generates tons of friction which is I'm assuming makes the tai chi approach to skiing relaxing and you an advocate of it. But this would by definition be slower than an efficient carve.

There is a very interesting PSIA article on racing about traversing on flat skies in a straight line from point a to point b vs doing a longer curved carve from point a to point b. The longer curved carve was consistently faster by a large margin. This was tried at different angles of traverse and different amount of curvature.

http://www.psia.org/psia_2002/educat...96cycloids.asp

But, get me an actual explaination of what the specific movements are in a slipping tai chi turn then - hey - if it's faster, just step right on to the world cup stage and redefine the sport.

Yep, pretty much like that.



Not really, if you set the edge to "carve," the ski would only carve on its designed turning radius, otherwise, the ski is either in slipping or skidding. And in "slipping turn," the "line" is determined by the "runner"/the flatboard.


IS

I thought the title was kind of confusing, given there are "EAST coast" and "WEST coast" in the US, nevertheless, I guess it would work once one looks into the contexts.



Too complicated a format, I like Ghost's idea--Chinese downhill--simple; we go head to head, from the top to the bottom, open course, the first one crosses the finish line wins.



Since it is open course, all techniques should be valid, and to encourage a fair race, no body contacts, so there's no tripping.



Sounds good party time; we figure out the detail (the devil is in the detail) after the course and the racing format is determined.

The question now is, you know me, but how do we know that you are "you"?


IS

Okay, my $0.02 on this race: Rick will win - and by a big margin. And it doesn't matter what format the race takes, be it GS, SG, skiercross, or "Chinese downhill." Carving will beat flatboarding/sliding in terms of speed, glide and efficiency any day.

Again, just my $0.02 - your mileage may vary.

Not to mention having some poles to push out of the start with, and tucking your arms in, instead of flapping them like a plucked chicken.

Oh man! We can sell tickets to this! Even SCSA will be rooting for Rick!

I'll look forward to seeing this!
A couple of thoughts:

I'd like to see some turns. A straight dash down the mountain isn't exactly a test of skill. It may be hard to set up a good long race course when the mountain is open to the public, but we can certainly set out a series of ski poles in a staggered succcession in prime spots down the course: a few in slalom tightness; a few in GS and Super G. Maybe Copper Mountain top to bottom from Copperopolis to Main Vein to the base; Loveland, Chair 2, top to bottom; or A-Basin, top of Lenawee, down Humbug, then continuing on the groomers to Ramrod to the base? One run, winner take all. We can turn the day into a Bears early-season gathering!

I suggest the money be deposited in escrow 30 days before the race and if one participant doesn't show up or begs off for any reason, the pot is forfeit to the other contestant. (Not that someone wouldn't show up, of course.)

Facing the hill straight down (just to simplify things, the method also works on a slanted slope), given two parallel flat skis and you stand 50/50 weight distribution, the skis/you would go straight. If you stand 60/40 over your skis, the skis/you peer to the left, you are turning/changing direction, that's "inside ski turn." By the nature of the terrain, you'd be left LTE heavy. If you stand 40/60 with the pressure on the right BTE, the skis/you also turning left, it's the conventional "outside ski turn." The heavy weighed ski is the "runner," it follows the ski track so it determines the actual course and speed, and the lighter ski is the "braker," which slips in and out of slipping (which makes the ski speed slower than runner) to brake the speed and/or to turn.



Before you turn, determine how much the turn going to be, then you slip the inside ski to brake the speed and initiate the turn While the legs are flexed or extended to vary the pressure to the skis and to keep them properly contact with the snow, the pressure balance between the inside ski LTE and the outside ski BTE would determine the "rate" of turning.



Yes, That's pretty much what I do for "manipulating"/control the skis. The difference may be on how the skiing (line choosing, etc.) is done.



Probably, with the "runner" heavy, the lighter "braker" can be moved easily, so keep it tag alone with the "runner" makes next transition smoother.



No, the main speed and direction is determined by the "state" of the "runner."


Yes, in a "circular"/curved motion, a straight-line approach is not the most efficient "line" to travel from A to B; the most efficient/shortest line in a circular motion is on the "great circle," so the shortest line between A and B in skiing is a curve line, which is a part of a circumference of a circle with the largest diameter. With a larger enough diameter, the "curve" line may even appear to be a straight line. That's where the "straightlining" and "slipping turn" techniques came in and developed. "Straightlining" is not just going "straight" but also tracking the "great circle," it turns without turning.

http://www.taomartialarts.com/ski/ski_v_is_straightlining.wmv



Tai Chi Skiing is not just about speed, or flatboarding for that matter, but a perception of a "skier life style," what makes you call yourself a "skier," and what do you do with it to enhance/define your life.

