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Legs splitting wide on steeper slopes

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
I am just looking for some advice having got back from holiday today, when skiing steeper slopes I have a tendency to have my legs slip apart and finding it quite frustrating, advice from anyone who has had this problem or knows how to help fix it would be great.

Cheers Liam
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
A little bit more info would help. What kind of slopes are we talking about, are we talking about while traversing or during the turn what kind of turns are you doing?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Steeper reds And it’s just after the turn and happens on most kind of turns that I do? If that helps
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Might be too much weight on the inside ski (perhaps accompanied by weight too far back). And/or pushing the outside ski too much sideways at the beginning of the turn so your stance widens (perhaps into a snowplough) from which you don't recover.

Never traverse, always link your turns.
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Sounds very familiar as a lot of what you say is what I think it is at the time of doing it, problem being not knowing how to fix it!
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Wot Rob says. He knows his stuff.
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Just had a look at his courses he runs at Hemel I would definitely be interested to go but too far from Leeds unfortunately Sad will be going to castleford hopefully once a week now, and need practise before i go to avoriaz on the 25th of feb
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Lgb27 wrote:
Sounds very familiar as a lot of what you say is what I think it is at the time of doing it, problem being not knowing how to fix it!
Making sure you balance effectively on your outside ski as this is the one which will do more of the work as you go around the turn. If you 'hug the hill' because you are outside your comfort zone (move your body to far to the inside of the turn) your outside ski won't grip and turn as effectively as you would like, and then your skis might diverge as the inside ski turns a tighter radius than the outside ski. At the end of the turn make sure you smoothly transfer most of your balance from your old outside ski to your new outside ski as the next turn starts.

To control your speed on steeper terrain make sure you skid / scrape your skis evenly around the turn. If you simply put the ski on its edge (because "edges give you control") there will be little to slow down your skis and you'll go faster and faster.
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That happens me only in reverse!
if I'm on a blue slope and try to carve
what's going on there?
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hawkwind wrote:
That happens me only in reverse!
if I'm on a blue slope and try to carve
what's going on there?
Your skis diverge? Difficult to say for certain, but perhaps for the same reason(s) as I said above: too much weight on the inside ski compared to the outside ski; or pushing your outside ski sideways at the start of the turn and not recovering your stance width before the turn is complete.
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Definitely not too much weight on inside, I'm trying to start turns with inside ski and weight it more, I learned the snowplough turn and it's hard to unlearn that.

Pushing the outside ski might be the issue, ill look out for that on Monday.
in fact I think that's what it is! Very good.
I need to dip my inside ski little toe to get both skis working together.
only happens on very flat blue slopes.
got new boots properly fitted so hoping they help and lessons too Happy
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Lgb27 wrote:
Just had a look at his courses he runs at Hemel I would definitely be interested to go but too far from Leeds unfortunately Sad will be going to castleford hopefully once a week now, and need practise before i go to avoriaz on the 25th of feb


Do you know what you are going to practise?
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hawkwind wrote:
... I learned the snowplough turn and it's hard to unlearn that.
If you developed a good snowplough turn there will be nothing to unlearn. It's the foundation of good lateral and fore/aft balance, rate and range of movement, turn shape, linking turns and teaches the beginning of blending different steering elements together.

A bad snowplough, on the other hand...
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
hawkwind wrote:
Pushing the outside ski might be the issue, ill look out for that on Monday.
in fact I think that's what it is! Very good.
I need to dip my inside ski little toe to get both skis working together.
only happens on very flat blue slopes.
got new boots properly fitted so hoping they help and lessons too Happy
Sounds a good plan, especially looking at all aspects of your skiing (kit, specific technical focus, all round lessons). Just one observation, you can still be outside ski dominant and focus on tipping your inside ski to engage your Little Toe edge. Those are not mutually exclusive movements.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Cheers for that, something to think about when I'm out next week, I'll speak with instructor and ill post his feedback:-)
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Just to elaborate on the snowplough, I was told it was an older method that led to the issue I had with the inside ski being slow to catch up and skis not being parallel.
and with the modern skis tipping the inside ski leads to easier parallel skiing.

I was taught that inside little toe thing from lessons last year, as well as some awful thing of clamping my ski pole behind my knees Happy
All of it has helped as I feel I ski better with more control and less effort.
Looking forward to lessons and trying to advance a little more
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
hawkwind wrote:
Just to elaborate on the snowplough, I was told it was an older method that led to the issue I had with the inside ski being slow to catch up and skis not being parallel.
and with the modern skis tipping the inside ski leads to easier parallel skiing.
If you do a poorly executed snowplough that can happen. But a well executed snowplough should not lead to any reliance on the inside ski, so when you are well enough balanced on the outside ski the inside ski will smoothly match the outside ski until they are parallel. With a little bit of practice so you develop your lateral balance (accompanied by a little more speed as your confidence grows) the inside ski will match earlier and earlier in the turn, until it is always parallel. No need ever for an ugly step when you are out of balance to force the skis to stay parallel. Often there is no need to focus on tipping the inside ski on to the little toe edge, just the act of moving your body across both skis as you begin the turn will tip both skis on to their new edges. When that is happening on a consistent basis you can refine your focus to different things to increase performance and precision, including a focus on finding your little toe edge early in the turn (works for carving as well as turns created by the other steering elements).
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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?
@rob@rar,
deadly stuff, I've been noticing some of the above creep in and I'm definitely getting better.
Just need lessons next week to get some feedback and stuff to work on.
I'll maybe even take the gopro up and get some video
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@hawkwind, I'm sure you'll make great progress with it. Video always helps, GoPro, phone, digital camera. See if a mate can film you a little bit and stick up here for comments.
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kitenski wrote:
Lgb27 wrote:
Just had a look at his courses he runs at Hemel I would definitely be interested to go but too far from Leeds unfortunately Sad will be going to castleford hopefully once a week now, and need practise before i go to avoriaz on the 25th of feb


Do you know what you are going to practise?


Ye I get the jist of it and had a lesson whilst in alpbach last week, but he never picked up in the splitting of skis so much we worked more on my knees not doing the right thing
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@Lgb27, try lifting your inside ski after a turn, but make sure the TIP is still on the ground. Then try and do it earlier and earlier in the turn....

Start on the bottom half of Xscape and see how you go before trying it on the steeper upper section.
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Thanks for that, going Friday night and will give it ago and let you know the results
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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!
@Lgb27, found this video, this is pretty much spot on, but I wouldn't try and lift it this early straight away, build up to it, and make sure the tip isn't lifting off the snow as that will mean you are sitting back.


http://youtube.com/v/p3dpNEnglhM
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@hawkwind,

Quote:

Definitely not too much weight on inside, I'm trying to start turns with inside ski and weight it more, I learned the snowplough turn and it's hard to unlearn that.


I'm not sure if this is a typo or not but you should be unweighting the inside ski, not trying to weight it more.

The little toe thing is partly to get you angulating the inside ski and partly to get your weight off that ski as you can't really lead with the little toe without taking away the pressure from the rest of the foot.


Last edited by You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net. on Mon 29-01-18 9:35; edited 1 time in total
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rob@rar wrote:

Never traverse, always link your turns.
This sounds like a great bit of advice. I am going to work on this.
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Probably from all the CASI stuff in my head, but nobody on this side of the pond really talks about pivoting / steering to complete turns (+separation).

Could try some pivot slips / braquage / hockey stop / one foot linked turns depending on where your skiing is at overall. The first three make your legs work together. The one foot stuff strengthens the whole leg with regard to balance / steering / pivoting through a turn, especially when the single leg is the uphill ski.
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