bumps drive hips forward on leg extensions or flick heals back - Page 4

Originally Posted by hellside 

What you said is not fair. Doesn't PJ clearly state he is explaining absorption technique. By flexing, if you mean retraction. I think it will absorb the bump. It has similar effect as up unweighting to skip over the bump.

Originally Posted by Skidude72 

No question there is alot of similiarities. This is very clear when you compare the "short turns" upon which the bump technique is based.  Now as has been acknowledged, there is lots of good stuff in Nail's bump skiing.  He is better then most for sure....BUT he is nowhere near as good as PJ.  AND and this is the BIG AND....advocating a short turn based on 1986 skiing fundamentals, interestingly back when A-Frame was actually taught (relevant to another thread), and we skied on 200cm+ straight skis is not ideal with modern gear.  We can do alot better now.  Hence why Nails short turns need alot of work.

The big thing thou that makes PJs skiing great, is his ability to "uncouple".  Notice how his rythm dont change with the bumps?  Notice how he can initiate turns with a long leg, a short leg, and everything inbetween?  Being able to independtley apply the various skiing skills was a hallmark of good skiing in 1986, and is still true today.

Plus the main issue people have with Nails descriptions is the "Back Scratcher" idea.  Unsurpisingly, PJ never mentioned this.  Nails other ideas such as baseing things off a good short turn is perfectley valid.

As for "extension/absorbtion" etc....hard to know what Nails is saying.  Initally he claimed it wasnt necessary in the bumps, later he said it was....then it wasnt again.    Clearly he is not sure himself, and is debating to be "right".   

Originally Posted by Skidude72 

Correction Hellside...what TDK6 wrote is just wrong.

This is getting tiresome, as TDK never listens and just changes his understanding to suit whomever he is trying to discredit.

We all know that "Intiation" is not a technique.  Intiation is a phase of a turn.  "Abosorbtion" is not a technqiue either...it is one half of a primary skiing skill (flexion/extension).  So the one who has it all confused, again, is TDK.

"Unweighting" does not require an "up force".  Unwieghting simply requires a cessation of turning forces.  That can be achieved in a miarad of ways.  TDK knows this...but chooses to convolute and confuse for the purpose of discrediting.  Its BS.  I loved the bolded bits....rebound=down-unweighting.... you kill me....

Originally Posted by tdk6 

. It could be a language thing. You know, my mother language is not english. So I might use bad or wrong wordings.If Im totally missunderstanding the use of these words Im sorry.

TDK,

  Just as an FYI for you in the time frame that PJ did that video it was common practice in PSIA to begin turns with an up unweighting movement as the primary way to start a turn.  He was clearly try to show  that as a demo in the bumps. 

Im very much aware of the up-unweighting technique. As a matter of fact I have taken deep interest in it during recent years because I think its highly missunderstood and it very much has its place in modern skiing. His demo of up-unweighting in the bumps was excellent. I would not call it bump absorbtion but a valid way of skiing in the bumps. I saw a demo of a CSIA instructor on youtube dooing the same but with much more speed and it worked fine and it looked fluid.

Second.  When you mention that there are times when " you ski in bumps that provide you with the necessary up force" you are correct.  In that era PSIA recognized that and it was called terrain unweighting.

Thanks.

So in the time frame of the video of PJ there was up-unweighting (typically extension at the beginning of the turn or rebound),  down un-weighting (which could be passive or active) and terrain unweighting (taking advantage of terrain instead of body movements to unweight)

Very very interesting. You are saying that up-unweighting is somehow coupled to "rebound". IMO its the lack of "rebound" that is the reason why we need to use a movement to unweight. Then you are saying that DUW can be eather active or passive. It would be very interesting to hear what they are. Can you give examples. IMO DUW is passive. Im not saying there is no activities but not to unweight. Rather smoothen out the impact of something pushing up. How does in your opinion DUW differ from terrain unweighting? Could it be that they are the same? It all boils down to "what is pure down unweighting"???

The idea of using lateral motion (like much of today's modern skiing) was recognized but not yet fully accepted as a method to unweight the skis.

You are right. But today its the other way arround.

I skied some runs with PJ this year.  He looks different and skis a bit differently now than in 1986.  It's hardly fair to pick apart an "instructional video from a quarter century ago like it should exactly mirror what we consider good skiing now.  IMO that was good skiing then and is still pretty good skiing, but we do it differently now, because the gear is different and the technique has evolved.

