 Poster: A snowHead
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Diverskify,
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push the inside foot back under you. Balance and grip will be drastically improved as will the ability to get onto the new outside foot during the transition into the next turn
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Nice one.... Simple and easy to convey
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| skimottaret wrote: |
| Sideshow_Bob, some tip lead and scissoring isnt a bad thing and could be neccessary for holding a line on a course. However, i am seeing a lot of very large tip lead movements and scissoring with intermediates and near advanced level skiers. Might just be luck of the draw and not a general trend but i have been struggling to put them right with relevent drills. THis thread has helped focus me a bit and I initially had a wrong impression of what scissoring was. |
I think with the more waisted skis, people learn tip-leading as a way of pushing the inside hip forward allowing more angulation and what feels like a more solid base to ride the 'rail' round. Once they get into the habit it's hard to break!
Anyway, this is already way too serious so here's more photos from Verbier!
http://www.facebook.com/photo_search.php?oid=5286234940&view=all
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Quote: |
I think with the more waisted skis, people learn tip-leading as a way of pushing the inside hip forward allowing more angulation and what feels like a more solid base to ride the 'rail' round. Once they get into the habit it's hard to break!
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yeah i agree with that and bring on more photos of Julia....
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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rob@rar,
yes..do both.. Practice until mastered....in your own context but the aim is to do and react...thoughout the obstacle that presents, IMV.
Certainly, try to eliminate too much thought process. I am thinking, I'll turn here..not how to turn here and I would imagine those race shots should feature the skier thinking 'high into this turn'...the rest has been taken care of ages ago...until he makes a mistake..when it is back to relearn that technique.
I must admit I fancy skiing with an overview and just weigh it against what I have always tried to do. Maybe my technique/style isn't very tutored, and maybe it should be, or should have been. Too late for that now as I have other skiing issues..!! 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Euan gone skiing is sitting across the room from me thinking he has the answer to inside leg lead..... Go telemarking. Diverskify says thats a great drill for alpine skiing. Discuss....
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| skimottaret wrote: |
Diverskify,
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push the inside foot back under you. Balance and grip will be drastically improved as will the ability to get onto the new outside foot during the transition into the next turn
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Nice one.... Simple and easy to convey |
And also completely laughable in 90% outside-ski weighted turns because the inner boot shin muscles would have to bend the boot equivalent to how much the body weight flexes the outside ski boot. EDIT: Or more, just to match the femur side of the enclosed angle to the tibia side of the enclosed angle whilst keeping the mid-line parallel to snow.
If the students were in long-track speed skate booties, hey, no problemo.
EDIT2: Oh, wait, if they don't have the ankle range-of-motion to squat onto a short leg without putting bum behind heels, then they can't bend a ski boot even if it's soft enough to flex by curling a big toe up. Nope, not even speed skate booties will do it for ya.
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Mon 14-04-08 18:06; edited 1 time in total
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| Diverskify wrote: |
| Euan gone skiing is sitting across the room from me thinking he has the answer to inside leg lead..... Go telemarking. Diverskify says thats a great drill for alpine skiing. Discuss.... |
When I'm trying to slide my inside leg back under it does remind me of the few hours I tried telemarking. It's a weird feeling and will take some getting used to.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I think it's important to recognise, as Fastman said in that linked thread, that inside tip lead is a natural consequence of a) (one method of) countering and b) angled skis - or steep slopes - frankly anywhere you will have a shorter inside leg.
Actually, re countering: I got quite confused as to what people were suggesting on that first page. It started off with skimottaret (I think) and david@mediacopy (explicitly) talking about femur rotation, with minimal waist twist, but after rjs came in it seemed to change around and that waist twist was good, and to be encouraged  . If countering is done by femur rotation, then inside tip lead is a simple geometric consequence: think of the extreme case of a 90 degree counter, when your feet will now be pointed in-line, with the tip lead equal to your hip separation. If done by pure waist twist, though, no tip lead is required.
