Random Thoughts - Page 7

I guess I should say that the 3D paper is a work in progress and a living document. It is based on an idea Katy Fry introduced to me as part of an early morning trainer's clinic. I've been experimenting with it for a couple years both in clinics and with students. So far it seems to work but presenting it here is important to me. I can always count on you guys to help me flesh out ideas like this.
Maybe I should start a new thread but Ski Dude started this thread with a comment that the technical content wasn't very high this year and I see that as an opportunity to put this idea out there for critical consideration. Thanks to all of you for giving it attention.
JASP

Well the white pass turn being the hybrid that it is, may mean that we move the shoulders more out than the hips in when we move into angulation, as we already have the hips inside and aligned to the inside ski. When we extend the the new outside leg and place it on the snow something has to change to align to the outside foot and ski, yet we don't want to decrease the edge angle and lower body inclination, and we already should have considerable inclination at this point. So we really only have one option left as I see it, which would be to move the shoulders out more than the hips in. Watching well executed white pass turns you can really see this, the inclined posture aligned to the inside foot, then when the outside ski is placed down on the snow, progressive movement into an angulated posture aligned to the outsdide foot. Even with that nice release in the last third of teh turn I see the hips moving further inside initially as we start the turn because of this need to align and balance on the inside foot and ski.

In our regular turns where we are aligned to the new outside ski from the start I think it seems "correct" to suggest that we are letting the hips move inside the turn versus moving the shoulders out. especially if we have that nice relelase of teh CoM as we finish the turn and move across the skis into the next turn. Really though, we may have a nice combo of the two (hips in shoulders out) depending on turn radius and speed. With a longer turn allowing a more inclinated posture initially.

I would also agree that in well executed turns, whether white pass or regular turns, we don't need to push the body into place as much as direct the forces, helping them along, and maintaining effective ski snow contact. I think this may have been the point that TDK6 was trying to make. Maybe not.

For what it's worth I like your 3D paper JASP. Simple, well stated, and to the point.

Ric, you're spot on with the White Pass thing. I just went to check my video, to see how noticeable the increased angulation is as I change to the outside ski (around or just prior to apex). In my ski lifted variety of the drill it's very noticeable. My edge angle is established high in the turn, with significant straight body inclination. As my outside ski is put down (around the apex), angulation is increased on a consistent edge angle. That moves balance to the outside ski. Because the edge angle remains constant, the upper body has to move outside to create the angulation. Without the added angluation, the outside ski can be put onto the snow, but balance will remain on the inside ski.

If both skis are left on the snow when doing this drill, edge angle can be added as the change to the outside ski takes place. This allows angulation to be created by dropping the hip into the turn, and leaving the upper body in place. Less/no upper body movement to the outside needed. The same can be done if the outside ski is lifted above the apex, and both skis are on the snow after the change. If the drill is done with the inside ski lifted off the snow after the change to the outside ski, higher edge angles after ski change are difficult to produce.

The problem with doing the drill with both skis ALWAYS on the snow is it produces a weak turn entry position, with the load bearing inside leg quite flexed. Lifting the new outside ski allows the inside leg to be extended, which makes it a much stronger platform to stand on. In the original form of exercise, as Steve Mahre defined it, the new outside ski is lifted off the snow at the beginning of the turn. .

If you can do it, I'm all for this. Personally, I find it very difficult to verbalize my internal feelings in communications to others [it's not that I don't do this when I teach, it's just that I don't get as good results as I'd like to get out of it] and even more difficult to comprehend internal feelings that are communicated to me. For example, I'm totally oblivious to sensations of ankle movement while I'm skiing. It's more like a surgeon showing a video of an artery that's effectively stopped leaking because of an emergency stitching job instead of trying to explain "make it good enough to continue the main task at hand". How do you describe "feeling that the stitches will hold"? How do we explain when a ski edge is sharp enough from a tuning job? It's not by how sharp it feels, it's by running a fingernail over it and getting a shaving. I agree we can do better. I don't know how.

