 Poster: A snowHead
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Random thought. I think we all check out others while we are on the slopes. I was taught/told to look at and be able identifier good skiers and to mimic them. As I was cycling to work this morning I considered the question does 'stylish' skiing always equate to good technique? And on the flip can good technique look less than 'stylish'?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I'd say that good technique, executed well will always be stylish, but stylish doesn't always mean good (as in current) technique. I can certainly claim to have neither style or good technique.
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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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For me, form-follows-function in most sports .... so if someone is skiing with great technique, to me they look stylish (if that makes sense).
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Personally I agree with abj, good style for me is efficient, powerful skiing. I guess 'stylish' could refer to just having a style, or following the latest style, so maybe no, it doesn't necessarily equate to good technique.
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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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I think style comes in from how you choose to ski. A technically perfect skier turning like a metronome looks mechanical the same skier flowing with the terrain looks stylish. Similar to how a big, slow trick is more visually appealing than a triple whatever despite the latter being much more technically accomplished.
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Layne, perhaps we should re-frame it after jimmer's comment? Is good technique visually attractive? I would say so. But I (humbly) submit that I have (?developed) a reasonable eye for that.
A couple of thoughts:
- at the weekend I had a XC skate lesson (thankfully having done very little in the past so no bad habits to have broken out of me). Skating is one of those activities that if you do it more "correctly" it is significantly less effort and less painful. The more "correct" the better, the less effort and the more fun. To my eye, the more correct the more attractive to watch, up until the point of watching WC skaters who really are at the pinnacle of fitness and co-ordination. I think, poetry in motion. However, chatting with a friend who is quite a good skier, she said she hated watching skate races as it was so ugly to see. 
- Penguins. Can ambulate perfectly well, but no-one would suggest they were graceful. Watch them swim underwater however and it's a whole different kettle of fish (he he).
So I personally thing that yes, to me better technique, probably in any sport, will result in a more attractive view (beach volleyball may be an exception, who cares about the technique?). But beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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To quote a well known film, I have perfected failing with style.
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abj, jimmer, +2.
Style should be reserved for your clothing preference when skiing. I think we should all aim to ski as effectively as we can. That is going to vary somewhat from person depending on their body shape and their skiing preferences.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Skiing with your ankles glued together looks extremely stylish, and yet we all know that it certainly isn't considered to be good technique. However, I can't help feeling that if you can ski well with your legs tight together then you are probably quite able to ski even better with them hip-width apart should you so choose.
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foxtrotzulu, no, it doesn't. and, I think, no you can't. 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Also the old guys who seem to effortlessly float everywhere are pretty darn stylish.
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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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Skiing with your ankles glued together looks extremely stylish
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not to me it doesn't.
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Style should be reserved for your clothing preference when skiing. I think we should all aim to ski as effectively as we can
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This. I was waiting for my brother in law at the top of a lift yesterday and watching a pisteur, part of a group doing some work on a teleski. He was having to go back and forth to the little hut at the top of another lift nearby, maybe to radio down to somebody. He was poetry in motion. Without sticks, as usual, he was covering the small distance with 100% efficiency, skating fast up the downramps, leaping out of his skis, into the hut, back out, jumped back in the skis etc.
I am often struck with the effectiveness with which the pisteurs move around whereas sometimes the instructors, who are demonstrating, look very good indeed but more "studied".
Anyone who looks as though they are consciously trying to ski "stylishly" is in danger of looking like a prat. I skied down the rather narrow, steep and bumpy bottom section of a blue run yesterday, with some people skiing quite fast down it, and some beginners struggling. I spotted a man doing very controlled, perfect, slow, short radius turns down a narrow corridor and decided to ski right behind him and try to mimic his turns. I didn't do them nearly as well, and some of the people whipping down doing that funny twirly thing they do with their sticks probably thought we were both being pathetically slow. But for my money he was the most effective skier on that piste. I had to stop myself saying so, as we went into the lift as he'd probably have thought I was trying to pick him up. 
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You know it makes sense.
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I think it looks cool when people jump perfectly into their bindings. If I ever attempted that I would end up as youtube fodder...
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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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generally I agree with the form following function = stylish argument to the extent that I find non-functional affectations increasingly unattractive (skis too close together, unnecessarily showy pole plants, etc).
Skiing with guides is interesting though. Some of them seem to have developed a sort of ostentatiously utilitarian style that takes some of the grace away - wider stance, more rotation, extra stability at the cost of some "flow". I'd say it is highly functional for what they do but can't be described as stylish.
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Poster: A snowHead
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No, stylish doesn't mean good.
Are you skiing to get from A to B/Top to Bottom as efficiently and effectively as possible or are you skiing so someone else looks up and thinks "that looks nice"?