Thanks for your responce. Im not trying to bash on PJ even if I did just that . My gripes with this is that its very much good skiing today. The reason its not considered good by modern standards is that modern standards are sqrewed up. My reg. to PJ.   What makes you think that it wouldnt be considered "good" by todays standards?  The best?  Well no....but it is still dam good.

Good posting UL. Here are my comments in green.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Louie 

TDK,

 

  Just as an FYI for you in the time frame that PJ did that video it was common practice in PSIA to begin turns with an up unweighting movement as the primary way to start a turn.  He was clearly try to show  that as a demo in the bumps. 

 

Im very much aware of the up-unweighting technique. As a matter of fact I have taken deep interest in it during recent years because I think its highly missunderstood and it very much has its place in modern skiing. His demo of up-unweighting in the bumps was excellent. I would not call it bump absorbtion but a valid way of skiing in the bumps. I saw a demo of a CSIA instructor on youtube dooing the same but with much more speed and it worked fine and it looked fluid. How can one claim to be "very much aware" then state that is "highly missunderstood" and "very much has its place in modern skiing"????????????????? WHEN UPWEIGHTING IS THE PREDOMINANT METHOD OF UNWEIGHTING USED IN WORLD CUP SLALOM, GS, SUPER G AND DOWNHILL.  NOT TO MENTION IT IS WHAT IS PRIMARILY USED BY THE WORLDS TOP FREESKIERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  You cant possibly suggest it is this misuderstood abstract out of date idea when it is main method employed and claim to understand it.  

 

Second.  When you mention that there are times when " you ski in bumps that provide you with the necessary up force" you are correct.  In that era PSIA recognized that and it was called terrain unweighting.

 

Thanks.

 

So in the time frame of the video of PJ there was up-unweighting (typically extension at the beginning of the turn or rebound),  down un-weighting (which could be passive or active) and terrain unweighting (taking advantage of terrain instead of body movements to unweight)

 

Very very interesting. You are saying that up-unweighting is somehow coupled to "rebound". IMO its the lack of "rebound" that is the reason why we need to use a movement to unweight. Then you are saying that DUW can be eather active or passive. It would be very interesting to hear what they are. Can you give examples. IMO DUW is passive. Im not saying there is no activities but not to unweight. Rather smoothen out the impact of something pushing up. How does in your opinion DUW differ from terrain unweighting? Could it be that they are the same? It all boils down to "what is pure down unweighting"??? WTF?

 

The idea of using lateral motion (like much of today's modern skiing) was recognized but not yet fully accepted as a method to unweight the skis.

You are right. But today its the other way arround. Double WTF?

Skidude, IMO up-unweighting moves are not the predominant methods used in WC SL and GS. SL as been all about retraction for years, and GS has become so more and more the last few years. Just because the COM raises during the transition doesn't mean it is up unweighting, that is mostly because of the very deep edge angles.

Skidude, IMO up-unweighting moves are not the predominant methods used in WC SL and GS. SL as been all about retraction for years, and GS has become so more and more the last few years. Just because the COM raises during the transition doesn't mean it is up unweighting, that is mostly because of the very deep edge angles.

Hold your horses everyone. Skidude has a different take on "unweighting" than me for example. I refer to a body movement. An up-unweighting movement. From a flexed position I extend my legs and push my CoM up. When I do this the pressure under my skis increase. The unweighting occours as the mass accelleration up stops. Thats when the pressure under my skis is reduced. The funny thing is that when I make such a movement the unweighting phase is not when my mass goes up but when it stops and comes down. So its actually DUW. In Skidudes case all WC turns become UUW because all turns are heavily inclinated (tipped). The mass is low at the gate and has to vault over. Except they most of the time do not want to unweight. They want to carve edge locked and for that you dont need to unweight. Im not even going to go into defining DUW in this posting for obvious reasons.

I respect Skidudes way of looking at it. Hopefully he will respect mine. I wonder which is more common world wide?

SD72

From my perspective,  your view is flawed ;-)

The COM provides a point of reaction (mass and inertia) from which the legs may influence the loading of the ski on snow.  COM is Center of Mass.  There is no "and inertia" anymore then there is "and everything else"

UUW can provide a large Mass X Velocity reaction but at the expense of time. We have inertia regardless of UUW or DUW or whatever.  Further inertia is not a "reaction".  V contains a time unit.  M is fixed by the skier, yes m is fixed but wieght is variable based on turning forces.  When turning forces are active, we are said to be "weighted".  No turning forces we are "unweighted".  Weighted or unweighted are relative terms. and V is limited by muscle characteristics. V is a function of our skiing velocity as well, hit a jump...the air you catch has alot more to do with that then our msucles.  As TDK6 points out,  the moment for effective UUW is when the upward movement just stops accelerating "up". Inertia is then at it's peak ( a body in motion tends to stay in motion, UNLESS acted upon by some other force)  No.  When acceleration stops "up" it starts "down" at this point your vertical inertia is actually at a minimum. 