In the case of b) the lead is a consequence of the forward separation of the raised inside knee, and the ski boot resisting a corresponding flex at the ankle without excess pressure on the inside ski. The amount of lead will be greater (although it's nowhere near a linear relationship) the higher the edge angle, or the wider the stance. Trying to avoid that was demonstrated to me quite graphically on that week in Tignes back in December. I was playing around in a couple of high angle turns with reducing the tip lead as much as I could (pulling back the inside foot), and overdid it. The effect of this was that the inside ski tip was necessarily over-pressured (from the resulting tip down attitude of the inside boot), engaged too heavily and started carving a way too tight turn. This then pushed the ski up into my body, beyond the ability of my leg to shorten and increased the pressure of the turn, which in turn exaggerated the problem and the resulting circle got quite viscious  - with the inside leg whipping in and nearly coming off  .
That story I think actually reveals the solution to the "tighter inside radius" problem. I'm afraid I don't buy for a minute veeeight's assertion that the ski track centres are separated and the radii of the inside and outside ski path are the same. Yes, they would be if you did exactly the same thing on each ski, but again think of the case of having carved a 90 degree turn. If the situation is as described, then the tracks are then necessarily in-line with their linear separation equal to the starting lateral separation (hip/shouler width...whatever). Clearly undesirable . To get out of this conundrum the inside ski has to turn through a tighter radius than the outer. Yes it can be done by tipping it more than the outer ski, but that's anatomically difficult, particularly with a stance wide enough to give decent stability. I think there may have been something by Fastman on alternatives, which seem to me to be either by adding some steering/twisting element, or by pressuring the tip more to get more of a bend into the ski than the pure edged carve would cause - i.e. throw in a bit of what the old-skool carvers had to do. The example above was a case of overdoing the pressure solution, but this would be a good reason why you want to control the amount of inside tip lead - pull the foot back and it'll bend more and carve a tighter curve, push it forward and it'll go a bit straighter. Sound reasonable? The extreme case of the twisting solution is the scissor/skate and step-up. IM(limited)E this is of major importance when going at low speeds, e.g. the first couple of gates on a course. In this case of course you have two reasons for the skating step - you're not going fast enough to get the extra bend in the ski, and you're also desperate to accelerate like mad, so the added impulses from the skates are even more important.
As for exercises for getting the "right" amount of tip lead, I found that this actually came from a completely different exercise I was doing in a free-skiing session last week. BTW, I'm not really convinced by some of those exercises skimottaret suggested - as it smacks a bit of forcing an effect in/out that should be a natural consequence of other stuff (I do buy veeeight's position on this). (Also, it seems this has turned a bit longwinded, and the relevance may not be immediately apparent, but stick with it ).
I really wanted to work on my fore-aft balance, so spent about 30 minutes just running turns down the slope with hands on hips, really concentrating on:
1) doing as little as possible with the body,
2) getting a good balance position over the skis,
3) initiating turns by edging only from ankles, knees and then hips - and absolutely no rotation of the skis
3) doing as little as possible with the body, letting it all happen at the legs
4) staying relaxed (so not worrying about forcing any particular angulation/countering etc), so letting the required leg/knee/hip motions just happen
5) ensuring body/hips face direction of CoM travel (as in veeeight's skiing myth #4), and
6) (in case I haven't mentioned it) doing as little as possible with the body while making the turn shapes I wanted.
We have a big gradient change in the middle of our slope and keeping/regaining balance coming out of this was quite tricky. As I went through the session I progressively increased the angulation, decreased the turn radius and made the turns more aggressive, and also worked a bit on varying the inside/outside balance - between 50:50 and 0:100 (lifting inside ski off the deck). The more I did it, the more I found my skis were carving evenly, scissoring and tip-lead reduced, and grip improved. At the end of that time I felt a quite different skier. Now of course in 30 mins you'll never break a habit, but it felt well worth repeating - so I think a few more sessions like that will be coming up. Of course there's the more "coachy" variation with using the poles across the hips, but that's primarily to make it clearer what's going on to a watching coach. But I think the real benefit of this was that the hands on hips:
a) kept your upper body quiet, and
b) provided you with immediate feedback on when your body and (particularly) hips were getting twisted out of shape
c) really encouraged in-balance skiing as you weren't correcting imbalances with swinging your arms around - and of course were more aware of the likelihood of pain if you let it go pearshaped  .
After each run on the lift back up I then ran through a quick mental checklist of
1) did I initiate all the turns evenly and progressively?
2) did the skis stay parallel throughout the turn?
3) did the edges engage early in the turn?
4) did I have any sudden corrections to make - and if so what went wrong to need that?
