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slikedges, That was my confusion - you're either crossing over or under - a through might be just a minimal vertical movement version of either (to use lay english rather than some specific appropriated definition).

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fatbob, imv cross through implies that the body is also moving laterally towards the inside of the turn. in a pure cross under the body is flowing directly down the fall line with the legs moving under a stable upper body

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Oh god. Strangle me now.

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slikedges, I don't have a problem with the concept of cross-through being a bit of both cross-over and cross-under, I just don't see why anyone would want to do it apart from it maybe requiring less committment than a cross-over at high speed.

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Colour me stupid but isn't skiing in reality on a spectrum between cross over and cross under. The first change of edge through shifting CoM the latter a change of edge by allowing the skis to move separately to your body. The cross through looks like a blend of the two from the page of videos linked. It seems silly for that to be a thing in its own right.

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meh, yes.

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rob@rar, excellent!

You know it makes sense.

(Edited because of not being as funny as I thought it was after a bottle of fine wine)

Seriously though, I am confused and I can't believe this conversation is at all helpful.

Analysis paralysis?

You can't cross anything if you're thinking too hard about it...

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AndAnotherThing.., Best article I've ever seen written by a ski instructor and a fairly challenging question of whether drills eventually limit freedom for certain types of learner

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slikedges, I see your point but I'm a little unsure as to why it requires a formal term and definition.

To me, it makes sense to simply talk of your body moving over the skis or the skis moving under your body during the turn. Creating a term that doesn't have a use in common parlance just for the heck of it smacks somewhat of unnecessary jargon? And I don't see how it makes it easier for a teacher to explain a concept to her pupils if she has to learn what specific language other teachers use before she can understand them?

Or am I missing something?

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AndAnotherThing.., great article and frankly widely applicable outside skiing. Management often seem to focus on measuring inputs (time at desk, calls made, etc.) as a proxy for actually focussing on the maximising the outputs.

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under a new name, When I was at school the teachers used formal terms all the time, things like "long division" or "the middle ages", how is this different ?

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rjs,

a. you go into a decent pub in, say, Morzine and compare how many people understand "long division" versus "cross under". "Long division" is not jargon.

b. there's a pretty clear need for a term such as "long division" or the "middle ages". I see no clear need for "cross over/thru/under".

slikedges, yeah, I guess it does. Although it does seem to send some threads on BZKs into excruciating tail spins of navel gazing. That said, I would miss some of the gems that do appear if it was all ring fenced off into some sort of ur-BZK area. I also do maintain that I think there is some over-analysis/over-complication going on sometimes Evil or Very Mad

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under a new name, I might suggest that a trainee try crossing under or over on particular gates, I don't want to have to describe the biomechanics of what to do every time.

rjs, hmmm, OK, fair enough.

But isn't it easier and more universally understood to just say try moving your body weight over or your skis under?

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slikedges, it's a mindset shift. Stop worrying about the individual details like how a-framed you are and improve to ski based on what you want to do. It's also advocating the most obvious point that getting good at skiing is not a function of lots of lessons but of lots of skiing. Lessons and coaching are there to guide and finess someone's skiing the rest is up to the person in question to self-learn. If the focus is on drills and correcting individual bits of technique the results are myopic and not transferable easily to self-learning (particularly if they are incomprehensible). Good for repeat custom as it makes the learner reliant on a teacher, bad for self-learning. Focus on outcomes gives the learner the ability and confidence to try to ski the way they would like and analyse their own mistakes. Great self-learning and the person is actually out doing what they want too.

I despair sometimes when people on here talk about skiing drills in their own time instead of just going out and actually skiing because drills are there to ingrain a habit but learning to be good at drills will only make you good at drills not at skiing.

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rjs, under a new name, jargon is great for communicating quickly between people who are deep enough into a discipline to understand it but terrible for dealing with people who aren't who just get very confused.

Focusing on inputs v. focusing on outcomes is a false dichotomy. You need both, IMO. I frequently, and explicitly, ask the people I'm teaching to focus on the outcomes of what they are trying to achieve for that run. I also get them to work on the inputs they control (which isn't limited to technique, it also includes aspects such as their physical input, their mental preparation). I think that's the best way to help them improve their skiing.

Surely technical shorthand is helpful if both sides have the same understanding, but disruptive to the discussion if there isn't that shared understanding? Can't see why it's a big deal. I have a small number of regular clients who would understand cross-over, cross-under etc, so using that terminology would make sense with them (as it was when I was told to change my cross-over to something more like a cross-though by someone who was training me this season). You work with the person in front of you, and use whatever language is most effective.

You know it makes sense.

Surely these are the very basic elements of getting anything achieved.

1) You need to know what you are trying to achieve (the output)
2) You might like to know how to get there (the inputs)
3) A bit of feedback on how you are doing

I think this holds true for most things in life. The language you use needs to be adapted based on who you are trying to communicate with. Loads of technical skiing jargon would go straight over my head, but if you used plain English I would know exactly what you meant.

meh,

I think talking about drills is fine as long as it improves your understanding of either 1 or 2, and providing you then actually get out on the hill and do them Very Happy

Personally I have always been a pain in the back bottom for rugby/cricket coaches always asking "yes, but why am I doing this?" If I paid for a bit more skiing instruction I'm sure I could wee wee off a few ski instructors as well wink

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rob@rar,

It's not that the coaches couldn't answer the questions, but as a Welsh git I'm sure you will appreciate that taking 2 squads of forwards for a session on a Wednesday night doesn't allow quite as much room for Q&A as a half day private skiing lesson. You usually got "JUST F****** DO IT!" ... but at least that opened the opportunity for in depth discussions afterwards in our leisure time wink

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musher,

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slikedges, there are lots of efficiency improvements to learning something. Peer coaching is a good and often overlooked one. There are plenty of sports where that is the only route into learning anything to include some aspects of skiing.

What I took from the blog is less that drills are in someway bad but that excessive focus on them and matching some idealised technical template from observation is the route to good skiing. For example a week a year skier is never going to be technically perfect but they can be functionally successful skiing on and off piste in most places. I think the point of the blog was to say that striving for technical perfection can be a fools errand and helping people achieve their goals is the point. If your metric is technical prowess and that's passed on to the student then they'll lose some sight of what it was they actually wanted. Instructors also have the problem of teasing out goals as "just ski well" is a poor one.

To illustrate that he uses top racers who don't ski in a manner that matches the "technical template de jour" despite doing a lot of drills. Achievement of goals does not equate to skiing in an accepted, technically correct manner.

I'd be interested how much technique has converged between different organisations as well. Plus how the efficiency of any technique is actually measured particularly with regards to its overall contribution.

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rob@rar, which is why it's being used AFAIK to illustrate the difference between achieving an outcome and technically good skiing not as an argument for or against anything.

meh, do you think that even though Ligery is winning races by huge margins he isn't demonstrating good technique?

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rob@rar, that entirely depends but what criteria we consider what is or is not "good technique" and an ability to demonstrate the criteria to be valid. Plenty of racers demonstrate technique that would be questionable depending on the school and their individual criteria. But as in the original blog they get a 'pass' because they are trying to achieve fast times not ski to a prescriptive set of criteria.

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