DUW reaction value has the M again defined by the skier, but has the Vmax fixed by acceleration due to gravity, any lesser value of acceleration may be achieved by the action of the leg muscles, but no amount of strength of skill can increase the V magnitude for DUW.  The plus is that the reaction "force" is available as quickly as the legs can withdraw their support to the skier. Reaction force?  What?  What benefit is there beyond COM flat?  If you cant do more then gravity...which is ALWAYS present????????????   No "waiting"  ;-) required.  In extreme, the skier lift's the skies off the snow surface, 100% un-weighting just as in the case of  UUW.  No waitng?  But my skis are in the air??????????????  I think you need to go back re-read what I wrote.  DUW or Flat COM enables instant edge engagment.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest.....       .N.B. values of "useful acceleration" in the DUW case improve as velocity approaches zero ;-) 

The M value in both cases is considered "sprung weight", i.e. that portion of the total skiers mass supported by the legs.  Are you referring to mass or weight?  They are not interchangalbe.  Turning forces effect our weight.  Mass is constant.  We "unweight" through cessation of turning forces...when that happens our Mass is going up? or down?  Simple.

The key element to this topic is When.  The most important element is undestanding.  You clearly dont have it.

The moment when DUW is most effective for releasing the skis from the snow is when the upper body first starts to "fall". 

Key to un-weighting is not the skiers COM at all,  but rather the reaction forces available to the ski. The up and down define two options.  The key to unweighting is the ending of one turn and your ability to start the next one.  There are unlimited options to achieve this.  But its effect on our is COM is either up or down.  Understading which can then guide us in determining what the legs need to do, and the pros and cons associated with each.

cheers

SD72

From my perspective,  your view is flawed ;-)

The COM provides a point of reaction (mass and inertia) from which the legs may influence the loading of the ski on snow.

UUW can provide a large Mass X Velocity reaction but at the expense of time. V contains a time unit.  M is fixed by the skier, and V is limited by muscle characteristics. As TDK6 points out,  the moment for effective UUW is when the upward movement just stops accelerating "up". Inertia is then at it's peak ( a body in motion tends to stay in motion, UNLESS acted upon by some other force)

DUW reaction value has the M again defined by the skier, but has the Vmax fixed by acceleration due to gravity, any lesser value of acceleration may be achieved by the action of the leg muscles, but no amount of strength of skill can increase the V magnitude for DUW.  The plus is that the reaction "force" is available as quickly as the legs can withdraw their support to the skier.  No "waiting"  ;-) required.  In extreme, the skier lift's the skies off the snow surface, 100% un-weighting just as in the case of  UUW.

A body at rest tends to stay at rest.....       .N.B. values of "useful acceleration" in the DUW case improve as velocity approaches zero ;-)

The M value in both cases is considered "sprung weight", i.e. that portion of the total skiers mass supported by the legs.

The key element to this topic is When.

The moment when DUW is most effective for releasing the skis from the snow is when the upper body first starts to "fall".

Key to un-weighting is not the skiers COM at all,  but rather the reaction forces available to the ski. The up and down define two options.

cheers

How does your definition TDK help us understand skiing?  From what I see you definition is merely a descriptor of what is happening with the legs.  But offers no understanding, or guide to skiing at all.  Plus we already have words for what your definition describes.  Instead of saying down-unweigting (your definition) why not just say "flexing through transition" or as I understand PSIA types call this "cross under".  My definition helps us get away from dogma and wrote learning understanding and allows us to build things up from first principles.  Something very important if you want to be a top coach and move beyond conventional and start to "innovate".

Hi Norman. PJ is the guy Cookie knew so well. Let me try to comment on the content one more time.

PJ is talking about 3 basic types of "absorbtion":

1. up unweighting

2. down unweighting

3. retraction/rebound

Then he goes on:

UUW is one of the primary way of absorbing moguls. The reason is that we want to go up in the air and clear the bump. This is done by resisting the dowforce when we move into the moguls and springing off the bump and clearing the next one or at least the one we sprung off of.