5) once the correction was made did I then relax that muscle and get back to core position?
6) if it didn't go well then repeat, or if it's getting to be a hangup slacken off a bit for a run or two
7) if it all went well, then time to up the level a notch - making the turns a bit tighter, or going a bit further up the hill and throwing some more speed at it.
And because I was concentrating so much on where the forces on my body were coming from (so I could adjust the balance points to cope with them) I became even more aware of what the skis were actually doing - and that's when I noticed that they were becoming more accurately parallel and evenly pressured - primarily as a consequence of checkpoint 1.
I think the key to this process was the continual repetition and self-feedback - as time went on I noticed more and more fine detail about what was actually happening, as I stopped trying to force stuff to happen and just let it happen (the downside was that as this grew I did become less aware of what else was happening on the slope - although never insufficiently so ). Whether this sort of Zen approach could work in an instruction/coaching session I'm not sure - but it's probably worth as an instructor/coach pointing out the benefits, goals and mental checklist process, then letting your charge get on with it for themselves for a while. I'm as keen on specific exercises as the next man (probably keener), but this more wholistic approach is probably a good one to throw into the mix. I guess it's essentially the same as a "core-form-skiing" exercise that a coach introduced to us last autumn - but with the hand-on-hips as a crucial variation - but I never really worked out what that was about at the time. It may also be a pre-requisite that you've done all the more "exercisy" exercises first, and this is just a way of letting your muscles do their job without your brain getting in the way, but it worked for me. Worth giving it a try?
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GrahamN, betcha $100.  The inside ski track does not have a smaller radius than the outside ski track.  They are two tracks of near identical radii, only having two different centres. A pair of skis have the same sidecut, think park and ride skiers that just ride the sidecut, producing two thin RR tracks. You don't buy skis with 1 larger sidecut radius than the other to produce RR tracks, the RR tracks produced by park and ride skiers are on skis with identical sidecuts.
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| I'm afraid I don't buy for a minute veeeight's assertion that the ski track centres are separated and the radii of the inside and outside ski path are the same. Yes, they would be if you did exactly the same thing on each ski |
Why would you not be trying to do the same thing on each ski?
If the inside ski track is smaller, as you suggest, then the inside ski will always be trying to diverge away from the outer ski at all times, and I'm sure you'll agree that its possible to ski with two parallel RR tracks for long periods of time, of differing radii. For a long time I used to think 2 radii, then someone enlightened really showed me!
PS: Just to mess with your head, there is a Physicsman spreadsheet somewhere that demonstrates that in reality the outside ski actually tracks a smaller radius than the inside ski for the majority of the time
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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veeeight, I'm not sure if you're saying the tracks cannot or should not be concentric circles. For my money, they can be concentric circles, with pure edging, if any of the following apply:
(1) the outside ski travels faster - i.e. it is driven forward by the skier - with the same edge angle as the inner ski
(2) it travels at the same linear velocity - i.e. with a smaller angular velocity, implying a lag - with a smaller edge angle
(3) a combination of (1) and (2).
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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laundryman, if they are concentric circles (having the same centre but different radii) - then on pure edging (or railing if you like) - the inside ski sidecut must be smaller than the outside ski sidecut.
My skis (both of them) have an identical sidecut radius.
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| veeeight wrote: |
| laundryman, if they are concentric circles (having the same centre but different radii) - then on pure edging (or railing if you like) - the inside ski sidecut must be smaller than the outside ski sidecut. |
No. Wrong. Uvavu! Don't confuse sidecut with actual turning radius.
(Turn radius depends on the edge angle and amount of bend in the ski, in addition to sidecut. Sidecut is just the geometry of the ski.)
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You know it makes sense.
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It's perfectly reasonable to bring sidecut into this discussion
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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| veeeight wrote: |
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| I'm afraid I don't buy for a minute veeeight's assertion that the ski track centres are separated and the radii of the inside and outside ski path are the same. Yes, they would be if you did exactly the same thing on each ski |
Why would you not be trying to do the same thing on each ski?
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Because you want them to turn parallel - which implies a smaller turn radius (but not necessarily sidecut) on the inner ski . They're clearly not subject to the same conditions anyway as they're generally not pressured equally.
