Random Thoughts

Though I disagree about quality of posts, I'll allow that quality is in the eye of the beholder. So I'll bite. A cursory read through this list produces a "Yeah -ok - hard to argue" response. Alas, "inalienable truth" always makes me suspicious so lets take a closer look, starting with technique versus tactics. Hopefully this will turn out to be more than arguing over semantics.

Tactics is more than the line we ski. Tactics are how we deal with specific situations. Tactics can be the choice of different techniques or even a slight modification of technique. One contribution to versatility is having a large pool of different tactics that can be employed when useful. While good technique is a great base from which to employ tactics, it's not required for tactics to be employed.

Let's look at mogul skiing as an example. Expert mogul skiers use absorption and extension as a major component of speed control in the bumps. Is this tactics or technique? It looks like technique to me. It does not work in all situations. It only works in the bumps. For advanced mogul skiing, I teach the concept of developing 3 options for dealing with problems. How do you deal with a long gap between moguls? Plan A could be throw an extra turn into the gap. Plan B could be straight-line the gap, and slow down on the next mogul face. Plan C could be go around. These are clearly tactics and their contribution to versatility is obvious. You can also employ these tactics regardless of whether you are using absorption/extension or steering/skidding as your main component of speed control. Now you could argue that each of the above plans employs a different line that the skis take on the snow (although I'd argue that plans a and b take the same line), but what about the tactic of identifying problem spots in a bump line and choosing among 3 alternatives as you approach that spot? That tactic has nothing to do with line and certainly can not be described as technique.

Now I ask how is style different from technique? Reading the literature, CSIA promotes a distinctly different skiing technique than PSIA. Watching their skiing, the most obvious difference is the rounded shoulders. Yet both techniques can produce effective skiing and versatility. Or are these differences just a difference in style? I offer a definition that style is just a subtle non-critical modification of technique. Does development of technique mean perfection of execution (consistency) or does development of style (variation of execution) count as development of technique? One could easily argue that an ability to ski with different styles adds to one's versatility. Someone else could easily argue that there's no value in such versatility.

What is true versatility? What is false versatility? Does the difference really matter?

I do agree that the discussion of these concepts can be helpful for increasing the enjoyment of skiing. I don't think that complete agreement on what is being said is necessary for this. The ability to see many truths is another hallmark of versatility.

I don't want "the" truth. I can't handle "the" truth. That's the problem with semantics. When you define everything as either truly black or truly white, you deny the existence of gray. There is another truth that gray is both black and white.

What is true for most skiers is that the better they get, the more fun they have. Why should we bother to understand the sport better? (because for some of us, better understanding leads to increased skills)

You said "Effective technique is one that is effective in all situations and is thus consistent.". I've provided an example where that is not true. There is no one technique that works everywhere all the time.

You said "True versatility comes from the development of technique." I've provided an example where tactics are required to achieve versatility. What if you had said "true versatility comes from the development of tactics to employ different techniques"?

You said "Tactics can be used to overcome deficiencies in technique". But what if you had said "Tactics can be used to maximize the efficiencies of technique"?

You say I'm just arguing over semantics. But when I read your post I hear an implication that technique is more important or more valuable than tactics. But what if I say that techniques are tools in the tool box and tactics are the decision to take which tool out of the box? The way that's written makes tactics sound more important than technique.

Tactics versus technique (or your Dale Begg Smith bump analogy) is like the old chicken versus egg conundrum. Which came first? No answer is just as valid as either answer is. Or maybe it's more like the "who's in charge" joke (rewrite that as an argument between technique and tactics). Or maybe the truth is that tactics and technique are just 2 links in a chain and that the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Or maybe skiing is just more fun when techniques and tactics compliment each other and we don't worry about which is truly more important.

Tech Tactics etc.

SkiDude72. That is the most condescending offensive post I have seen on Epic.

Not everyone of the 10,000 Epic users are as smart as you - WELL EXCUSE US ALL TO HELL.

