Technique Myths Debunked!!

Atomicman - thanks for the highlight. There s a lot to learn from these few lines.

>>You sould not use your knees to change edges and inititate laterally.

So what is the proper way ?

I don't get where you are debunking a lot of myths here.

Is there is a difference between flexing your boot and pressing your shin into the boot?

Is there a difference between the cuff neutral forward lean of a boot and the act of flexing the ankle? In other words if the ankle is flexed at 12 degrees in the cuff neutral boot does that qualify as "ankle flexion" in a turn?

Is it mandatory that the boot cuff actually moves forward to some degree to make good turns? How much?

Is the boot's job to transmit input to the ski (albeit with smaller movements in a stiffer boot or larger movements in a softer one)

Is it the boots job to help absorb external loads?

These professional produced video segments with Bode and coach seem to be targeted at the general skiing population just like ski tips in ski magazine. These pointers are good basic information for what most skiers lack or have difficulty with in their skiing.

My feeling is yes, we need some range of motion in the boot and we certainly need to pressure the tongue to pressure the shovel. I have never contested this point. My point is, we do not necessarily need to be able to flex fully all the time to make good turns. This is only my thinking and in some people's point of view I am wrong and that is OK. Unfortunately this point has been skewed and misinterpreted by some. I hold to my thinking and have not been convinced here with video or montages to the contrary. Some, if not most, of the exhibits in the other thread do not in my opinion show much flexion past the cuff neutral position of the boot. This is not to say in any way that full flexion does not occur in some racing turns or high performance free skiing. Again, I am merely saying that full flexion is not a prerequisite to skiing well!

It's OK, I am comfortable being the maverick on this topic.

Yes, watched the vid now. I believe the lines in the vid helps a lot in future technical discussion.

Yup, I sure did and I liked it.

No not belittling the advice on the video at all! It is good advice. I was just trying to think in a bit more detail rather than general statements. I agree with the video saying we need to flex into the tongue. How far that flexion goes is a finer point which I believe was being discussed in the other thread.

If a skier was skiing in a soft flexing boot and really applied what was being advocated in the video they make be overflexing the boot with detrimental results to making a good turn. It is not the amount of flexion that makes a good turn rather it is the appropriate amount of pressure applied to the shovel that makes a good turn while remaining in good balance. IMO. So the advice in the video is good advice if you have a good understanding of why you are doing it. Hope this makes sense as I am rushing because my son wants the computer.....

I think that Bode & Phil need to go out and strap on some gear that the average person would find themselves on, dead stock "out of the box" boots and skis.

One of the things they have lost touch with is that the gear they are on is finely tuned regarding balance .... boot fit with proper beds and skis that are dead on regarding the proverbial sweet spot .... they are in balance from the moment they click in! The average "Joe" isn't.

I had this conversation with one of the guys in the office today. He complained that he was worried about his upcoming trip out west and how he spent his last trip with his shins bandaged up from trying to stay and keep proper forward pressure on the skis. His shins were raw after a few days. If he was in proper balance regarding his boots and skis he would only need to maintain a position that puts him over the ski with slight pressure.

Good turns originate at the ankle. Move the ankle and the knees will follow. Try to hold your knees and roll the ankles .... again, this video is aimed at intermediate skiers and is intended to get them someplace ... along the way ... it's not the final stop along the road.

Those are pole touches I see in the video .. not pole plants .. I think that this needs to be made clear since some still equate a plant as a hard and distinct move ..... necessary at times ... but quite different in nature.

Think about all the time and energy you have spent just to be in balance over your skis .... as pros, I'm betting you put a lot into this. I think a lot is lost in these videos because the average person is way out of balance to start with. This then leads to a series of "band aid" fixes in technique that should be addressed .... that said ... a good instructor with a keen eye (I am not), would probably spot much of this and address it along with technique on an individual basis.

I saw nothing in the video except a very good simple non technical explanation of the gross movements needed for good skiing in general. There is nothing there that I disagree with.

This forum is about taking those gross movement patterns and breaking them down much futher into more technobable as some would call it. Now what I see here a lot in this forum is people zeroing in on their own experiences and narrowing it down to whatever turn they are working on for movments and expousing them good or bad. They talk as if there movements are the way to ski when I look at most of their descriptions and say, "Maybe in that turn or as an exercies but that is not how I ski in most situations".

Aren't you in this instance zeroing in on one video and saying "this is the only way to ski and everything else including detailed descriptions of Bode's movements are bunk"?. You have come across to me in the past as very knowlegable and said some of the things you are now infering are myths. You appear to be saying that Bode is not blending many fine motor skills into his skiing and that he is not talking about them because they don't count If so, then anyone should be able to ski like Bode with only those simple movements. Now I know you don't believe that and most of the time you are very much a technobabble guy yourself. Your whole thread smacks of being fed up at the moment with the technobabble that this forum is about. I get that way and when I do I take a break. When kids get that way we mak'em take a nap.

The end of my conversation with my office chum was to toss his boots in the trash (he got them at a "big box" shop that I have utter disdain for) and told him to, especially considering how much he spends on his two, two week ski trips to major $$ resorts, and get is silly adz to a good fitter, Phil knows one of the two that I sent him to.

Now, you are way ahead of me in a lot/most areas, but let me toss this issue of balance out just for comment .... and for that matter, it has been something I've been stewing over for a few years now.