As for park-and-ride skiers, I doubt they're actually carving the inner ski anyway - there's almost certainly a load of rotation going on there. Even if all the difference is made up by purely steering the ski, the amount of smearing of the track is not large - on a 1.7m ski turning a 10m radius turn with a foot separation of 30cm you'd have about 2mm of smearing on the inside track (if my back of envelope calculations are correct).
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If the inside ski track is smaller, as you suggest, then the inside ski will always be trying to diverge away from the outer ski at all times,... |
Why? It'll diverge if on too small a radius, converge if on too large a radius. The turn radius is under the skier's control. I'm sure we've both seen (and been observed committing) both offences.
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PS: Just to mess with your head, there is a Physicsman spreadsheet somewhere that demonstrates that in reality the outside ski actually tracks a smaller radius than the inside ski for the majority of the time |
An A-frame would do that .
Ok I'll give you that there's some diverging of the ski tracks as the edge angle increases (for a constant lateral leg separation it would vary as (leg separation) * (1-sec(edge angle))), which would separate the centres of the tracks. I'd have to think about that a bit more to work out it's consequences (my envelope's a bit small for that calculation). But of course those tracks are not then parallel.
Yes it is perfectly reasonable to bring sidecut to the discussion - but it helps to bring your brain to it as well .
We probably ought to drop this before it gets out of thand though, or skimottaret's toys will be heading ex-pram for hijacking his thread, and we don't want that.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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This tip lead thing is something I've been thinking about for a while. It's something I became aware I was doing, almost like a small skating motion. An instructor pointed out that I tended to let my outside leg get a little left behind toward the end of each turn and suggested actively moving my outside foot slowly forward during the turn to reduce the inside lead. I have to say I was pretty impressed with the results. It improved my angulation and made turns easier to initiate, suppressing any tendency to lift the inside ski to "cheat" on turn initiation (another little habit I had been developing). I think these habits were the remnants of my old school dry slope racing days.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I've just come down from skiing, but more importantly, the bar, where the assembled crowd of 12 racers, coaches & instructors (admittedly with not a brain between us ) had to answer the question of same radius, or different radius. After 25 minutes debate with no input from me, lots of drawing on paper napkins etc., the overwhelming concensus was inside and outside track had the same radius, different centres (your hip sockets). Don't forget that the two centres (your hip sockets) are moving with the arc, as opposed to a fixed point on the snow.
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| Get a pair of compasses (or a CAD package), set yourself a radius and draw arcs representing inside ski and outside ski. |
Because what you are drawing is a static snapshot, don't forget that the two centres (your hip sockets) are also moving along the arc as well. They are not as a static snapshot.
Much of the assumption that the inner ski tracks a smaller radius than the outer ski is because you are treating it like a circle with the centre as a fixed/static point - but when you're skiing the centres of the tracks are moving with the arc - thus immediately making it entirely possible that the two tracks produced by inside and outside ski are, in fact, of the same radius and are doing the same thing.
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| As for park-and-ride skiers, I doubt they're actually carving the inner ski anyway - there's almost certainly a load of rotation going on there. |
I can promise you I can get to quite high edge angles park and ride style, and leave two pencil thin RR tracks in the snow, with no rotation!
I am bowing out of this as I've got sucked in too much already (plus the thread hi-jack), I promised myself last year that I wouldn't re-engage in this nonsense. So I'm going skiing all day tomorrow instead - and those of you that wish to carry on thinking two different radii - I wish you well in your skiing progress
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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skimottaret,
Had this problem a bit for a little while...(due to alignment issues - I actually had/have this problem one side only.... always worth considering this option)
IME this problem stems from the HIPS .... focus on what your hips are doing and the need to pull the foot back removes itself.... I see a lot of folks dropping a hip back ....
Graham N's idea of hands on hips does help to improve awareness of hip movements...