For a free skier, the WC is a dead stage, and the sport is redefined almost every day when you look at how the youngsters come into the sports at your local home mountains.


IS

to slip the ski to do a slip turn you slip the inside ski - Still no help

what is "slip the inside ski" mean specifically

Yep.....it is time to cowboy up ...you've been called out! : .....it is about speed. They laughed at Bode when he strapped on those 198 K2 fours in lieu of 212's..he showed em. Your turn. The entire ski world awaits!

Okay, this is completely confusing:



The previous author, to whom you were attempting to clarify matters, was stating a general fact of physics: a slip/skid (and face, it, they're the same thing) is less efficient and less fast than a carving edge.

And then you say something about the "state" of the "runner." This is the same kind of nonsense I hear every day on Capitol Hill here in DC: meant to sound "deep," but really saying nothing.

If the "runner" in question is the running surface of the ski, then a good grind, the proper wax, and smooth, sharp edges do, indeed make a positive contribution to the speed of the skier. But given that you've already said that your edges are usually dull, then the skis - or "runners" - you use aren't ideally prepared for either gaining speed (a burred and dulled edge is inherently slower than a smooth and sharp edge), or turning (though the dull edge seems to be the ideal for your "flatboarding" method).

But I could be reading far too much into this. It could be a lot of "deep, philosophical" terminology that I am not capable of getting because I'm "not in tune with the harmony of all things." Fine - whatever. If this is the case, then what you said is just a lot of nothingness - good zen, perhaps, but totally devoid of any meaning.



As was said by another poster in another thread, prove it. The top freeskiers out there all have racing backgrounds, and some of them have Europa Cup, Nor-Am, and World Cup experience. And most World Cup racers can easily school the local park rats in the halfpipe and terrain parks - they have the full set of technical skills: not just carves, but skids, jibes, taking air, etc.

If the World Cup is such a "dead stage," then why is it still going strong, even flourishing? Sure, the freeride circuit is popular, but not exactly swimming in global viewership or sponsor funding. Just food for thought.

But back to the "descriptions" of the "flatboarding" method: if you could clarify using clear, concise language, then perhaps we'd all take you a lot more seriously. Even the Tao de Ching isn't so ambiguously worded.

It shouldn't take multiple posts to clearly summarize and describe your method - c'mon!

John Clendenin 's approach is similar. He says "soft edges" and you say "flat skis". Sounds like almost the same thing to me. See the "Ski Doctors" for more info and yes if you see John ski bumps it does look like most folks sking powder.

Slip sliding away. Sliding is ski moving in the direction it is pointed. Slipping is ski moving laterally ie, side slip. Skidding is a combination of the two. Maybe we should be careful to point out when we are not using these terms according to these accepted definitions.

Or maybe like Zen koan, puzzling statement leads to enlightenment.

Ah...So!

TCS, you have to think in three dimensions. A ski does not have one designed turning radius; it has a maximum turning radius. With any given ski, there is a whole set of radii available to carve with.

Picture a ski lying flat on the top of a clear cube. Let's say for sake of argument, that it has a sidecut. The shape of the side of that ski could approximate a circle with a given radius - the side cut radius. When the ski is flat the edge of the ski touches the cube and if it were to carve when almost flat, it would indeed carve a curve of that radius. When the ski is angled (ie. right side slightly higher than left side of the ski), however, the middle of the ski's edge is no longer touching the cube unless force is applied to bend the ski. With the ski bent and the entire edge touching the cube, the curve scribed by the ski's edge is of a smaller radius than when it is flat. The radius of the curve carved is in fact the sidecut radius times the cosine of the angle the ski is at.

Besides the sidecut radius, there is also the fact that the ski is loaded in the middle and the load is taken up by the snow along the whole edge, so the ski in fact is curved in the vertical direction when lying on the top of the cube if the cube is made of anything resembling snow. Even a "straight" ski will trace a curve when it is loaded and angled.

There are other more dynamic ways to force a sharper curve into a ski, like jaming the tips hard when leaned over.

MAIN POINT: the carve is not locked into a set radius, but adjustable by the skier depending on the requirements. A slalom ski cannot carve 40 m radius turns, but an SG ski like my old Kästles can carve turns between 20 and 50 m no problem.

BTW. How about a compromise, a set of three timed runs, summit to bottom, shortest time takes it. No need to set the course, very few large mountains have a straight run to the bottom.

