One of the people asked me to elaborate on ankles and angulation from Bonni's KISS post. Here are my thoughts, and I don't pretend either science or dogma here. This is just my feeling and observation.
I understand angulation as a movement that anticipates and/or compensates for lateral movement of the ski. Call it lateral balancing--just as you move forward on a forward moving ski, you can move sideways on a sideways moving ski (or a ski that is about to move sideways) while still maintaining effective edge angle.
I think there are a couple of effective ways to do it, depending on who you are and how much you need and how fast you're going. I also think the simplest way to see it is to see an angle between two axes in the body--lower leg and upper leg axes can create an angle at the knee, etc.
For simplicity lets just say the body can tip in and an out at the major joints of ankle, knee, hip, waist, and neck (forget about elbows here). I'm not going to get into the biomechanics--like you have to rotate your femur to bend your knee inwards--I get that.
If I'm properly aligned in my boots, I believe the angulation will be available to me through all of these joints, but will primarily be in the knee, hip, and waist for skiing.
The ankle is a poor source of angulation because it is all wrapped up in the boot, and might as well just keep being involved in the idea of tipping the skis to their edges to penetrate the snow and create the carving platform. To try to angulate with them (create a lateral angle between the lower leg and the foot is a bit of a hard thing to do--even out of the boot). To do so, in the boot, would have the effect of of trying to make the actual boot angulate which is pretty much non-sense.
The neck is involved, because no matter what amount of tipping the body does, the head has to stay level for any hope of good skiing. But I think this has more to do with inner ear balance and vision than biomechanics--although I wouldn't defend this belief.
So the knee, waist, and hip are the primary joints, and the conventional wisdom says that the waist and hip carry the big loads and the knees are for fine tuning. However, Ron LeMaster recently told me, and I think I see this, that hot skiers these days are creating pretty fierce angles at their knees, especially at the initiation. Try it. It's pretty cool and aggressive. It gets the edges singing early without rushing the body into the the turn.
Three other points:
1. All most people need to think about is to keep the torso vertical and shoulders level as the legs edge. (KISS Bonni!?)
2. There is not nearly as much angulation as there used to be. I really don't think I ever tip the plane of the shoulders downhill, with the exception of very steep turns from a traverse, in order to prepare for a quickly accelerating release of edges downhill. Occasionally with a student who leans inward, I'll try to create that sense of "pinch" on the downhill side of the waist, but not so often. (Although I do know great ski instructors who spend a lot of time with this.)
3. Angulation changes throughout the turns and with different types of turns. It seems like there's more angulation in short turns--or at least the torso stays more upright while the legs tip in. In long turns, I believe the plane of the shoulders can be tipped inward at the start and begin to level through the middle and belly of the turn. I agree with Martin Bell, who said at the academy that "angulation is definitely not dead". (Also, notice that when the plane of the shoulders is tipped inward, and therefore so is the torso, the outside arm usually goes up and outward. I think this is to compensate or "cover" for lack of angulation at that moment.)
One thing for sure, the angulation you need is not a set amount. It is determined by the edge angles you hold and it is a movement which accompanies edgeing and pressure variations rather than precedes them.
Have a nice summer. We close on Sunday.
I understand angulation as a movement that anticipates and/or compensates for lateral movement of the ski. Call it lateral balancing--just as you move forward on a forward moving ski, you can move sideways on a sideways moving ski (or a ski that is about to move sideways) while still maintaining effective edge angle.
I think there are a couple of effective ways to do it, depending on who you are and how much you need and how fast you're going. I also think the simplest way to see it is to see an angle between two axes in the body--lower leg and upper leg axes can create an angle at the knee, etc.
For simplicity lets just say the body can tip in and an out at the major joints of ankle, knee, hip, waist, and neck (forget about elbows here). I'm not going to get into the biomechanics--like you have to rotate your femur to bend your knee inwards--I get that.
If I'm properly aligned in my boots, I believe the angulation will be available to me through all of these joints, but will primarily be in the knee, hip, and waist for skiing.
The ankle is a poor source of angulation because it is all wrapped up in the boot, and might as well just keep being involved in the idea of tipping the skis to their edges to penetrate the snow and create the carving platform. To try to angulate with them (create a lateral angle between the lower leg and the foot is a bit of a hard thing to do--even out of the boot). To do so, in the boot, would have the effect of of trying to make the actual boot angulate which is pretty much non-sense.
The neck is involved, because no matter what amount of tipping the body does, the head has to stay level for any hope of good skiing. But I think this has more to do with inner ear balance and vision than biomechanics--although I wouldn't defend this belief.
So the knee, waist, and hip are the primary joints, and the conventional wisdom says that the waist and hip carry the big loads and the knees are for fine tuning. However, Ron LeMaster recently told me, and I think I see this, that hot skiers these days are creating pretty fierce angles at their knees, especially at the initiation. Try it. It's pretty cool and aggressive. It gets the edges singing early without rushing the body into the the turn.
Three other points:
1. All most people need to think about is to keep the torso vertical and shoulders level as the legs edge. (KISS Bonni!?)
2. There is not nearly as much angulation as there used to be. I really don't think I ever tip the plane of the shoulders downhill, with the exception of very steep turns from a traverse, in order to prepare for a quickly accelerating release of edges downhill. Occasionally with a student who leans inward, I'll try to create that sense of "pinch" on the downhill side of the waist, but not so often. (Although I do know great ski instructors who spend a lot of time with this.)
3. Angulation changes throughout the turns and with different types of turns. It seems like there's more angulation in short turns--or at least the torso stays more upright while the legs tip in. In long turns, I believe the plane of the shoulders can be tipped inward at the start and begin to level through the middle and belly of the turn. I agree with Martin Bell, who said at the academy that "angulation is definitely not dead". (Also, notice that when the plane of the shoulders is tipped inward, and therefore so is the torso, the outside arm usually goes up and outward. I think this is to compensate or "cover" for lack of angulation at that moment.)
One thing for sure, the angulation you need is not a set amount. It is determined by the edge angles you hold and it is a movement which accompanies edgeing and pressure variations rather than precedes them.
Have a nice summer. We close on Sunday.
:
)
Back to Forum: 
Return 