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| veeeight wrote: |
Much of the assumption that the inner ski tracks a smaller radius than the outer ski is because you are treating it like a circle with the centre as a fixed/static point - but when you're skiing the centres of the tracks are moving with the arc - thus immediately making it entirely possible that the two tracks produced by inside and outside ski are, in fact, of the same radius and are doing the same thing/ |
No, that's patently not true. The ski reacts to the snow! Both the inside and outside! That's what makes you turn and what you have lost sight of! You can pick a fixed point on the snow and count that as the center of the turn. Wiggle your hips all you like, the track the skis take move along a rail relative to the snow. How do the centres of the track move with the arc? Because the skis are turning the centres of the arc. How do you therefore make a tighter arc with your inside hip? The inside ski has to track a tighter curve relative to the outside. Using your argument and applying to a sufficiently tight curve (snowblades say), you are saying that you could rotate your entire inside ski round a single point (relative to the snow) and your outside ski track a carved circle, yet both the inside ski and outside ski have the same turn radius?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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My GOD I've read some anal gazing but this is up on an astral plane. If someone is carving in control on two edges and initiates to completion a turn with minimal 'wash-out' then that is a result of
a) ski shape and its mechanical dynamic
b) boot construction
c) Bio-mechanical construction of the skier's body
d) Skill/spacial awareness of the skier
They are all different for everyone and for someone to state categorically that one position in a carved turn is 'wrong' or needs correcting without being specific to an individual or a demonstrated circumstance . . . they are pulling daisies out of their butt  This is a thread for a 1 on 1 teacher/pupil conversation.
Jeez! what a waste of bandwidth . . . any more of this and they'll be calling us 'Epic Lite'
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Masque, strangely I've found it a useful thread. Maybe you've not felt the difference between a stacked turn and a non-stacked turn?
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| Masque wrote: |
| Jeez! what a waste of bandwidth . . . any more of this and they'll be calling us 'Epic Lite' |
You could, y'know, just not read the thread? 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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veeeight, before you go, I can now see your point about the arcs having the same radius and the role played by the hips. As the circles have the same radius, would it not be the case that one would have to, as Diverskify, says above, physically pull back the inside leg to prevent tip lead.
As a complete numpty I am finding this discussion quite interesting, especially with reference to the comments that by minimising tip lead one is able to initiate the next turn with greater ease.
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I was going to say here we go again...but so we've had a little tangent... so what..?
I am still with it... although in these cases, I am not sure what people may gain trying to get their head round doing such a thing at such a time... seems too much like concentrating on too finer a detail when you might want to be thinking about where you are going and the overall effect of the turn.
For me, I tend to look at the problem from the top down... what do I want to achieve against how... and if I like the turn, I am not looking to change it too much, I'll just be looking to repeat it..
I don't mind tip lead...in the right place.. it can be a natural consequence.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Too tired to reply last night and just finished my first coffee...
Lots of interesting stuff to consider (aside from dual radii stuff which WAS a bit anal)
But back to the OP here. You are instructing an intermediate/advanced client on a private lessson for one hour and they demonstrate very pronounced inner tip lead, what do you do? To me tip lead is a hard problem with few "quick fixes" i agree with JT and GrahamN that a more guided discovery method should be employed but again we dont have the luxury of time what can you leave the client with to help them? To me it is isolate the core issue that is causing it and try to prescribe some exercises to work on the core problem...
No order of importance but i will start with GrahamN's comments. I have seen Graham ski and with respect he does at time suffer from just the thing we are talking about here. His detailed replies IMO shows that he has thought about this quite a bit.
He says the drills i tried to list arent too good for this problem (i agree as i am just searching and initially listed a few suggested). Diverskify says the boot off drill is not any good for tip lead and he knows what he is talking about so lets chuck that out... He recons that you should get the student to pull the inner foot back during the turn. I like that idea but Comprex makes an interesting point in that if we are dominating the outside ski how does one create enough pressure in the inner boot to increase the angle at the inner ankle joint... discuss...
GrahamN's double teapot drill I think is very good and you could extend it to poles across the hips as he suggests. This is excellent for guided discovery as the student will get immediate feedback and be able to see and feel the core issue at hand. Which is IMO poor control of the hip joint during the turn. Whether you femur steer or waist steer as RJS says you still need to ensure the hip joint is in a good place or you will get tip lead/lag and/or scissoring. I am thinking i would focus on this as something to "fix".
Also like some of his suggestions
3) doing as little as possible with the body, letting it all happen at the legs
4) staying relaxed (so not worrying about forcing any particular angulation/countering etc), so letting the required leg/knee/hip motions just happen
5) ensuring body/hips face direction of CoM travel (as in veeeight's skiing myth #4), and
I really like Rob's idea of proving to the student that they are in a weak position with the pull down the hill exercise. I would probably lead with this exercise.
