Those dumb hands

Just remember, hands are like a weather vane. It doesn't control the wind, it just tells you which way it is blowing.

I love his demos in the video. I have names for those. "The Roundhouse", "the Bitch-Slap", "the baby T-Rex". He didn't show "The Thriller" (picture the extras in the Thriller video).

his skiing sure doesn't look very good. Otherwise good pointers.

 

He's demoing skiing that the target audience can reproduce.  Looks about perfect for that.

 

 

Different topic: why hands outside elbows?  I usually ski with my elbows away from my body but my hands in line with my elbows.  The recommended position feels too wide to me.

Pretty good little 2 minute lesson.  he is right you can screw up a good run with bad hands.

 

TC what do you want to hear from him?  This is a great place to get lots of answers to a question.  

 

 

Bet you thought no one would ever ask.

 

 

Also see what I said in this thread:

 

http://www.epicski.com/t/111959/back-to-basics

I have read and heard a lot of people talk about the elements of good skiing who do not say one word about the hands. I think the two biggest levers for improvement in skiing are: 1) look where you are going, and 2) keep your hands up and forward at all times (hand discipline). All good skiers look ahead and have their hands ready to go. 

Hilarious! I love it!

I've come the the position that the hands while not having much of a positive effect on overall skiing can very readily detract from the good stuff one does with the feet, legs, hips.I like to think about it this way: I believe everybody starts off with an A+ or a 4.0 in a grading system with regards to their stance/balance. The things we start doing with our hands /arms start chipping away at the grade. Pole touch late -.5, dropping hand hand after touch another -.5, no pole touch/swing-1.0, completely wrong pole touch ( right pole left turn) -2.0. As you can see start adding up some of these quirks/traits and ones skiing is at about a D.

Being on relatively flat groomers really no big deal, but get into steep, narrow, icy areas that D can kill you.

TC how did you like instructing this year? Will you stay with it? Can you relate to more of the stuff you read on this board now that you have some time in the instructing world? Thanks for the info on the Viva series skis, will look for a 7.6

One of my almost daily suggestions: Look past your hands toward where you're going next.

TC: I missed that you're beginning to teach others. Welcome to the club. One of the best ways to understand skiing is trying to explain it.

Hands outside the elbows makes you more open to moving toward where the hands are. Elbows should be in front of the midline of the ribs, but not way out to the side. Maybe your hands are OK, but your elbows are too high???

i never really gave hand position a 2nd thought, i can remember the very moment an instructor told me my hands were in the wrong position, just moved them to where he said and have never thought about it or had a problem with it since, maybe something else i do/have done in life has given me some sort of muscle memory for this position??

 

Hey - as we were briefly discussing on the lift last fri, you might want to take a look at the pioneer/devo program at N*.  They run mostly on the week-ends and x-mas and ski-week for a total of ~40/45 days a season.  I'm sure they could use  addl. quality instructors!  If you like working with kids it might be a nice set up?
 

 

Again, see what I say about looking for the big issues and balance in this thread:

 

http://www.epicski.com/t/111959/back-to-basics

 

One of the things I'd emphasize is that the hands have to move, trying to keep them in a static position isn't going to cut it, any more than "assuming a position" generally is going to make the skis do what they're supposed to and maintaining dynamic balance on a moving platform. Wherever the outside leg is going in a turn, the outside hand and arm need to move with it.  Otherwise, the lower body is trying to move through the turn and the upper body is off doing something else. Similarly, even though we're trying to balance against the outside ski, the inside leg has to move synchronously with it, so the inside arm and hand also have to go with the inside leg...in other words, "quiet, not frozen"...

Hands outside elbows ,faced forwards reduces muscular tension that can be caused to connect shoulders to hips along the muscles it activates. Try the different positions and feel what muscles fire along your body
 

 

 

alignment. Most skiing problems are balance problems, and balance starts from

the snow up. Before you start talking about (or hearing about) the hands, make

sure the feet are doing what they're supposed to do, and so on up the body

structure. The kneebone really is connected to the thighbone."

 

Skiing is not a stance, it's not a position. It's series of movements, not unlike cross country skiing or trail running. In the case of alpine skiing, you're trying to balance on a moving platform going down a slippery inclined plane.  You can't do that unless you keep moving.  You'd like to keep moving efficiently and effectively, two mode that I also talk about in this article, but it's better to keep moving, even if it's a little ragged, than it is to try to rigidly confine any part of the body to a stiff  , static pose. 

 

 

Here's a great example of excellent balance, quiet upper body, and pretty purposeful movement of the arms and hands by Marcel Hirscher, training slalom. 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuZJim10RXA

 

 

And the funny thing is, if he submitted this clip to Epic Ski, I'm sure we'd hear all kinds of stuff about how he gets back once in a while, or lets his upper body get a little wild, or lets his inside hand drop.  We're trying for excellence, folks, not perfection, and it's okay to make a few mistakes as long as you don't park and ride and the skis are doing what they're supposed to in the snow...

