Is inclination ever needed or used?

What?  I think you need to re-check you sceince there.

 

I know what inclination is.  You cant turn at any conceivable speed without it....on skis, running around a corner, on a bike, etc.

 

Inclination is what moves your COM inside your BOS to balance against centripidal forces...Angulation is applied overtop of inclination enabling a skier to keep increasing edge angle, without moving the COM further inside.

I agree with your definition of terms.

IMO you should strive for angulation 99% of the time.
The only time you should incline is when the forces are so high that you can't keep the inside ski on snow, it starts lifting so much that you start falling to your outside. I've yet only ever experienced this on SG and GS skis. On my GS and SL skis the edges don't hold that much forces.

In my mind it's not really an either/or kind of argument, each turn contains both inclination and angulation, to what degree and when depends on what you want to do with that turn.

 

Carl R, what negatives do you see with inclination early in the turn, if it is followed by angulation later?

Jim, if the speed is big enough, there is not much problem with that imo. The negative with inclination is that if the speed is less than really fast, the skier will get the weight too far inside and needs to support the body with the inner ski. When the inner ski is weighted the outer ski turns less than if it's fully loaded. This results in a bigger turn radius than intended, and eventually an A-frame.

This is at least true for most skiers. There are always exceptions.

 

The truth of the matter it doesnt matter becasue you inclinate and you do it for all the wrong reasons. You need to find the center of your outside skis, instead of the tail of your inside ski.

 

It sounds like you may have answered your own question.

 

Here's a guy who only inclines and he's making some carved turns: 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRCltg8CPwQ

 

You'll notice a few balance issues though with his skiing...

 

One of our top coaches the other day used the line that there are no right or wrong movements, just different outcomes. While it's technically true, there are better and worse outcomes for the skier. I can't think of any cases where inclining without angulating creates better outcomes than inclining with angulating. Though I'd like to be shown otherwise.  

Didn't that guy have serious angulation also going on?

 

It seems to me that inclinaton is a more relaxed way of skiing, a way to not have to be on your edges all the time.

     Quote:

In that video what you're seeing is called hyper-carving.  It's practically a sport unto itself in Europe.  I don't think it has a lot of bearing on "real" skiing.

 

Regarding inclination being more relaxed.  Yes, some people do see it that way, but I don't agree with your comment that you don't "have to be on your edges all the time".  Inclination is just another way to achieve edge angles.  The unfortunate side-effect though is that inclination causes most skiers to overly commit the upper body inside of the turn and as such are dependent on balancing against the forces of the turn to stay upright.  If those forces disappear due to variable conditions/terrain, a skier overly dependent on inclination ends up losing their balance far more often than the skier who predominantly uses angulation to achieve their edge angles.

 

Inclination also becomes increasingly more difficult to manage as terrain gets steeper.  You won't see a lot of success coming out of using inclination in steep terrain.

 

 

Richy, you're running into a conflict of definition here.  

 

I think by inclination you mean banking, where the entire body tips into the turn straight as a telephone pole.  In the past, many people referred to it in that way.  A common current view of it is to consider inclination as simply a tipping of the Center of Mass laterally away from the feet.  Under that definition, inclination happens in every turn, regardless of amount of angulation present or absent.  

 

Angulation is the tool you use to manage your lateral balance.  You use as much of it as is needed to achieve the lateral balance state you desire.  Simple as that.  If you end up with more weight on your inside ski than you desired, you didn't angulate enough.

 

As a general rule, the bigger edge angles you use, the more you need to angulate to keep dominant pressure (your balance point) on your outside ski.   

 

 

I think if you can answer why people don't use this as their standard technique, it'll reveal why inclination isn't very effective without angulation. 

Is it used?

Yes, in fact banking (Rick's definition) is used by a lot of amateur skiers who like to ski fast, relate skiing to riding a bike, and know that when riding a bike you have to lean to turn.  The trouble is that at first they only use angulation to allow skis to tip at low speeds. 