I still kinda like my thought of having the tips linked with an imaginary bar, it forces the skier to be output focused and gives them something tangible for their guided discovery.
what about conciously driving the outside leg around the turn, thinking back a Trainer had me doing this to help with tip lead...
I also still like my drill of exagerating the problem by skiing with huge tip lead and then with huge tip lag. However, this drill is hard for intermediates to do and may not be applicable.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Okay, I promise to stop giving geometry lessons Anyone want to further discuss radii of turns/each ski, PM me. I've got some diagrams to explain it.
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| GrahamN wrote: |
| re countering: I got quite confused as to what people were suggesting on that first page. It started off with skimottaret (I think) and david@mediacopy (explicitly) talking about femur rotation, with minimal waist twist |
I mentioned that in terms of ""upper and lower body separation". I didn't mean to imply that there are not times that you might use wait or even other parts of the upper body, depending as ever on what you are trying to do.
| GrahamN wrote: |
| Whether this sort of Zen approach could work in an instruction/coaching session I'm not sure. |
If you can get clients to develop accurate 'internal' feedback then it makes the coaches / instructors job easier. A good thing for sure.
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You know it makes sense.
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veeeight, I'll not be offended if you don't answer this question, because you've said you want to dip out, but (there's always a 'but' ), here goes:
If someone marked out two concentric circles, a foot apart, on a piste of even gradient, could you lay down sharp tracks following the circles from top to bottom?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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laundryman, perhaps a new thread would be in order for that question....
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Frosty the Snowman wrote: |
| especially with reference to the comments that by minimising tip lead one is able to initiate the next turn with greater ease. |
That's the part I really noticed. Too much inside tip lead at the end of a turn means the new inside ski is in a weak position to start the next turn. In my case it often led to lifting the new inside ski to bring it forward more quickly. If the tips are close to level at the end of a turn, the new inside ski is in a good position to initiate the next turn without resorting to lifting or sudden forward movement. Once I became aware of this excessive tip lead, the necessary correction was very easy. You can think of either moving your outside foot forward slowly and evenly during the turn, or moving your inside foot back, or a bit of both. I found it easier to think of bringing my outside foot forward. Because it's a "relative" movement I doubt it matters which way you try to do it?
On the radius argument, I doubt either ski follows a constant radius arc anyway. If the centres are tracking too, the result must be a constantly variable radius arc? I'm not sure how relevant that all is to tip lead either.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| uktrailmonster wrote: |
| On the radius argument, I doubt either ski follows a constant radius arc anyway. If the centres are tracking too, the result must be a constantly variable radius arc? I'm not sure how relevant that all is to tip lead either. |
I spent several weeks this season in a very small resort mostly used by beginners. I could easily spot my tracks from the lifts and couldn't see any difference in arcs between the two skis.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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rjs, I'd be massively impressed if you could to be honest. Trying to spot any difference between a pair of lines a foot apart following a rough 15-20 m radius is going to be a bit of a challenge. If their radius was remotely different for any significant period of time, they would rapidly cross or diverge, ending abruptly in a big pile of snow! Trying to decide if they are following a constant radius about a fixed point or not is also going to be a bit of a challenge. All I can say is that during a turn, there is a tendency for the outside foot to slowly drop behind if you don't do something about it. I haven't thought much about why that would be, but I'm confident it's not from the different radii of inside and outside ski paths. Perhaps it's more to do with increased frictional drag on the more heavily loaded outside ski? Just a thought.....
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Frosty the Snowman, That is very pretty, but I agree with veeeight that the ski tracks don't have a common centre.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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skimottaret, sorry, I should have been a bit more explicit  , but it's actually the "imaginary bar" concept I like the least, as it's focussing on fixing a symptom rather than a cause, so you may end up forcing some bad compensatory position rather than fixing the original problem. By all means check your tips as an indicator to see whether you've got a problem, but use that as a diagnostic for other problems rather than the primary isse.
