Closed (Arlberg Technique) vs. Open Stance - Page 2

racing montage

Ummm your telling me Hermann's legs are close together?

I went to a "ladies college" & if I'd had my legs that close together I'd have been forcibly evicted!

Ahhhh Grolby, I really like your post.

What is obvious to me is that we all are somewhat on the same page in our thinking.

daevious said,

“. I think in the photo the left knee is pushed to the inside, but the inside ski is kind of floating and pointing in a slightly different direction than the outside ski.”

IMHO, both skis seem to be pointing, or are tipped equally and that there is sufficient pressure on the inside ski. Observe the snow flying off the inside ski. If it was floating and more flat like I believe you are suggesting, there wouldn’t be snow coming off the ski with that intensity.

Again, I believe that Warren’s stance is functional. If he was taking a clinic here at Snowmass, I’m sure the trainers would tell him to get his legs farther apart, just like they tell me and all the other ski pro’s that have been around here for a long time. I’ve worked very hard at trying to ski the new model over the last couple of season, and I can say that I can do what they are looking for, for the most part. It’s true what they say about teaching old dogs new tricks. I learned the new tricks, but can’t say that it came easily. And I can’t say that it’s really more functional than what I was doing before. Or do I feel any better doing it that way. When I look at the way our hero’s ski on the World Cup circuit, on the most part they are skiing totally different than what we are being told to do. But the trainers say, “We want you to ski more like the World Cup guys or image. What, when they are just skiing around? Or when they are in the race course? Because if it’s in the race course, they seem to get themselves pretty bent out of shape trying to get around the wicket IMHO. Not to say that these guys can’t ski. To the contrary, they are the best. But our model is a lot more passive looking than what they are showing us on the course, no?

I think it’s very important that we have a standard in our skiing, a model. But this push to look like clones, I don’t know? : -------------------Wigs

Yes!!! Ha ha ha ha... another brainwashed fool sucked into my Cult of the Lito. Soon you will be selling flowers on the corner... ha ha ha ha!!! (sorry for the Mooney reference).

Hey Grolby, that was quite a turn-around. Now what is this about Lito's style of writing? You don't like it?!?!...... just kidding.

You read my mind in bringing up crossover. It is important to give in and commit your body down the hill and trust that your stance skis/ski are/is going to support you as you enter each new turn. It would seem to me that a wider stance might help a beginning skier feel more secure and support the inside half in a turn.

What about dynamic anticipation? Have you incorporated this yet? And of course, pole action? Any improvement with that?

Mark

Use of the terms wide and narrow provoke a lot of varied interpretation and confusion - no doubt. I think that when most instructors suggest to someone that they widen their stance they are talking about a stance with legs further apart due to increased hip abduction. (Something that in most (not all) cases my own experiences and understanding would argue against). If there are those who, when asking someone to produce a wider stance, are asking for greater "vertical" separation of the skis (increased flexion/retraction of inside leg and increased extension of the outside) that is a further problem. I get the impression that some instructors (not referring to those on this forum) may confuse these 2 themselves asking a student to widen their stance from the hips when they really want them to achieve greater "vertical separation" (in retrospect I realize I personally experienced this many years ago at a Taos ski week). Given the difficulty we have here on this forum with these terms imagine the confusion to a student presented with 2 different definitions of increasing stance width!

What I don't understand is why the field of ski instruction has not and does not better define these terms to redcuce confusion for skiers and instructors alike.

The perfect width stance is with the boots four inches apart, not too narrow, not too wide. But it may vary from boots touching to shoulder width or any width you can recover from.

Howzat? [img]smile.gif[/img]

Sorry Ott,

Perfect is 104 mm not 101.6 mm

Give or take

CalG

Difference in knee flex? My inside leg had an 80° bend in it and the outside was practically straight with medial rotation of the upper leg.

Your right, it wasn't steep but I was whipping along at a good clip (> 50 km/h).

Most of the weight is on the outside. The inside ski was floating on the crud. The spray was from me hitting the chunky stuff.

Remind me to never take a clinic at Snowmass. [img]graemlins/evilgrin.gif[/img]

I was taught to ski this way by a World Cup champ... go figure.

I clearly see that problem here.

I have two stances: tucked, and not-tucked.

When I'm tucked I make a conscious effort to open up my legs so that my gut and elbows have somewhere to go . Otherwise my legs are aligned naturally with the hips and adjust, via knee bend and hip adduction, comfortably to terrain and velocity.

Anybody got an aspirin?