I take full responsibility for sucking. Although trainable, I'm not that quick on the uptake. I'm not a natural athlete. I need to work hard at sports to get better. The main reason it took me so long was the lack of time committed to the process. I'm part time, I spend at least 1/2 my on snow time snowboarding and 80% of my on snow time working and I've had injuries. At 30-50 days per season - passing level 3 with a bad collarbone was a complete miracle in my book. All that aside, after passing level 3 I still consider my skiing to suck because as much as I have to share with and can help others, I have that much and more still left to learn. Right now I know how to ski better than I do ski. It was a lot more comfortable when I could ski better than I knew how. And it's even less comfortable knowing how much more about skiing that I don't know. As much as I believe in the power of a positive attitude, it's ok to acknowledge sucking if the purpose is to just go ski.

BTW - I agree on the manuals. I had a discussion with Rogan about this that helped me to better understand how we got here and why this is a difficult problem to fix. There was also a presentation at National Academy that explained some of the history behind PSIA including trends in manual development. It did not make me feel better about the problem, but it did make me believe that the "obvious" solutions to the problem were a little harder than I thought. For example, how do we compensate for online and collaborative authorship? Right now I see things evolving over time instead of being fixed. The only real solution is to write the next new manual ourselves. [Epic is my training ground for getting ready to do this, but I don't know if I'll ever get "there"]

Looks like we've both seen the same material but have arrived at slightly different interpretations. Through discussions I've had, an intermediate instructor hasn't been positioned as equivalent to an intermediate GP skier, even though you're quite correct that "consolidation" is referred to as an intermediate level of proficiency. The GP probably would have a different (not necessarily wrong) idea of what the term means, based on common usage.

Consolidation. What exactly does this term mean when it comes to defining an "intermediate" skier?

The Rusty, that's a pretty good post! Lots of meaty thoughts that spell out the situation quite well. I especially like: Which reflects a lot about most of us.

My own self-perception of Suckiness comes and goes, but I generally chase it away knowing I can do better at-will (assuming my ski boots will let me).

I would never suggest rewriting the Manuals will be easy. I just think it's worth the effort. And I think EpicSki is a good place to start.

All kinds of 'good wording' appear on EpicSki all the time.

Muddled explanations are cast; then others pipe-up to provide better ways-of-saying-it. Muddled misinterpretations of mechanics show up; then someone else massages that misinformation into meaningful material. Phony physics flesh out a fishy argument; then a fuming foe formulates a fastidious proffering of foundational Facts. Frames-of-Reference are surreptitiously substituted; then someone segregates each separate speculation into a suitable spot.


Over time, I think EpicSki has probably accumulated considerable material well suited for review and rewrite into a framework for new manuals.

.ma

Oh definately, we're not telling the public they are really novices......But that's sad really. I think it is a disservice to them and to the sport to call someone an intermediate who is still struggling to acquire basic movements.

In my youth, I was placed in an intermediate level class after skiing for four days. There is no way I could have acquired any real skills at all, but I was considered intermediate...what a crock.

How long ago was that, E?

Was today's terminology in place then in the Canadian system?

My first lessons, during the 1940s, there were beginners (no experience), intermediates (could control progress down the gentler hills in some manner) and advanced (could go where they wanted on most any hill). Nobody knew what a simultaneous parallel turn was, since all the focus was on muscling around the outside ski, but the really good skiers only occasionally displayed the open wedge position at initiations.

Interesting aside: I received a note from someone who wrote very good PSIA manuals the other day, Horst Abraham. He asked if I had the "Ten Instructional Paradoxes" by Richard Farson in my files. I decided to do a search on EpicSki before searching manually through my files. Voila! There it was, quoted by Lonnie last year in a thread called The Other Stuff. Needless to say, Horst was impressed at how much good "stuff" is here.

Thanks for the kind words.