Its interesting to note that he said its the primary way of absorbing bumps. To jump off it! Absorbtion = extention!!! But isnt this what Nail said? There is a connection between PJs and Nils bump skiing. I noted before that Nail seems to base his turning on up-unweighing. Anybody else see the similarities? The reason PJ said its one of the primary ways of absorbing bumps is that at that time UUW was the primary technique of initiating turns. So it was perfectly logical why it was used in the bumps.

When he goes on to talk about DUW you can see on the video that he does not flex and extend much at all. He is pritty much flexed all the time. In the UUW segment he flexed as he approached a bump and then extended as he hit the bump. In the DUW segment he stays flexed all the time. The reason he does this is that you really cannot initiate a turn by DUW. Its still the bump that unweights him. Not his quick retraction he speaks of and that you cannot see in the video because its not there.

The last technique of absorbing a bump is then claimed to be the most common: retraction or a combination of D and UUW. I know the difficulty of making accurate narration matching demos but the video displays something totally different to what it claims.

To me this represents confusion to the max. But it gives the answere to why Nail says he extends into the bump and what is up-unweighting. In that sence its a very good video. Thanks for posting.
 

Its not my definition. When it comes to definitions on how our mass is affected by movement Newton beat me to it. When it comes to how the consept of UUW is defined probably the guys behind the Arlberg System back in the 1920s had something to do with it. Anyway, to fully understand the consept of UUW as a technique for initiating a turn on alpine skis we need to go back to the time before carving skis came out on the market. We also dont want to look at WC skiing. The consept of UUW was targetted at skiers wanting to dropp the wedge and the stem and to learn how to ski parallel. Today the UUW turn initiation consept remains the same. We extend at transition to unweight the skis to easily change edges and pivot our skis into a brushed/skidded turn. In order to extend at transition we need to be flexed to start with. This causes a movement pattern where you flex slowly through out the turn and then you extend abruptly at transition. Here is a video I pulled from youtube on random. Its quite long but take a look at it and try to look for that extention at transition.

So the UUW turn initiation technique refers to a leg extention at transition to unweight the skier with the intent of making a skidded turn. If you ski over a bump with stiff leggs the result is the same, unweight, but the way it was acheived different. That would be "Terrain Unweighting". In that case the upward movement was achieved by terrain, not the skier.

"Flexing through transition", "cross under" or "cross over" have nothing to do with the consept of UUW with the intention of initiating a skidded turn. Its important to keep these consepts apart. Here is a pickture I drew way back to clarify the difference between ILE (cross over/vaulting), OLF (cross under/through) and extend to UUW.

I’d like to hear anyone opinion.

Originally Posted by norman 

But I real don't know "UUW extention" for what video action.(good picture)

Here for example. Now you know what to look for:

TDK6 your BS is beyond acceptable and is grounds for your permanent banning from this site. You cant lie, make shit up, con volute misrepresent and confuse and expect to remain here.  

Or this:

SD72

I reply to your comments referencing my post.

First and foremost, please know that I stated that I feel your VIEW may be flawed.  Never your self. 

Following, in civil discussion,

Perhaps there is a gap in our expressions.  From rereading several posts I can see that just what is "acting" and what is "reacting" has different meanings for you than the meanings I have become accustomed to.

  The Un-weighting of skis can take place on a flat surface without any other movement but up and/or down.  And this un-weighting could greatly ease the task of edge change if desired. (such as may be wanted for turn initiation.)

Back to Newton,  "Every action has an equal and opposite reaction"

The skier uses his own inertial mass (i.e. weight) to control the amount of pressure applied to the snow surface through the skis.

This can be accomplished by many means.  UUW, DUW, Terrain UW, turn forces etc.  many ways indeed. Decoupling the vertical components from the horizontal (read "turning") components is the hallmark of good skiing, in the bumps or through the gates.

Rolling the knees left to right (i.e. railroad track turns) would be example of ski method that does not use un-weighting,  Perfectly valid!

"there are as many ways as there are men"

cheers

I think to share Martin Heckelman some video to you anyone, maybe is well.

Although someone thing his mogul skiing not good, and he can’t pass PSIA L2, and his books is garbage.

But I don’t think so. I think Martine’s mogul skiing is really great.

How about his mogul skiing? What is way in mogul? Whish PJ’s way have some different?

I’d like to hear anyone opinion.