I'm not saying that efficient and effective can't be stylish, but stylish can certainly be inefficient and less effective.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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pam w, A very long time ago a wise and grizzled instructor told me that the all the future instructors sat in the front of the class arms smartly answering all the questions and the future pisteurs sat at the back of the class knowing all the answers but having too much fun to pay any attention...
jedster, could that be because some guides started out as mountaineers and had to learn skiing as adults to become fully qualified perhaps?
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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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either would be nice.
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feef - what stylish attributes are inefficient? Have a feeling I may just think they are unstylish  Stylish is in the eye of the beholder!
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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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UANN - yeah, quite possibly. Some of them also seem a bit dismissive of "good" technique. Last week a mate mentioned that he had asked a guide for a couple of tips on skiing powder. His reply? "don't fall over"
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jedster, yep, that sounds like a guide!
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| jedster wrote: |
| feef - what stylish attributes are inefficient? Have a feeling I may just think they are unstylish Stylish is in the eye of the beholder! |
All I mean is, one should be thinking more about the effectiveness of what they are doing, not whether someone else thinks it looks good.
But to echo those of earlier posts, ye olde mincing technique with the boots welded together would be one, which many think 'looks stylish', but with recent developments in equipment and whatnot, it's not as effective or efficient as a wider stance is now.
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| ansta1 wrote: |
| I'd say that good technique, executed well will always be stylish, but stylish doesn't always mean good (as in current) technique. I can certainly claim to have neither style or good technique. |
Yeh but at least you have hair!!
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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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feef, nor is it stylish. Nor fashionable.
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| under a new name wrote: |
| feef, nor is it stylish. Nor fashionable. |
That's the problem though, style is subjective; it also varies from nation to nation.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I was taught to ski the Bruce Lee way
"What is your style"
"The style of no style"
"What is your style"
" The art of fighting without fighting"
Enter the Dragon school of skiing 
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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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Timbobaggins, The art of skiing without skiing? I suspect that's already been mastered by many a one week warrior at the bar
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I think English skiers have a fear of looking like posers. In the skiing context that means looking like good skiers. Which is why a lot of English skiers struggle to ski well. Copy the instructors.
So .... Strike a pose. There's nothing to it.
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You know it makes sense.
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Peterkct, i really don't think so!
feef, there's not such and immense difference if you watch, e.g. Interski demos, subtle differences in style, but more or less a similar level of function and efficiency.
I do find Japanese SL skiers have rather a distinctive style though.
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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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Come on!
Skiiing isn't about racing to the next lift ...
being technically super competent,
wafting through waist deep powder down untracked slope under a shimmering blue sunny sky.
Its all about posing ... looking good and feeling good.
The most iconic memory I have in my head was on an icy polished slope near the bottom of the hill in Leogang, when down through the mellay of "Bambi's on ice" rode an instructor of advancing years with his jacket sleeves flapping and his silver hair flowing behind him as he just rode through the ice field with a stance that reeked "Style".
Oddly enough I bumped into this fellow again a few years later .... he was the owner of a 4+ star hotel in Leogand that happend to be hosting a fashion show of fabulous fur coats being shown off by the most beautiful of Austrian damsels when I was there.
Style again.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Hi Megamum!
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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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Hi DrLawn, ! You missed the cake at Hemel!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Yes I did!
In the end I forgot to go ... emmm never mind, perhaps next season.
I'm sure it was good ... I'm on the January diet now 
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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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| Quote: |
A very long time ago a wise and grizzled instructor told me that the all the future instructors sat in the front of the class arms smartly answering all the questions and the future pisteurs sat at the back of the class knowing all the answers but having too much fun to pay any attention...
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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DrLawn, I'll never forget a pre-season trip to Tignes on the Grand Motte glacier when we are all performing a clattering Bambi on ice homage . . . a silent and sinuous path is ripped through the middle of us by one of the support members of the French national team . . . burdened with 4 boot bags and a huge bundle of marker poles on his shoulder.
Moments like that paint a huge 'L' for loser on your forehead 
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DrLawn,
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...isn't ...about...
a. being technically super competent,
b. wafting through waist deep powder down untracked slope under a shimmering blue sunny sky.
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Oh it most certainly is.
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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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wafting through waist deep powder down untracked slope under a shimmering blue sunny sky
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if I could do it it would be!
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In answer to the OP. Yes and No in that order.
I used to think otherwise until an instructor explained it to me thus:
"Look, issa not a justa bout gettin' downa 'ill
See that fella there ?
E's a got skis on, e's a slidin' downa 'ill, e's a look awful
When you are a skiin' people a gonna see you
You think they wanna see that ?
If you jus' wanna slide a down the 'ill, get a toboggan"
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