When setting up demo skis, mostly for beer league racers and race parents or friends among the instructors, I would set them just a "tick" ahead of the center mark of the boot/ski ..... "the old racers trick" .... and got great reviews. Of those people who ended up buying skis, the only complaints I got were from those who after getting them set up by a shop would ignore .... and I would show people how to make the adjustments and play with the bindings to get the "sweet spot", were those where the shop did the center/center mounting. Now, by doing this, I have induced a bit of forward pressure on the front of the ski so, less pressure is necessary on the front of the boot .... now, I wouldn't do this in all areas but here with our narrow trails and traffic where you are turning constantly (shorter radius), it reduces the "work load" of the pilot. Or, am inducing compensation for other bad balance (masking) other issues? When it was just me, setting up skis for me, I thought this may be the case, but it seemed to be almost universal .... they liked things sliightly forward of center?

Regarding shins .... admit it .... just admit it ... most people who spend that much time on skis don't have a live nerve cell left in those shins! It's like pounding 100 punches on a makiwara (oak plank) every day in karate. The first year hurt like hell .... after that ... I didn't feel a thing.

A'man that is a great video, I think it should be put up on it's own thread somewhere!

I watched it this morning and then took the ideas out on to the hill. Did 10,000 vertical feet of non-stop carving runs and it really helped.

Allowing some tip lead (after working so hard to get rid of it) was great, it did help to get my inside hip forward. Also thinking of keeping that hip up was good. Thinking of rolling the knees was good as well. Once again I've been focusing on ankle tipping. The way I see it is if Bode and Phil say to do it, it's worth trying!

I also was working on something I learned in The Essentials of Skiing (can I mention that book? I am still PSIA, but still learned things from that book.)

All in all my Karma ate everyone elses Dogma and by combining concepts from different sources I made the best turns I think I've ever made.

Hey boss, it's de bunk, it's de bunk!!!!

I am not sure that the video represents anyone in particular other than Bode and Phil. Perhaps that's good enough.

Hey Yuki,
Your not one of those karatekas who hit things with their shins are you?
Shin bang anyone?
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/ba...ing/3625451494

Ok, I'll play.
After breaking my wrist due to an ill-advised pole plant at near 40 mph, I had to put my poles on the side of the hill. I spent the rest of the afternoon carving great turns without any poles let alone pole plants. The next weekend I went skiing with my son, and left the poles at home. I had no problem carving turns without pole plants. I even won an impromtu Chinese downhill without them.

Seriously though, It's a pretty good video; I watched it a while ago. At the time I remember thinking of an interesting concept of how you could help initiate a turn by forcing tip lead.

I thought that was a great video. Since shaped skis came out I've been trying to resolve the timing and degree of knee vs hip angulation, and they worked it in really smoothly.

I also find I like to sit on my shins all day and wear out if I don't. Glad to hear Bodie agree.

Atomicman, I can accept that you were just trying to help folks out but if that was your goal with this thread, then it would seem much more fitting for the ski instruction and coaching forum and out of place in the technobabble forum.

Guess I was just thinking a bit about Bode's departure from the team this year, that's all. I know that he wasn't always the most orthodox in his approach, either.

But, as you say, this stuff aligns pretty well. I'll re-watch it tonight and think more on how it fits with the other stuff I've learned...

I particularly liked the A-framing on the little turns. We won't worry about 'parallel shafts" until the turns get real.

This video was made prior to his departure.

I liked the video a lot, especially the basic non-technical language describing what to focus on and do.

The best part is I can see how this instruction applies to his racing. Before I had trouble understanding how what I knew about skiing fit into what Bode was doing with his extreme angles. Now I get it.

Yes, but that wasn't the point I was making. He has made it clear that he doesn't align with the coach's perspectives on a lot of things. I don't know where technique and technical skills fall in that spectrum, do you?

Nice to see Bode on the front of his boots for once.

A-man, just because they are advocating tongue pressure does not mean compromises in regard to through-the-foot balance, and carve purity are inaccurate. In fact, they are very real, and will intensify as the degree of tongue pressure increases. Shape skis can very pleasantly be skied recreationally at fore/aft neutral. Moving fore provides a more intense initiation/engagement, but just because Mutt and Jeff didn't mention the side effects doesn't mean they don't exist.

And you can easily ski with no pole plant in certain situations, and the slope and turns in that video would be a good example. In arc to arc turns, the pole plant is just a prompt to trigger the re-centering move that is actually powered best through the core. That core recruitment does not require random arm and hand movements.

The knee thing: well,,, it's focused on as the first part of a teaching sequence. It gets the skis on edge. It's of course a weak position, but they don't remain there,,, they later follow with moving the hip in. Knee angulation is not a sin, but it should be minimized where possible. Don't get tricked into advocating a technique that is primarily being used as a stepping stone in a teaching progression.

I don't care much for how they focus on moving the inside foot forward to create countered angulation and edge angle space. I prefer focus on the inside hip. The foot will follow. Doesn't present as much risk of scissoring.

The legitimate messages of this video:

* Counter and angulation are a part of big edge angles
* No inside foot lead can be an obstacle to big angles
* Knee angulation has situational usage
* Forward pressure gets the turn going faster
* Aft balance is muscularly taxing
* Pole plants can help re-center


Just don't go overboard with reading more into it than that,,, like some here have in the past to the opposite side of the spectrum.