Technique Myths Debunked!! - Page 3

I don't share Rick's same burnout in frustration. Epicski has done wonders for my ability to stand back and write what I want to convey more clearly.

I realize that many here are in various stages of doing the same thing. It's sometimes hard to determine exactly what a contributor is thinking because the words don't come out the way they meant or they simplified too much and skipped over the whole point they were trying to make.

What does seem out of place in this forum is someone coming into a discussion that has broken down into the fine detailed parts and taking the high holy road attitude and saying this is all a waste of time cuz its so much simpler than what you are discussing and throwing a high level skier talking simple into the face of the discussion. While there are always simple ways to explain things, many people here learn to a large degree by dissecting and breaking things down. For many, successfully breaking things down for understanding, can lead to ways to simplify and explain to others. Some people need that complexity before gaining simple understanding.

For me this forum is entertainment but has also lead to many different way of looking at the same situation. These discussions have helped me greatly in nailing down what angle a student is coming from and how they perceive things.

Simple understanding is very good but not when used to take the high superiority road on others.

Nice post Pierre.

The way I see it, as we get older we can go one of two ways.

We can move towards becoming crotchety complainers, with a "why me?" and "I've put up with enough garbage in my life - and won't take any more!" attitude. or...

We can learn to accept things as they are "It is what it is." "I've put up with a lot of garbage in my life, and I've gotten pretty good at dealing with it."

I prefer moving in the direction of the latter. Not that I don't fight for things, particularly as a consumer with the awful customer service the world is moving towards.

But it is so much more enjoyable to have reasonable expectations - and a high level of acceptance, then it is to always be disappointed, frustrated and pissed off.

This is the path I've chosen to take. It's a bit of buddhism, a bit of the serenity prayer, and a bit of western philosophy - that it is not the event that matters, but our estimate of the event. How we choose to interpret things.

I like your philosophy better SMJ!

SMJ, I've skied with you, so I know what you're really like on-snow... Remember Vail in '06? Copper in '07?

Wasn't that powder SWEET?!?!?! (Those who have read the book will recall I wrote about that day in the Powder chapter...)

We all journey. It's up to each of us to decide how we'll journey. Skiing helps me a lot, and I'm infinitely grateful for my experiences here at EpicSki. They've contributed greatly to my life. Thanks, ya'll.

That was sweet powder, the most vivid image I have is the narrowish section of deep powder bumps that we went into that eventually went through some trees.

Now the first time we skied together (at Vail) I wasn't as good in the "acceptance" area as the second was I?

Both Linda and I can't wait to ski with the OHG again this year, she mentions it often. And I've made a lot of progress in my skiing since then too. Taking a PSIA Bumps 2 day clinic in early February as well.

Wheee! (apologies to Skier_J )

When you can see the underlying currents behind behind a point of view, you don't negate the point of view, you just understand it better. I like these conversations because it's entertaining and a fun exercise for me to try and understand where people are coming from and what their point of view is. Sometimes it seems, and I could be wrong on this, though I think I'm right at least some times, I come to understand their point of view better than they do, yet if I try to explain it to them they wouldn't understand me and would say I was wrong, so I keep quiet, well, unless I'm bored.

Dead Tree... : The OHG is way more fun than most people imagine, isn't it? :

OHG is awesome!

Dead Tree? is that the name of the run? I can't find it on the map. This was just after the Linda OMG experience I think.

I tend to agree with Rick on this video. The video does give good ideas to work with, but I already have my mind made up regarding some suggestions:

1) Knee angulation or A-frame: I think I will continue to try to minimize this when ever I can. I don't catch where the video suggests it. But the fact that Bode has some in his skiing does not mean that I have to emulate it.

2) Scissoring in order to get high edge angles: my angles are far from what Bode can develop, so scissoring will simply be a way to extend for-aft balance (which is what most people use it for) and thus get me off the outside stance foot and screw up my carving. No thank you. I will continue to pull the inside foot ... for most situations anyway. If my hips ever get to hug the snow, I believe that the tip lead will form naturally.

3) Tipping the Knees: I prefer to think of tipping around the ankles. This is more a matter of semantics and how I like to think about the action. My greatest worry about using the knees is that I will regress to turning with the knees, which will promote pivot entries - something that I am trying to minimize.

None of this knocks Bode or anyone else, but I also am not in the it's all good camp. It is not all good.

Yep. Off to skiers' right of the clump of trees at the bottom section of Kaboom.

Atomicman,

I think we are mostly in violent agreement. Regarding tip lead, it is definitely impossible to have none (unless your feet are glued together) and for me, it comes naturally even when pulling feet back. I bet Bode emphasized it for those who ski with feet togehter and never get any kind of angles.

As for the knees, it is just easier for me to think of tipping the feet. Nothing wrong with focusing on the knees if that works better. But I often see people tipping the inside knee and getting a "V" in their skis, effectively rotating their inside ski.

One thing is clear: I may not want to duplicate everything Bode does, but if it resulted in me skiing like Bode, I would be happy to clone him down to the motion in his little finger.

Note that neither Bode nor Phil mentioned "tip lead". They instead talked about "shuttling" the new inside foot forward of the other so that greater tipping of the boots wouldn't cause the outside boot to tip into the inside boot. I thought that was a great description and changed the focus.

As I asked SMJ on the other thread, "What do you move to create that "shuttle forward"?" I think the answer to that question may be telling...