PS. I'm not so sure what you call flatboarding and Tai-chi-skiing is really all that different than what a lot of people are doing, at least from the outward physical appearance.

Taichiskiing
With your unconventional terminology and desire to use any ski technique during this race, with no rule definition, I have a question for you. Are you really Bode Miller in disguise just trying to lure poor unsuspecting Rick into giving you 10 G's?
Rick
Don't do it! It sounds too good to be true. If it were to happen, It sounds like there's something up.

So, the flatboarder wants to race a carver to prove that his flatboarding technique is superior, but he doesn't want to have to use flatboarding technique during the race... It seems to me that TCS has conceded the argument if he is unwilling to rely on his special technique to win this race.

Is it to be a timed event or judged on style? Who will judge the technique, did he slide or carve? Does any one really know the difference? Just time it and no gates. I suggest you each enter next year's Derby de la Meije.

Thanks Ghost

Glad you picked up on this one. I wondered how he could have this erroneous impression.

The more you tip-em, the higher the g-load, the tighter the turn will be come. More pressure, via any method of pressure management (tip more, more or less one ski pressure, etc) will tighten the arc. Just like pulling the bow-string on a bow and arrow. That factory radius is just a reference point for comparison of skis. Not any type of fixed radius that can be carved with a given ski.

I'm still wanting to know what a slip turn done by slipping the inside ski is. Please don't use the word slip in your explanation.

taichiskiing,
The whole idea of this race was for you to finally get the opportunity to prove once and for all, to everyone here, what you've been preaching to us endlessly; that the flatboarding technique you showed us in your video is so much faster and provides so much more control than my old school carving method does.

How can you prove that to us if you abandon your technique for this race? Do you not believe in your own technique? Why, for this race do you want to be free to use mine? Do you deem mine better? I have no interest in using yours, why then do you want to use mine? What's the point of this race if not to determine which technique is more efficient?

You've countless times in past posts boasted on how far superior your flatboarding is for controlling line while skiing. Why then do you now shy away from having set turns in our race course? Wouldn't that provide a clear advantage for you? Are you, on second thought, beginning to question the true validity of your contention that your technique provides better line control? What does going straight down the hill in a Chinese downhill prove, who has the fastest skis? What could it prove about the superiority of your technique in having total control over ones course of travel down the slope? Don't you think what Mike said here is true?
Come on now, taichiskiing, the time for talking is over, it's time to step up to the plate. I'm handing you on a silver platter the opportunity to prove yourself and your technique to everyone. If you truly believe all the things you've been saying about your flatboarding technique it's time to step up and put it to the test. Prove all those who always thought you were just full of hot air, and those who now think your going to just back down and slither away with your tail between your legs, completely wrong.

If you really believe in your flatboarding technique (the kind you presented in your video) there is no risk for you. I've designed the race so that you have 3 chances to produce the run you want. No risk of losing because of a pre release, freak fall, or errant turn, you get 2 more tries to produce a quality flatboarding run you want, and once you have, if all the things you've been saying are true, there will be no way I can beat it with my inferior carving, no matter how well I ski.

Still not sure? Want more chances at the course? Fine. Three runs are enough for me, but if you want more you can have them. I want you to have all the opportunity you need to produce that perfect flatboarding run for all to see.

So come on, taichiskiing, show em all you got the balls to back up what you say. Some are out there thinking stuff like this:
Don't allow them to think such things. Prove them wrong. Bring your technique to Summit County. Kick my old school carving ass with the superior flatboarding you showed us in the video.

I think Mikes idea is a good one:
Sound good to you?

the topics?

Taichi has said that the World Cup guys would go faster if they flatboarded.


The topic is racing on skis, taichi asks what format? What format did he expect ..... how about a basic format .... a recognized format?

Last time I looked we had ... DH, SG, GS, and SL.

Mention actually turning the skis around something that he has to turn around and he runs like a dog.

I kinda think he would object to a "ski check" .... in order to make sure his edges were adequately dull as he promotes.

He wants to make it into a "formless race" in accord with the way of the Tao, forever undefined .....

Since he wants to make it a contest of inertia ... check his pockets for sash weights and bowling balls.

rules!

No poles allowed.

No speed suits allowed.

Contestants will race in saffron robes.

I still say Chinese Downhill on a mountain that requires course correction, but I'm willing to comporomize How about a nice Kitzbühel DH?

Derby de la Meije. Because maybe Kitzbuhel won't close the Hannenkham for your silly grudge match. The Derby will go off whether or not two chickens with chests puffed out want to enter!