Randon Dribble

Yes, one person setting up his standards as the standards everyone else is supposed to come up to is not reasonable.Laying out a paper on how everyone should act is condescending. An almost elementary school primer on skiing and it's history is offensive. Although I am certainly not up to your level on skiing there are other facets of life where I am way over your head but would never give you a blueprint to follow and an essay to adhere too so you could talk to me on my subject.

The fact is there are probably thousands of Epic Users that don't post threads on Technique because of this type of elitism.

Sorry SkiDude I do not wish to offend but found this very offensive. I am done, enough said.

Skidude,

Please, please, please stop doing this kind of thing.

.ma

Ah, there we go!

What is the point about technique versus tactics?

Please remember I started this with "Yeah - OK - hard to argue". It's when I read it using the "truth" and "so what?" tests that I started having problems. The rest of the stuff is put out there trying to get to clear and concise.

Is a worm turn (where you fall down to the snow, roll over and get back up going in a different direction) a technique? Based on the contents of the parenthesis (i.e. the how) and your definition, I think so. It's neither safe nor efficient. But it is fun. Is it skiing poorly?

Why does it have to be a competition (technique versus ...)? Why can't it be technique and tactics? Simple choices of words can have huge impacts on intended or unintended meanings.

This technique versus tactic argument has come up before, and I'm still not sure that it has been settled. Perhaps you could give us some examples of technique and some examples of tactics.

To me tactics is deciding what technique to use for what purpose.

Up unwieghting, down unweighting, rolling the skis onto their edges, lifting a ski completely off the ground, Independent leg steering (rotating legs from the hip down without requiring the torso to rotate), moving pressure to the tips/tails/midsection of the ski, are all techniques. Techniques can be a series of things put together for example a left hook is a technique and a right uppercut is a technique and so is the combination left hook right upper cut. The example that comes to mind is a white-pass turn, which I'm sure is made up of a number of techniques, but taken together as a whole is a technique in itself. Watching the video traverse to turn where the instructor unweights the ski and begins a turn using ILS could be considered a particular type of turn and thus a technique even though it can be broken down. Deciding what type of turn to use in a given situation is a tactic.

The confusion arises because choosing which techniques to put together while skiing such as up unwieghting, ILS, rolling the skis on edge gets you a turn. Have you decided to use those techniques in that order and degree to arrive at turn (tactics) or did you use a learned turn as your chosen technique.

Sorry - I did not understand people were confusing tactics with technique and that that was a big problem.

This reminds me of the teaching technique where if you're student does not follow your instructions, you just repeat it louder. The order is not important. And I do understand and agree that technique can enable tactics. But I also have had many students that had the technique, but not the tactics.

I had a little girl for a private once who's goal for the lesson was to ski a black run for the first time. I took her down a blue run and saw that her parallel turns were good enough to safely ski a black. The blue run was easy for her. So I asked her to ski backwards. She had never done this on a blue run and frankly did not see the point. I wanted to see how she reacted when things got harder. She did great, so we did our short wide black run. She had no problem with this, so I went for broke. At the bottom of our black run, you can see most of our double black run (which reaches 28 degree pitch in one section). I asked her if she wanted to ski this too, but I warned her that although the trail was officially named Bold Decision, we call it "Bad Decision". We decided we'd ride the expert chair (which runs up the mogul slope) just to look at the other black runs knowing that there was an easy way back to finish the lesson. Well, the easy way back goes by the top of Bad Decision and the first section of the trail makes it look easy. I pointed out where you could see that the trail drops away at the end of the easy section and explained again about "bad decision", but she decided she wanted to give it a try. She skied great over the transition and down the first steep section and had the technique to do the second, steepest section but she froze at the top of the section. She turned to me and said "You were right. This was a bad decision!" No amount of encouragement was going to get her to budge. So I had her ski backwards in a traverse to the other side and we falling leafed our way through it. At the lodge, she runs up to her mom and says "Mommy, Mommy - that was the best lesson I ever had!".