I too have seen a bunch of cool stuff on Epic that's been tempting to steal. Errr, borrow. Or maybe reuse. The tricks are organizing and editing. I can see the potential. But I haven't seen anything within my capability to grasp and go with yet. I need a muse to strike me. I'd like to get experience by collaborating on a manual before I attempt to write one. And I really need more experience writing before I'm ready to collaborate.

On Epic, we have an area that can provide a home for "writing" efforts. It's called the Premium Article Collection. We also have a classic threads forum that is currently used as a "pointer" to good threads. I've been thinking about a similar concept where the threads are edited copies of the originals that skip the superfluous posts, make spell check corrections and possibly add comments to help maintain the flow and highlight why the discussion is interesting (e.g. add context).

Uh huh...

...I'm pretty sure, however, that the posts are the property of the original poster, so any effort to combine a bunch of articles probably requires permission from each individual poster. In my case, I'm not so sure that's what I want to do. As you may or may not know, I've published articles and a book of my own outside my forum postings, and at some point, I've thought seriously about putting selections of my postings into a book.

There are two ways to look at the beginner versus intermediate split. If you define beginner as someone who is just starting out, then yep - 4 days to intermediate status is a crock. If you define intermediate by what they can do, then it's not necessarily a crock. If you can maintain control on a blue trail, it's not a stretch to use the "I" label.

Nolo,
How possible might it be to encourage Horst into participating on EpicSki, perhaps in in the subscriber's Instructor to Instructor section...?


SkiRacer55,
If you would, PM me with info on what book and where to find your article. I too keep copies of most posts along with the original material behind them having an intent to convert some of it into articles some day.

Most material is considered "copyrighted" the moment we type it in and press the button to save it somewhere so it might be a problem to directly use past posts. Still, I could see developing new manual material from the basic ideas and content of past posts. Past observations, analysis and interpretations could be condensed and re-presented in a 'Review' and 'Summary' mode of writing.

Contentious ideas and value judgment differences could be presented as just that - shown as opposing views and what the basis for obvious differences happens to be.

.ma

So that would make a level 1 instructor an advanced skier, level 2 expert, level 3 .......??? and what about racers?

You run out of headroom if the criteria for intermediate is just to maintain control on a blue trail. I take the Green/Blue/Black rating system to say something about the mountain. It is completly independent of the ranking of skiers.

Good catch Kneale. It was longer than I want to admit: 1977, just after high school.

I knew full well I was there because of athleticism *not* skill.

Strictly speaking, "intermediate" is really an adjective (or sometimes an adverb), not a noun.

You are an intermediate something, not just an intermediate. And the universe of skiers is too big for "intermediate skier" to be a useful category without more context.

An "intermediate walk-up ski school customer" is a very different thing from an "intermediate instructor" or "intermediate racer".

Michael, I agree that it would be very cool to have Horst involved somehow.

Yep, trail ratings in the US are relative to the mountain. And it's well known that some mountains are much more difficult than others for the same color rating. But how much of the lesser mountain blue skeirs can't ski the larger mountain blues, especially after a day or two of exposure? Sure, I've seen moguls on green trails at Sun Valley too. The skill ranking by trail rating method is not perfect, but it is simple and close enough for most purposes. I originally was going to write 10-20 degree pitch instead of blue trails. That's more accurate but less easy to use.

Personally, I would not want to imply a one to one relationship between PSIA certification level and skier ability level. Would I call most level 1 certs advanced skiers? Yes. Would I say that all level 1 certs are? No. Could a level 1 be an expert? Sure. Are there different kinds and levels of experts? Sure. Do we need labels to make the distinctions? Well, we already have a few (e.g. extreme skier, film star, guide, park rat, powder hound, pro mogul skier, coach, contest winner, etc.). Does the fact that I have no climbing skills make me any less of a back country skier? Sure. Do we need a label for that? At some point, creating more labels becomes tedious.

It is only natural that we want to do this. If you look at pro sports we have labels like rookies, veterans, role and utility players, all stars and hall of famers. For many, the overall category of "pro" works just fine. For the true fan, not knowing the difference would be a rookie mistake.