Yes, I do have a very pronounced inner ski lead on occasion - and that's normally when I have too much counter, or am not working the inside ski properly, e.g. I have it too flat or too light or too wide a stance. If we think back to that week, Emma didn't once take issue with inner ski lead, but pulled me up on loads of other issues (specifically related to this topic - too wide a stance, hips in the wrong place). Remember that (as Fastman said) an inner tip lead is a natural consequence of countering at the hip or angulation with a wide stance. "Fixing" that lead without thinking about where it came from is probably going to involve bad stuff. If the lead is excessive for a given hip position I think it's probably due to not engaging the little toe edge of the ski properly. Thinking about that, putting the little toe edge on the snow, will then necessarily cause the inner foot to be pulled back; this relates directly to comprex's point about boot flex - pulling the boot back will necessarily pressure the front of the ski and get it working. OK maybe a bit of chicken and egg here, but thinking about what you're trying to get the skis to achieve seems to me to be the appropriate output-oriented thought .
"Driving the outside leg around" sounds a bit of a recipe for getting into the back seat to me. I did have a big problem a couple of years ago with leaving my outside leg behind, and was given that solution. It worked OK for a while, but did result in aggravating my tendency to sit back - particularly on the exit from the turn. OK, it's good for that jetted exit, but that is a pretty high risk solution. I think now that what it actually resulted from was excessive counter at the waist, resulting in the outer hip lagging behind, and over-extension of that leg. So more recently I've corrected that by keeping the hips and legs stronger and squarer to the body. So I think it would be better to be thinking about keeping a strong core/pelvis position, with CoM over and a bit in front of the ski, which drives the outside HIP (rather than leg) around, and following that through into a strong outside leg.
We had a coach doing the "pulling down the hill" demonstation a few weeks ago. This was not related to "fixing" inner ski lead though, but to demonstrate the weakness of excessive/old-skool counter. With the hips facing down the hill you're in a much weaker position than if they're facing across (twisting at waist or hips reduce the muscle strength). I don't think he mentioned anything about uphill ski lead there - we just put our feet where they needed to be for the hip position.
david@mediacopy, absolutely. It's just a question of how you get that message over in a coaching session, and persuade the students that this is something they need to spend a significant amount of solo time on - as it's not an obviously "do something specific" exercise.
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GrahamN, I agree that tip lead is more of a sympton of underlying problem of not having you hips square, feet too wide apart, or perhaps not correct weight/pressure on inner ski..
But thinking back on some of the drills listed, 2 basi trainers both gave me the "driving the outside leg" and "imaginary bar" drills to correct poor hip positions manifesting in inner tip lead.
The pull down the mountain works on a lot of levels but i think demonstrating someones actual position as opposed to what they believe in their mind is a good one.
| Quote: |
So more recently I've corrected that by keeping the hips and legs stronger and squarer to the body. So I think it would be better to be thinking about keeping a strong core/pelvis position, with CoM over and a bit in front of the ski, which drives the outside HIP (rather than leg) around, and following that through into a strong outside leg.
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THat is the key and getting someone into that position is the real trick here, anyone for more suggestions on how to accomplish that?
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skimottaret, What drills were you given on your L1 coach course ?
The main one I use is to do pivot slips with shoulders down the fall line but getting as much rotation at the waist as possible.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I am cherrypicking what bits I can relate to and what bits I need to bone up on here. Some of it applies, some doesn't and some I don't care whether it is technically or fashionably right or wrong anyway.
I would like a two footed equal carved GS turn but really don't want..or can see the need for...the horrid position I see some people get into.
FWIW, I can get by without a sharp carved turn on two feet as the principle gain that it will give, that I can see, is a faster more stable turn through gates, which I have real no need for... Where I would use it, and I have nicked this from a few people I've skied with recently, would be in fast tree lined tracks where you just can't afford to get the skis sideways for one reason or another and wider skis really help here anyway. Just stay centred and wiggle your bum almost...as the minute weight change will do all your work....
If I barking completely up the wrong tree, then no problem, I am just relating what I see on the hill to what I think people here are talking about..and adapting it as I see fit for my purposes. I like the fact that there are different perpectives to the same problem of getting teh things down the line as best as possible. I like to think I am not a slave to one set of rules of another..whatever works, is a good starting point for me.
I do fancy laying over big arced tracks tho but that might be another topic..!!
As I said, the tip lead doesn't bother me unless the hips come out of line with the skis and since I'll lead with shoulder, hands, hips and knees anyway, it is not a problem that I have noticed.
It seems primarily a problem for 50-50 turns doesn't it...or am I missing something here..??
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got to go and play golf now.... hopefully the inner tip lead will not give me a slice....
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