 

There are two ways of looking at angulation:

1) a way to move your cm given that you have your skis tipped to the right angle for your turn and need to move the cm further up and out or in and down to  adjust for the centrifugal forces at your given turn size and speed.

2)  a way to tip your skis more or less given that you have your cm in the proper postition for a turn of that size and speed.

 

It's all relative, but often thinking of it in the 2nd sense allows safer turning, allowing more margin for error.  Of course, as you approach the extreme limit of traction and maximum force for a given turn size and speed, there is very little margin anyway.

 

As Rick said, if you're not using high edge angles banking works OK.  I've gotten away with it for years (although I've been criticized for it, but it works.)

 

However when it gets steeper and/or you are using higher edge angles what happens as Richie pointed out, is your outside ski can slip out from under you as it's not being pressured.  As you bank (lean/incline) your weight is more over your inside ski.  Move your chest, shoulders and head too inside and (unless you're going really fast) you'll either tip over or have your outside ski slip out from under you.  That's happened to me a few times recently on steep icy pitches, fortunately I have developed good enough balance skills over my inside ski that I was able to recover without falling.

 

 

 

My banking skills or my ability to incline are weak, so I tend to deliberately weight the outside ski.  I keep my knees towards the inside and "hold on" with my edges - high edge angles even on not too steep terrain.  I also like the "feeling" of locking on to a turn and that seems the only way that I can do that.

 

I would like to be able to use less edge angle and improve my ability to bank my turns on easier terrain while skiing fast.  It seems like a more relaxed way to ski while shifting to aggressive angulation when grip deteriorates.  Followed Bob Barns while he was banking turns and he was tall and relaxed and graceful.
 

 

I think some of you will find the perspective about the relationship of Angulation to Inclination presented from min. 3:50 of Chapter 9 as well as from min. 5:00 of Chapter 10 interesting. http://tinyurl.com/2859fpb
 

Excellent Ray, thanks!  Who would think that so much could be explained and demonstrated off snow like that?  

 

Ski Here Now indeed.   

I see we all still have our dancing shoes on and are trotting all over the place.

 

I think we all understand what angulation is, so no need to cover that again.  Inclination occurs when angulation alone is insufficient to manage the forces created.  These are both moves we use to counter external forces as SkiDude pointed out earlier.  We don't decide how far to "incline ourselves".  Our body just goes there to counter the forces acting upon us.  Do I use it ?  You bet

 

When we do "incline ourselves" by using our muscle and bone structure and brain to decide how far to intentionally lean to the inside it's banking.  We made the decision to "lean into" the turn and hope it equals the forces acting upon us.  Not the best idea.  Do I use it ?  Sure, and it's a mistake every time !

 

Nice to know that you found the information interesting.

 

I am amazed at how few understand how great the effect of alignment is on Ski Technique!
 

 

More banking is used early in the turn when you do not want to set the edges. A lot of angulation will not allow the skis to be pivoted easily, and if you need to pivot a lot of angulation increases the risk of injury.

Look e.g. at Svindal in this video. The last turn around the red gate.

That is the only use of banking I can think of, unless doing it just for fun.

 

 

High speed pow turns in deep light snow.
 

 

Yes, in the following sense:

 

http://youcanski.com/en/coaching/incline-to-win.htm

 

This site, by my former coach, Greg Gurshman, is an excellent technical resource.

I'd really love to see somebody try to use inclination without angulation (and please don't go posting any transition pictures to convince me it works, OK?)

 

  Good luck if you try it, or for that matter banking without your edges holding.

Angulation first or counter first?

 

Would pictures of cyclists be inappropriate?

I don't get the big deal.

Those turns are easy to make without going too far. Bazzer called them nap time turns. After lunch they're fun. You start downhill and just lean like a wooden soldier. You will turn, and you can lean pretty far too. Never did I see anyone fall over, and we were'nt going very fast, and we'd had a lot of lunch. These were not performance turns, but we got a fair amount of performance out of them.

 

 

In this video, the Swiss, particularly the first guy, use inclination at begining of turn then adjust to angulation. The first French guy uses even less angulation, mostly inclining.