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Ploughing.......Why?

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Message to self, don't post trolls when drunk


Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Thu 28-11-13 13:42; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Last edited by Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person on Fri 29-11-13 16:51; edited 1 time in total
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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?
nothing wrong in going straight into parallel skiing. .... but i would say that doing a snow plough is an essential "skill" to have in your tool bag. Same with side stepping, the herringbone walking, side slipping etc.
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thecramps, this debate has been had before. Basically, your delusional. limegreen1, has it right.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Deleted response. This has to be a wind-up. Laughing


Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Thu 28-11-13 1:03; edited 2 times in total
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Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Fri 29-11-13 16:50; edited 1 time in total
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Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Fri 29-11-13 16:51; edited 1 time in total
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
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thecramps wrote:
Ploughing is great to teach little kids but for adults, hit the ground running.
There is going to be a lot of hitting the ground, each other, instructors, lifties, trees and various innocent civilians in your ski school Laughing.

But seriously...

thecramps wrote:
You learn to plough, then you have to learn to parallel, save the effort and parallel from the off. Some ski schools go with this idea and I would say choose them.
Ah my friend you are mistaken, the skills required are the same. Teach it right and people auto-magically start skiing parallel without thinking.
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Nothing wrong with ploughing initially, it encourages the feel for the skis individually especially when snowplough turns are introduced and is a good lead-in to the understanding of weight distribution of each ski when the student commences traversing.
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thecramps wrote:
I do not agree. Where, if you can ski parallel well is ploughing necessary or a needed skill? My OT and I don't do lessons anymore unlesswe book private ones. It is annoying to see ploughers claiming to be intermediates. If you plough, you are not an intermediate. Full stop


You are right. This is why Lara Gut this summer went back to ploughing to rebuild her technique (and restart winning this season). She's not an intermediate.

The fact that you don't find it useful - or even outright painful - doesn't mean it isn't useful in a general sense. Try getting down a narrow, crowded couloir with parallel turns without endangering yourself or others, then tell me. Apart from that, as others have already pointed out, the dynamics of skiing are the same.

However, I think this particular troll has been fed more than enough from me.
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thecramps wrote:
You learn to plough, then you have to learn to parallel.
Do you think that keeping your skis parallel uses different skills to skiing with a plough / wedge shape? Do you think that you have to "unlearn" skills when you progress from plough to parallel?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
rob@rar,
Quote:

Do you think that you have to "unlearn" skills when you progress
'course you do. For instance thinking, when progressing to writing. wink
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
It's funny that just because someone can't master something so simple that they claim it is un-necessary. TROLL - straight up - OK, own up which SH is it?
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
useful down a narrow track - i mean one narrower that the length of your skis.
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thecramps, this thread needs more videos of how awesome you are.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Troll or not, it's a valid question that plenty of people ask. I'm happy to talk about why I think it's important (even if for some naturally able skiers it might be a relatively brief stage of skills acquisition), but I'd like to understand more why the OP thinks it is irrelevant.

As oldmancoyote said, working in the plough phase isn't just useful for people new to skiing. We run a clinic for our most able clients which can be very powerful. I wrote a brief blog about it last year.
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It is a traditional and effective means of turning the soil over so you can plant crops in it Very Happy
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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?
My daughter had to perfect her ploughing for her BASI L1. She found that the practise along with using and teaching it at the dryslope last winter helped her general skiing enormously. It was noticeable how much better her skiing was last Easter (not that it was too shabby anyway).
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Why plough --- easy ! It's the first time in the skiing progression that rotation of the legs are used. Plough shape used to allow skier to balance (by going straight). Plough shape NOT used as a brake. Once able to rotate both legs into a plough, rotation of one leg (instead of two) introduces a turn.
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
ski, exactly. Ploughing is a great way to develop rotational skills at the speeds that (the vast majority of) beginners are happy to ski at.
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thecramps wrote:
. Within two days I skied steep reds and on my third day a black....(blah blah twaddle deleted). I am not boasting in any way.