See my reply on The Essentials thread.


(So now we have two threads on one subject, one of them broken off into two subjects.

ssh: Note that neither Bode nor Phil mentioned "tip lead".

I agree, there is no such mention. For myself, that "shuttle forward" comes naturally (even as I consciously keep the foot back). But if I really think about it, it comes from hip angulation.

I think we all learn it at some point for some reason. It's also interesting that they don't focus on keeping the feet farther apart to do this, but rather to shuttle one foot in front of the other.

I certainly think it comes from the hip. And "angulation" in more than one dimension.

Shuttle? Doesn't shuffle seem more apropos of the action being described?

If so, shuffling the new inside foot ahead tends have the unintended consequence of compromising fore-aft balance. Better to "let" than "make" in this case.

Just using what I heard Phil say on the video. I may have misunderstood, or he may like that word.

I think that the word "hip angulation" is incorrect. Hip angulation would be the angle at the hip formed between the outside of our leg and the outside of our upper body. That does not involve our hip rotation movement suggested above where the inside hip is pushed forwards to perform that "shuttle forward" mentioned in the video. That movement results in upper body counter and turns our upperbody outwards. By bending (folding) our upper body forwards we can achieve a stance where we look like we are heavily angulated but its not really the same.

tdk6,

You are right. I meant "hip counter", not angulation. I am not sure how one would angulate something that cannot be "broken" in two sections.

Uh huh...

...all sounds interesting, and you're going to here some surprisingly different stuff, from what I hear, when LeMaster's update of The Skier's Edge comes out...

Here is my current thinking about the take-aways from the video and this discussion:

1. Most of the advice in the video (use the boot cuff, flex ankles, get forward at turn initiation, roll the knees to initiate carving and to create bigger edge angles after carving starts, use modest tip lead and counter, emphasize more level shoulders to avoid falling in) is not controversial among ski racers, it's mostly canon--it's only controversial with some here at EpicSki, because of a different bent (as it were.) Some of you instructors emphasize being more centered, whole foot balance, for better balance by recreational skiers who don't do balance training, while we racers emphasize bending the shovel early in the turn for a tighter carved turn, worried less about the fore-aft balance challenges because we do balance training.

2. A little tip lead is necessary for big edge angles, but mostly comes naturally without having to think about it (once you've gotten past low intermediate skiing.) BUT excessive tip lead is a problem, and one some of us (especially us big counter addicts) struggle with. Which is why most of us have to think of pulling the inside foot back (or otherwise minimizing excessive tip lead) rather than shuffling the inside foot forward. The video is accurate and descriptive in pointing out modest tip lead as an important element of a turn with higher edge angles, but that particular aspect of it is not the cue most of us have to think about.

3. A framing and knee angulation: There are two problems with A-framing, and one is much worse than the other: (1) weaker skiers, who are afraid to drive their inside knee into the hill (really bad) and (2) even advanced skiers, who find that a-framing leads to different paths taken by the inside and outside ski (because of different edge angles.) That slows them a little--but it's not nearly as bad, so long as the inside knee is cranked into the hill to try to make good use of the inside ski. (As Atomicman notes above.) Knee angulation can increase edge angle, and when it is added to the outside leg for a little extra edge angle can create A-framing. Knee angulation is a tool, and some ski racers use it quite effectively.

4. Rolling the knees. Bode has said before that he likes to feel as if he is using this to turn. The cue to roll the knees into the turn and back out, it seems to me (1) emphasizes turn initiation by rolling the ski to use the sidecut rather than pivoting (good) and (2) promotes a steeper edge angle, as you progressively increase edge angle after engagement (also good. Racers' skiing is characterized by steeper edge angles that non-racers.)


SfDean.

I agree sfdean! (and I thought I heard "shuffle.")

Yep, totally cool...

...but there's one element you're all missing, and I'll give you a hint: go to the part in The Skier's Edge where LeMaster talks about the initial steering angle...

Nice post, Dean. You touch on an important point.

Some people have limited parameters in their thinking of balance. IE: either you're in balance or you're not. In the right place, or the wrong. There are a multitude of balance states that are available to skiers to employ and exploit for the individual performance benefits they offer. Coming to fully understand those states and benefits, and developing the ability to take advantage of them is a major key in taking skiing to a high level. Great skiers do not strive to statically exist in one balance state. They are constantly moving about on their skis, utilizing all the innate performance capabilities the skis possess, and applying them as desire or situation calls for.


Myths are the child of the zealous promotion of unilateral themes born of narrow understanding.

I really loved watching those tapes. They boiled things down nicely into a package I feel I have a chance of assimilating.

Phil McNichol sure isn't a HH disciple regarding the extension at transition fundamental. The tapes were made a while back, I wonder if flexing has replaced the extension emphasis?

Looking for feedback on a breakthrough I just had. I ski with a 72 year old former WC racer, who has become an incredible arc-to-arc skier, he's given me great advice in the past about carving.

Today he told me that my inside hip forward, countered skiing was a problem and encouraged me to try to follow my skis more not trying to keep the inner half forward - which is what I've been working on.

It made a big difference in my skiing, both to his eye, and to how it felt to me. I felt like I was not fighting against the skis, allowing the skis and my body to do something good.

I do believe this is what Rick is talking about. Is that true Rick? Others? It seems that the counter was pulling the tail out of the carve, and that keeping my upper body facing more with the skis it allows them to carve more.

Discuss?