Bad habits?

Things like dealing with a ski that is not obedient to your commands, so you have to fight it to turn it or slow it down. Defensive habits creep in, similar to a low-end novice horserider being put on a young, aggressive horse.

Common things that develop in someone on an overly demanding or aggressive ski are leaning-back-ism, and each turn being a braking manouvre - each turn involves a skid and/or edge set, like a little hockey stop. The skiier skis as though the ski are always on the point of getting away from him, they are about to take off, and he has to work work work to prevent them.

as to what habits YOU have to unlearn, I have no idea!

In an extreme case, the turns become windsheild wiper style. Oddly enough, it is often the increased sidecut that makes this easier to do....

Skiing on a ski that is too stiff both torsionally and longitudinally can cause a lot of problems for a skier who has not reached a skill level to handle them yet. Ant really covered it pretty well. Bad habbits like braking maneuvers, and defensive tactics will hold the skier back, versus thrusting them forward. Also, speed can be a huge issue as well. A ski that requires a higher speed in order to 'come alive' can put a low level skier at the risk of having to ski beyond their current comfort zone in terms of speed. Being severely outside of your comfort zone does not promote learning. Backseat driving, and aggressive lateral and vertical movements may be required in order to effect the flex of the ski at all (often you see skiers slamming a ski from edge to edge).

The problem with the situation is that a low level skier certainly CAN ski on a high level ski. There is nothing saying that they can't do it. It however does not help them. If you are going to buy a ski like an RX8 for example and ski it slow all the time and never really let it come to life at the higher speeds it was designed for - why not buy a ski like an RX6 which is nearly every bit as capable, but designed to perform at lower speeds. You can apply this theory all the way up and down the ski 'food chain.' Try taking a skier who can carve, but relies on the sidecut of the ski to turn - essentially a park and ride situation - and put them on a slalom race ski that does not allow such ease of turning... the result is that you get a skier making GS or larger turns on a 160 cm slalom ski without the capability to use the ski in its proper manner. Worse yet, what if the skier cannot even turn the ski at all beyond a windshield wiper turn because they cannot carve a ski at the rate of speed that the high level ski requires.

Many more situations can arrise, especially when you start taking varied terrain into consideration. Getting off the groomers separates the men from the boys (and to be fair the women from the girls). A skier with inadequate skills for the terrain and for the ski they are on is immediately in the back seat and slamming their skis around as a result of the inability to flex them and actually use the ski how it was meant to be skied.

Later

GREG

What they said.

When I was at intermediate level I bought myself Racing GS Skis as I found them to be more stable to ski on, even though I was not skiing at racing speed. One thing I made sure of before I bought them was that I had developed good pole plant turning ability which enabled me to get off
to a good start from day 1 with them. Over time I did of course progress to making GS racing speed carved turns on them and yes as previously stated they did throw me off balance occasionally when the terrain became choppy which never worried me as the incredable control and safetly at speed on groomed runs that the skis offered more than made up for the off piste limitations.

:
does someone want to enlighten me as to what "pole plant turning ability" is?
ability to turn a pole plant?

These would be the same bad habits all of us [oldtimers] picked up on the old straight skis, I surmise?

I am guessing Cassina is speaking of "pole touch and turn" timing.

I am assuming it's a plant/unweight/rotate move. Kind of like what Heluva said about slamming edges from side to side...

You know… you can "wheelie" a ski by putting your weight so far back that the tips never actually touch the ground. It is also possible to link short rapid turns using the tails of the skis. To be a smart ass, I did this at my ITC many (many) years ago when told that it wasn't possible to ski sitting back without falling down. (As a kid, I loved my jet sticks and riding the tails through bumps like Wayne.)

Others in the ITC laughed and thought it was kind of cool. Not the instructor, nor the SSD shadowing the session - they weren't amused. I was accepted, but knew better than to pull that kinda stunt again when a point is trying to be made.

With the right ski you can do stuff like that. It isn't "good skiing" but you pretty much know you're in control of the ski and not the other way around. If you can't bend a ski, and have never bent a ski, then you don't know what you're missing. The old "you don't know what you don't know." So from the other thread… if the person has a ski that he'll never feel the "holy-crap-that's-how-it's-supposed-to-work" feeling, he'll be eternally damned.

Unfortunately I usually feel eternally damned - especially when I watch WC'ers.

Ghost,

If she could do that, then the race sticks would not be beyond her!

My biggest bad habit and one that others seem to have is doing shots before lunch. You know you get those first great runs in and then decide to hit the lodge to open the Bar and rest a bit?. Then for some reason your ordering your second or third beer and shot combo (Good Company)

Then you think its time to hit the slopes again and really tear it up!