That is some kick ass progression right there, I for one would like to subscribe to your newsletter. I also started late in life (39), but had nothing like that level of progression despite living 15km's from my local resort. Interestingly my first lesson was not from a professional, but from a work colleague who also didn't believe in teaching a snow plough. Thankfully my first time on skiis was at the top lift in sass fee in november (mittlealallin?), so it was a nice easy slope to get down without being able to turn. I used the ski into the wall of snow approach for the first 100 yards, then some simple carved turns and i was back down the bottom. Easy peasy, don't know what all the fuss is about *nb, there is a full post coming shortly describing the full horror of my first ever ski, need to get it down on paper before my mind fully heals*
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thecramps, I learned in a similar manner to yourself, never ploughed straight to parallel more thru chance rather than skill.

When I went back after a few years to qualify as an instructor and work on other aspects of my skiing I had some terrible habits that going back to basics and ploughing properly helped to alleviate. There is a lot more going on in a basic plough than just what your feet are doing.

While race training on a glacier in the Summer the German and Swiss teams were close by and both had snowplough drills incorporated into their warm ups so they must think there is an obvious benefit somewhere.
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
I've done plough drills with rob@rar, - very useful Very Happy (Don't burst my bubble I'm am happy sitting here thinking I am a 'most able client' at the moment Laughing wink )

I also found a main route closed one day that pushed a truly astonishing number of skier of all abilities and loads of ski schools down the skinniest cat track in creation above Flachau one year. The world and his wife inc. instructors were snow-ploughing because there was no other way of maintaining the slow speed necessary, no way through at higher speed and so many people around each person that using the skiers in any sort of parallel fashion in some sort of side to side motion to reduce speed was out of the question. For all supposed skiing prowess I think the OP would have been reduced to the indignity of taking their skis off and walking as nothing, but walking or snowploughing would have done in that situation.
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As others have mentioned, as well as being a good solid base to learn from, a plough can also be invaluable for controlling speed on busy, narrow tracks, usually back down into resort. Or approaching lift queues. Anywhere that there's limited room to manoeuvre and speeds are too low for parallels to be easy or effective.

I suppose you could teach someone how to drive on the motorways and they would appear competent, until they came upon a roundabout or had to park.
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Agree completely ski and rob@rar. So its the beginning of utilising rotation of the ski using the foot and thigh, edge as the feet are wider than the hips so the skis automatically engage their inside edges (thats how the skis get some grip), as the plough turns develop the student begins to experience pressure control. As plough turns develop, skiers also begin to realise how they need to move their body weight to stay balanced over the centre of their foot / ski especially at the fall line.
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As you say Fattes13 one of my race coaches (who is a former Olympic skier for Andorra) has us doing a warm up drill at the start of each session involving plough turns, one pole held horizontally in front of us and keeping it parallel to the foot of the slope all the way through the turn to ingrain the rotary separation and angulation he wants us to demonstrate in the gates.

There's another point which I'm sure is at the heart of why rob@rar has a whole clinic using plough, which is when you are skiing fast its really difficult to be conscious of whats going on (in the same way as its difficult to really know what the club head is doing at the point of impact in a golf swing) at the feet, with weight distribution, balance etc. Doing drills when we're going slower allows us to be much more aware of whats going on, what we are doing, what we're not doing.
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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.
feef wrote:
[snip]
I suppose you could teach someone how to drive on the motorways and they would appear competent, until they came upon a roundabout or had to park.


Unless they learned to drive on the motorways on the M25, in which case they'd also be proficient at parking. Toofy Grin
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Not sure if the op is a trol or not, but I have thought about this too. Ploughing is a key skill and would still need to be acquired at some point, even dropping the plough stop from the CT IMHO was a mistake.

I have seen demonstrated and practiced a CT of the parallel turn, which goes; side slipping, pivot slips, massively slithery turns, engaging the edge progressively earlier in the turn, ending with a pure carved turn. It wasn't intended for beginners and the the transition between side slipping and pivot slips would be massive for a beginner.