So who's definitions do we throw out? CSIA certainly has the right to require their members and cert candidates to use their definition. Beyond that I am sure the brain trusts who wrote their definitions would agree there are other organizations who do not agree with their definitions. As far as I am concerned I teach in a PSIA school and I use their definition. E teaches in CSIA and uses theirs. We can both understand the other's intended meaning without quibbling over who is right.

Wow! I haven't heard Horst's name mentioned in years. 15 or more I think.

I've mentioned him here a couple times over the last few years. He led my group when I attended the PSIA National Academy, and I've tried ever since to follow his example to "invite" clients into new movement patterns. A true gentleman and wonderful teacher.

I've read a lot of his stuff but never had the pleasure of meeting him.

Aye, there's the rub. Let's not throw out any definitions. Let's work to understand the different definitions without trying to set up a translation between them. It's like trying to translate idioms between languages.

How about using a few more words and describing the action without the terms.

Well then what do you do about a question like this:

You are assigned to teach a novice skier. They're goal is to learn to ski bumps. What is your teaching path?

You are assigned to teach an intermediate skier. They have the same goal. What is your teaching path?

These questions make sense, and mean something very clear when using the CSIA definitions.

How would you rephrase these questions without using the terms?

E, Here is the problem. The assessment process is not completed yet. You haven't given any details beyond a classification and a goal. At best all someone could do with this limited information is throw out a generic lesson plan. I suppose a novice wanting to ski moguls means their attitude is pretty aggressive, or it's completely unrealistic. Either way I wouldn't make up a lesson plan before verifying their skiing ability, on the snow. Even then it would depend on on how well they use their fundamental skills. I would start with a review and if needed some remedial work in those areas.

Remember, my novice skier might/should pass L1 skiing. My intermediate would pass L2. The assessment would focus on different things. Such a classification means a lot as to what to expect from the skier.

I would expect a lot of trouble in general movement from the novice. I would also expect a lot of problems with upper an lower body separation. Why? because their skills are at the acquisition stage. MUCH time would be spent outside the moguls on that to prepare for A&E before getting to the bumps.

I would expect more accurate movement patterns and balance control from the intermediate, since their skills have been consolidated. We'd get to the bumps a lot sooner; almost immediately.

If the brush is too broad, there is nothing in the picture worth talking about. Having system of classificaton that clearly identifies the levels of skill is critical to being able to talk about how one would handle each level of skier. Sure, there will be strengths and weaknesses, but even those will be relatively consistent across each level. So in that light my questions do make some sense.

Ok - I'm lost. I missed where a CSIA skier classification of novice equated to the skiing ability required to pass PSIA level 1. That's going to be a stretch for most people. The brush may be too broad to include first timers all the way to PSIA level 1 equivalent all in one group. PSIA level 1's teach novices.

I have taught first timers to jump off little bumps on our beginner trail. I've seen full fledged mogul on Sun Valley beginner trails. Novices learning to ski bumps is not necessarily out of the question. But we could get a dozen dozen runs in before we get all of the different possibilities and definitions straightened out.

Clear identification of skills (plural) is a worthy goal. Identifying and assigning a single skill level to a student is begging for an over simplified lesson plan. For the questions you've asked there are way too many "it depends" before one could begin to map a specific path among the many possibilities.

You're assuming a lot by stating that there will be consistency across each level. Too many variables for me to agree with that statement. Especially when you classify a novice as someone who is out of the beginner corral through what it would take to pass a level 1 certification test. Talk about a broad brush, E.
I do not use classifications to design a lesson plan, period. I meet my clients and do an extensive assessment of what they are doing and what they want to be doing. If it's a group lesson we have a verbal assessment that only serves to get them in the right ballpark. We still make adjustments on the hill to accomodate the needs of each and every guest, without labeling them in any way. Not sure why I would need to label them in the first place.
In a theoretical setting it might be acceptable to use a term / classification as a shorthand description but it will never be the basis of any of my lesson plans. My clients demand a lot more from me.