Hi All,

disski asked me to post a couple of pictures I captured off video a couple of days ago, the first one is during a long turn, the second during a short turn.




Please excuse my left hand.

[ January 18, 2003, 05:15 PM: Message edited by: CM ]

so any comments???

Gees disski, looks good to me. I ain't gonna beat you up for dropping an arm in one still photo.

[ January 19, 2003, 04:22 AM: Message edited by: Pierre ]

Not ME Pierre - that is CM

Oh & ithink you will find they are 2 sep photos - he always drops it I think....

btw if I was skiing in the last few days would be on ASH....

AtomicMark, it's less a turn-around and more a "Grolby just got new skis and realized how badly he was skiing before."

Here's my new take: Lito's technique makes it much, much easier for a recreational skier to carve every turn. Two feet, on the other hand, have the advantage of power and stability in crud, in powder,or when you're skiing fast. I prefer two-footed skiing for security, but using one foot will probably make for quicker (and easier) linked turns, since the ski doesn't need to go as far on edge in order to "grab." So Lito is right, but I still think even calling the stance 'narrow' is misleading. As for his writing, well... I dunno, but it does it seem a little bit pretentious or flaky to you at times? Bombastic? Maybe it's just me. Oh well, he's okay anyway.

disski, his legs are only definitely wide in one montage, and I wonder how he would look in a Super-G or DH, or maybe a slalom. As I said, racers use what works... and it looks to me like he's using an awful lot of knee angulation to get his legs that far apart. Hey, he's a strong WC racer - maybe he can keep his knee angled like that in an SG or DH and not tear it apart, but I doubt that I or most recreational skiiers could do that at any speed over, I don't know, any racing speed, really.

~Grolby

Open or closed... totally wrong question (IMHO)!

I think the question should be are they skiing with their knees or their hips (ie how do they intiate the turn). In this case I would say it is definitely with the knees, which is how you need to be skiing on the new style of ski's.

I think this skiier has their legs too close together as he appears to be skidding, not carving. But You'd really need to see the video footage. Or is he using mid fats? which would make carving much more difficult.

I initially learnt the old hip style of skiing, way back in the dawn of time. In 2000 I had some lessons and "converted" to all mountain carve skis and the appropriate style. Personally I have never looked back.

Funky,

I can tell you from looking at this photo that Warren is NOT skidding, is NOT just using his knees, and is NOT, on fat skis, IMHO. -----------Wigs

CM - I really like that photo. If at the very least, it clearly illustrates the "style" I've observed from the slalom racers at the local hills and the technique I've tried to describe in this thread and in Death Knell to Equal Weighting? .

It's kinda cool how your turn looks the same be it short or long. How much pressure would you say you're applying to the inside ski?

Wigs - skis are Teneighty Cusson: twintip, 177 cm, 110-75-100. Mid-fat? :

Every time someone brings this topic up, I need to mention this. I've the skiing style of members of both "camps" up close and personal. Todd, representing a wider stance, and SCSA from the "Harbian Camp".

DUDES, YOU ARE QUIBLING OVER A COUPLE OF INCHES! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

SCSA does not sperm turn in a bootlocked position, and Todd does not ski in a Sumo wrestler stance. Warren does not appear to be sperm turning, so I would say his stance is functional.

CM, correct me if I am imagining this, but it almost seems as if your left knee is following the the direction of your left hand, into a tad more external rotation than is needed.

I recently had a revelation for myself. My own stance tactually tends to be too wide. When I look at photos of myself, I say, "if that's hip width apart I'd be thrown out of my industry!"

In classes where the instructor is bringing everyone else into a wider stance, I get put into a more narrow stance. I finally realized they are correct. I can feel more adductor/pelvic floor activation from a slightly narrower stance, so it feels more stable.

So I've gone with something more narrow. NOT bootlocked! But not going into a split, either.

As I said to disski when she asked me to post my pictures - "this place makes my head hurt!"

I will post some video of the same turns, see if it answers any questions.

Short Turns

Long Turns

you're a brave man CM..

Warren,

Okay, mid fats it is. From the photo, they don't look like fatties. But there's no way you are skidding, eh? ---------Wigs

Nice skiing CM. There must be a double fall line though. You hang onto your left turns longer than your right.

Correct.

disski - don't worry - just because you open up a can of worms doesn't mean you have to eat them!

Apropos stances. I stumbled upon this image while visiting Daevious site, which in turn pointed to the Vermont ski museum site:
Andrea Mead Lawrence
I can only say that equipments change, but some things which are basic never will.
Cheers, Matt.