 

 

 

Sorry, that last post didn't work out too well.  Let'd me just add the first part of the last post which is that we should always

look for causes, not effects. If

the hands are trailing the body, sometimes that's just a problem with the hands.

More often, the hands are back because the hips are back, and that's not always

just a problem with the hands.

More often, the hands are back because the hips are back, and that's not always

a technique problem, see “Boots Come First” on page 3 about boots and

alignment. Most skiing problems are balance problems, and balance starts from

the snow up. Before you start talking about (or hearing about) the hands, make

sure the feet are doing what they're supposed to do, and so on up the body

structure. The kneebone really is connected to the thigh bone.

Yep, I gotcha, but it's not a static stance, it's a series of balanced movements. Look at the Hirscher clip.  There are times when his hands aren't out in front, but they're moving purposefully. And yes, it's a good idea to maintain some pressure against the tongue, but it's not a constant pressure, and it doesn't coming from a static position of hanging over the tips. At the beginning of the turn, there's a lot of pressure against the tongue to bend the forebody of the ski, and I think about this as being down even lower than that. I like to think of the whole foot on the boot at all times, not having the toes up in the air or the heels up in the air, but at the initiation, I'm feeling more pressure on the ball of the foot.  As you go through the middle part of the turn slash fall line phase, you want to bend the middle part of the ski, so there's less pressure against the tongue, and I'm feeling most pressure at the front of the arch. At the end of the turn, I want to pressure the tail of the ski, so there's relatively little pressure against the tongue, and I'm feeling most of the pressure at the back of the arch. 

 

It's not "always forward", as everyone tends to think. It's "forward pressure at the right time", which is at the initiation.  One of the most common errors you see is insufficient pressure on the forebody at the initiation.  What happens?  Not much, really.  The ski doesn't hook up, most times the skier flattens the skis and throws them sideways to get something going, and the inevitable skid for life happens.  Then, once the damage is done, the skier goes "Oh, yeah...I was supposed to get forward!"  And jumps on the forebody at the end of the turn, which is the worst thing you can do, because now the tails really slide.  Again, think about how you have to keep moving to make things happen....

 

 

Ski design is similar to your foot,IMO. Toes,Arch,Heel=Tip,Waist,Tail. Learning to micro manage your Upper & Lower movements through the turn makes you a complete skier. Every turn is different and should be treated as such. Informative discussion. Carry on.

As I watched the Hirscher video, it seemed there were lots of place (almost every gate) where his hands were not outside his elbows. They were earlier in the turn but they moved inside near completion of the turn. Am I missing something? I know when I train gates with a countered position at/near the gate, my leading hand is not outside my elbow.

That would be a good way to DNF!

I'm not sure what "my leading hand is not outside my elbow" means. My point was that as soon as you start coming up with rules like "hands always forward" or "hands outside the elbows", two things will happen: (1) You'll stiffen up and start trying to ski like a still picture in a frame and (2) You'll constantly find yourself in a situation where you end up going "Chiggers! Two milliseconds ago, my hands were definitely not outside my hands and I've got to fix that right now!"  Both of which will cause you to forget about what the skis are supposed to be doing in the snow, and you'll ski out.  As one of my coaches told me a couple of years ago, "Not bad, but you're way too stiff and mechanical. Loosen up and ski."

 

I'm talking less about what the hands ought to be doing, and more about the way you want to approach skiing. High level skiing, in the gates or out, means that you're stretching the limits to get the most out of your skis, the terrain, and your athletic abilities, as Hirscher does. You're on a moving platform, it makes less sense to talking about "keeping your hands in front" than it does to say that you should be "moving your hands to keep your dynamic balancing act going." Occasionally, I'll have a run in a course where all the parts are moving as they should, or a bump run where everything is in total synch, top to bottom.  Most of the time, however, there are moments of greatness with some bobbles in between. It's okay to bobble if you're trying for something good, all you do is make an athletic move to get your dynamic balancing act back on track.

 

Talking about the hands is kind of like talking about pole plants.  A lot of people think a pole plant is absolutely required on every turn, and nothing could be further from the truth. In GS and above, a pole plant can help on a very round, offset turn, but a lot of the time a pole plant in GS will disturb your balance and the flow of your momentum. What's a pole plant for anyway? It's just a trigger that says "End of this turn...time to go to neutral and move to the new edge." If your pole plant is well-timed and quiet so that it doesn't disturb your balance, it can help precisely time the transition from one turn to another. If it's poorly timed, it'll only cause you to hack the transition.

 

A good quiet upper body/quiet hands drill is to make some shallow radius turns, on a flat, in a high tuck and then a low tuck. It'll force you to use the lower body to make the skis carve and the upper body and arms to balance against the lower body.  Try it, it's a great drill.  Most people initially have a hard time with it because they're stiff and locked at the hips, and they're either following their skis with the upper body or trying to use the upper body to initiate the turn. Once you get the hang of it, turn up the volume. You'll find that keeping the hips loose is a key, but another one is letting the upper body dance and weave at will, doing whatever it takes to maintain the balance.  It's not a prescribed position or set of moves...it's whatever it takes to let the skis do the right thing in the snow.