This is a very bad habit that should be avoided at all cost.

Bad Habit

OK Bad Habit. Skiing backwards in unfamiliar territory, watching person who requested a watch and slamming backwards into a snowboard chopped off mogul. Concussion #6. Whistler.

You're skiing moguls switch and blame snowboarders when you fall? "Yeah, see how they chopped off the mogul?" HaHa. Skiers do that, boarders smooth out the ruts and make the bumps rounder. Not a word of thanks, either.

Consider wearing a helmet.

Short shaped skis and lousy skiers make for chopped up moguls. I ride the bumps a lot (not well, another story) but I do try to ride runs that don't see a lot of bad skiers for this reason. If you think ski areas should institute ski height or sidecut limits for bump runs again, I'm ok with it.

Remeber when Mary Jane had a sign near the top that said (No skis under 180CM in length allowed)? AHHH The good old days

Well, on reading what I wrote it looks more harsh than I intended. And I like seeing people of all abilities trying the bumps, and seeing blue runs being allowed to bump up in parts. But, nicely shaped bumps are like hot chocolate with real whipped cream, or whatever.

Bad habits from being "overskied?" Getting muscular tension ingrained as an adaptive response, as opposed to being relaxed and flowing. Apart from being bad in general it makes it hard to get the timing of getting the skis layed over and back off edge much harder to feel.

Bad Habits

Lighten up Guys. Bad Habits. It was my fault I crashed, Not a snowboarders or another skiers, or a snowsnake. I did a dumb thing. Me not a boarder. ok ok !!!!

I did something very similar last year... Skiing Breck (knew the area reasonably well) carrying my overtired son. Making my way from Peak 7 back to Peak 8 base to head home. Skied backwards to give a tip to a friend's daughter and skied (slowly!) backwards into one of the tree islands in the middle of the run! : Surprised, but fortunately no one hurt. And I didn't drop Gabe.

I won't do that, again!

Are you sure this story is not Alcohol related

So, Ghost, since you asked, I'll specifically address the "too much ski" issue.

Let's first consider the extreme case. Let's put a young (ie muscularly undeveloped) 100 lb female on a full-bore race ski made for 200 lb WC competitive males. She cannot decamber the ski. Standing flat on it, it still has camber, and the midsection of the ski is off the snow. On edge, it doesn't arc, because she's not decambering it. These are the skis that she has to ski. What does she do to "ski" them?

First, she needs to avoid the edges, since they'll kill her! The skis are unpredictable and threatening on-edge. So, she skis a flat ski. She turns by pivoting them, and then slipping sideways to slow down. She controls speed through "defensive" braking movements, since she has little to no control over direction. She may use old-fashioned braking wedges as her best option.

As nolo said, this was typical traditionally, because this is how many skis skied back in the day. Fortunately for all of us, we don't need to put up with this any more.

So, as the skill level and strength of the skier increases, she could get to the point where she could begin to decamber the skis. She's not likely to ever get to the point where she'd get the full capability out of skis, however, because the physics aren't in her favor. It's a combination of speed, technique, and skier's mass.

This is an extreme. However, the idea holds for anyone on skis that aren't the most appropriate for him/her. Someone who can't get these kind of angles



(i.e., the vast majority of skiers on the mountain) are not going to be well-served by high-end race- or near-race-caliber skis. In fact, it's likely that they'll never learn to create these kinds of angles because of the challenges between where they are (see our little girl, above) and what they need to do to get here:



So, it's much better to use our equipment judiciously and strategically to help us improve. It's flex, sidecut, length, and design all contribute to our learning, and we'll either learn skills and techniques that guide us towards higher-level skiing, or we'll find ways to compensate for issues with our equipment that will hold us back--and may take some/much of the joy out of our skiing experience. Spoken as one who has been there. In my case, though, it was my boots...

It's not a matter of fear. It's a matter of skill level. How many people below the highest skill levels actually get their bodies inside their skis consistently, for example? This is where you get skiers using rotary as their primary turning skill because they can't get enough arc out of the edged ski. It's relative, certainly, but they are far stiffer than the recreational skis in the line (compare WC SC to RX8 and then to RX6).

It also takes a combination of pressure skills and edging skills that less experienced skiers may not have.

sking a ski to grow into often fosters stepping and lifting as a shortcut to carving

Have you noticed that all the bad habits are around doing things that make it impossible to carve? It seems that skiing = carving!

What makes you think that any of this is exclusive or all-inclusive? Add your own...please!