Clearly I'd done something right as a coach. The first black trail ends with a 28 degree pitch. It's just wider and less visually intimidating. This girls technique was strong enough to safely navigate the entire Bold trail with parallel turns because she'd proven it on the first trail. Still, I spent the majority of the lesson working on improving technique. But it was the one tactic that made the lesson great. This tactic was a "door opener" to future growth. There was no way this girl was going to take her technique into steeper terrain until she had a safety net.

This is just one example of why I can both agree and object to saying tactics are built on the back of technique. You could easily say that the falling leaf tactic is built on the back of backward skiing. But you could just as easily say that the ability to make parallel turns on this terrain in the future is built upon the back of the falling leaf tactic. This is a case of "the other way around" with respect to tactics enabling technique.

My dad hates powder. He has the ability to do powder skiing technique, but he does not have the tactics and does not want to believe that tactics can solve his problem. One aspect of powder skiing is making turns in slow motion. That's technique. I've seen my dad do this on groomed trails. But he won't do this in powder. He chooses not to do this. That's tactics. So .... he still hates powder. That's a shame. My fear is that people who take your truths literally will overlook the roles that tactics can play in improving their skiing. I'm not worried if the definitions get blurred.

So when we make powder turns in slow motion, is that really technique? If we choose a line in powder where turns are shallower (i.e. take more vertical per turn for the same width across the trail), is that really tactics? Depending on how you look at it, these could be describing the same thing. What am I missing here?

And I'd like to help. May I suggest that you go out and purchase yourself a Mirror?

.ma

As I have suggested in the past, we all need to look in from time to time. If for nothing more than to see who's looking back and if indeed we like who and what we see.

Very informative. Your example clearly lets me know what you mean by skills and tactics. Could you give me just a few more of examples of what you would call a technique.

I agree with Rusty here. . Tactics are more than just line choice. Technique is about developing various techniques. Tactics is about knowing how and when to apply those techniques in the right way to ski effectively. Getting back to our previous efficiency vs effectiveness discussion I might even be so bold as to say that Technique is the efficiency aspect and Tactics are the effectiveness aspect. Technique requires practice and physical conditioning. Tactics require mental thought. it is not limited only to line choice.

Perhaps in racing circles if you are discussing say a GS course, then the techniques that a particular athlete will use are fairly set in stone by how they were trained for that particular type of course, but the exact line they will follow on the course is the most transient factor and thus in racing circles they typically use the word "tractic" to refer mostly to the line, assuming that the athelete will instinctually respond with the appropriate technique at every instant.

But in all mountain skiing, I believe tactics can apply to anything and everything related to the choices we make on a turn by turn basis as we ski down the mountain. Of course, I guess its also fair to say that if you get to a point where you are all mountain skiing and changing up your technique instinctually in response to the terrain, then it would no longer be so much about tactics...other than the line choice perhaps, which can also become instinctual.

I look at it this way. Technique is where we teach people the ins and outs of making the ski work efficiently. Tactics is where we teach people to have fun on the hill. Its where the real honest to God skiing happens.

We tend to dwell on technique and gloss over tactics when in fact we need to teach both to develop well rounded skiers that have fun on the hill.

Thinking about it, this may be where we go wrong with beginners and don't get them coming back. We get into the mechanics of skiing and forget about making it fun.

Tactics + Technique = Skiing. True or false?

How about Techique + Tactics = "Efficient Skiing"?

IMHO: unequivocably false.

Depends on the tactic. If your tactic when faced with a "scary" hill is to take off your skis and walk. That's not skiing. We've all seen that one, too. I.e. The guy teaching his girlfriend how to ski by taking her down the "easy" black diamond.

Do you think the proposition that Tactics + Technique = Skiing would make a great topic for a debate in this forum? I think it could be fun and informative. Any master debaters here who want to take it on?

Agreed.

They can be a part of skiing, but they are not "skiing".

Actually, such a universal encyclopedia is possible today.

If I am correct, on Wiki you are allowed to add or make additional comments.

Under such an umbrella, all schools could be represented and add to a particular "term", their definition and what sets it apart from the other schools.

PSIA, Harb () the Austrians even Thigh Cheese ..... etc.

It would probably become a cluster fudge or SNAFU ... but what the heck, it may be worth a try.