I guess the proof is in the eating, for me the down side would be the much steeper learning curve which would put off many beginners totally, the up side would less steaming and more two edge skiers, if it would be quicker is also debatable but I doubt it. Also the snow plough is a safe place to experiment with edging and pressure.
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i dont understand why anyone bothers with small kickers in the park, I find anything under 50m to be too small and a total waste of time rolling eyes NehNeh
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I solemnly swear this is NOT me wearing a sock . . . really . . . cross my heart etc.
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 Poster: A snowHead
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In addition to the "technical reasons" above as to why you want to plough, I will and have used a plough in the following situations

a) a lift queue to slow down, where it isn't wide enough to side slip/parallel slide
b) to slow down at the start of a run to adjust kit, poles, gloves etc
c) when skiing off piste and coming back down a very narrow goat track with a guide
d) when filming my kids
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How the f**k do you handle a downhill lift maze if you've never ploughed or shave a bit of speed when you're in the rut of a long flat runout track?

edit: see kitenski got there first.
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the reverse backwards snow plough is super handy for kid filming, particularly when they are small and learning via a plough themselves: i don't think about it consciously, but would guess i use a snow plough several times a day when i ski for various small things, lift queues in particular...
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I guess it all depends on why you are on skis; if the limit of your ambition is to get down (survive) a black run and then be able to brag to your mates that you can "...ski parallel, never bothered with a snow plough and I now ski blacks", then by all means skip plough turns. I think lots of snowHead are either already or aspire to become competent skiers equipped with the skills to ski anywhere and everywhere the snow calls. For this group a plough is an essential skill in the tool box.

Also, how would you slip the slalom course without a plough?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
coddlesangers wrote:
Thankfully my first time on skiis was at the top lift in sass fee in november (mittlealallin?), so it was a nice easy slope to get down without being able to turn. I used the "ski into the wall of snow" approach for the first 100 yards, then some simple carved turns and i was back down the bottom


Yep, it's that simple rolling eyes Shocked
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Red Leon wrote:
coddlesangers wrote:
Thankfully my first time on skiis was at the top lift in sass fee in november (mittlealallin?), so it was a nice easy slope to get down without being able to turn. I used the "ski into the wall of snow" approach for the first 100 yards, then some simple carved turns and i was back down the bottom


Yep, it's that simple rolling eyes Shocked


Ok, you missed the rest of the post "Easy peasy, don't know what all the fuss is about *nb, there is a full post coming shortly describing the full horror of my first ever ski, need to get it down on paper before my mind fully heals*"

When you have to point out that something was a joke, it loses any potential humour it may have had. I'll stick to the day job.
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Quote:

then some simple carved turns and i was back down the bottom. Easy peasy, don't know what all the fuss is about *nb, there is a full post coming shortly describing the full horror of my first ever ski, need to get it down on paper before my mind fully heals*

Actually was teaching a 5 year old on Sunday who basicaly spend the whole class on his edges Twisted Evil His 2nd class I must be an amazing instructor Twisted Evil

Seriouly though he was actually railing, form edge to edge! It was brilliant.
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After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
damn 5 year olds and their uncanny low centre of gravity and lack of fear....
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I stand corrected
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I think the beleif that parallel turns are somehow a step change after ploughing holds quite a lot of people back and also encourages idiots like the OP to see it as a step to be skipped rather than a progression from not being able to ski to being able to ski. I'd bet he's not skiing parallel but instead just going from hockey stop to hockey stop down the mountain.

It may be a crap analogy but i'd see it as learning to drive without first learning clutch control. Sure you could probably go from jerky start to jerky stop and get from A to B but it aint going to be pretty.

I have some similarly self taught friends who can "ski blacks" and never bothered with a snowplough like the OP. After 2 weeks of proper lessons I could already ski any piste faster than them, I was less tired than them half way though the afternoon and I could cope better when it got steep, bumpy or deep (although I'm still crap at bumps or deep snow, need more lessons).
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