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Leaving The Back of a Ski Behind

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Can't express it better...

I'm a gash skier- agricultural, I call it. I can go most places, and am confident to do so. But there is this thing...

Picture me on a left tack on a blue. I roll into a right turn, intending to reverse that as smoothly as I can into another left turn.

Now, picture me doing all my turns with hip-ish wide parallel skis.

Occasionally, (in that left turn) as my weight comes onto the right ski in the turn, I snag the inside edge of the back end of the left ski, throwing me completely. The steeper the slope, the bigger the scare!

Any tips for sorting this? Thanks.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Thought you meant literally leaving it behind, once happened to me, I snapped a hire ski behind the binding and left it dangling.

In answer to your question over rotation of the right knee?
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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?
It sounds like you are not changing the edges of both skis at the same time (and by the same amount).

"If" this is correct, you need to get to the cause.

It may well be due to a degree of "A Frame" exacerbated by not getting Forward and across at the start of the next turn.

The solution "could" be working on parallel shins. It could be you need your alignment checked (do you have custom footbeds?). It could be that your stance is a little too wide.....or I could be completely wrong.

There are Instructors on here who could give better insight.


Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Sun 5-02-23 11:26; edited 2 times in total
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Is your left leg your stronger side? When you do hockey stops, are they mostly with your right leg or your left leg as the outside/downhill/braking ski?
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Looks like you're still trying to stand on the "wrong" ski in that phase @Charliegolf, think more of those exercises where the skier lifts the inside ski off the ground completely, in slow repeated exercises that is, and balance on the outside ski takes them round the turn in it's entirety.
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Thanks everyone, I will try and 'thought experiment' all the suggestions and try them out in March.

CG
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Raceplate wrote:
Is your left leg your stronger side? When you do hockey stops, are they mostly with your right leg or your left leg as the outside/downhill/braking ski?


I would normally try to stop right leg down slope.
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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!
Charliegolf wrote:
Raceplate wrote:
Is your left leg your stronger side? When you do hockey stops, are they mostly with your right leg or your left leg as the outside/downhill/braking ski?

I would normally try to stop right leg down slope.

Then I might have got my initial logic the wrong way round but in principle I agree with:
ski3 wrote:
Looks like you're still trying to stand on the "wrong" ski in that phase @Charliegolf, think more of those exercises where the skier lifts the inside ski off the ground completely, in slow repeated exercises that is, and balance on the outside ski takes them round the turn in it's entirety.

I can add a bit extra to it though. I suspect that at least subconsciously, you don't trust your left leg/ski as much as your right and your turns on either side are not the same. You may have an 80/20 R/L weight distribution when turning left on your strong right leg but only 60/40 L/R when turning right. That messes up your weight transfer because you're effectively on your right ski too early and then the left ski snags as it's left behind. On the steeper stuff, I'd be willing to bet that you do a better job of finishing your turns on your right leg than you do on your left, and with a more rounded turn shape.

Doing some one leg exercises as @ski3 suggested would help but there are also a couple of other things you can do. On the hill, I would make a conscious effort to make your left ski your braking/hockey stop ski. Go out of your way to always use that leg for the speed killing turn as you approach a lift line for instance. Practice doing high speed hockey stops on that leg. Make your first turn on every run a right turn on your left leg.

Off the hill, you can do one leg balance exercises. A single leg squat is very helpful for improving proprioception in the weaker leg, especially in bare feet. It doesn't need to be a full squat, it can just be a dip, but the point is to compare performance between your strong and weak legs. Can you do 20-40 unaided dips on either leg without losing your balance? Or only one side? If you practice them every day, you can improve balance (and trust) on the weaker leg pretty quickly.

The other thing it will show up/improve are any dorsiflexion issues in your ankle. You may find that your right ankle flexes forward more easily than your left, and a stiff left ankle would also cause the ski to snag. The squats/dips will increase the range of motion in the ankle. I would recommend a lower leg/achilles stretch before skiing every day for the same reason.
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"The weight is too far back. It's always the weight too far back."

Yes, there's clearly an element of favouring one ski, but fundamentally the reason it's catching is that there's more weight on the rear of the ski than the front, so as your weight shifts across to the other ski it's not doing so evenly, so the rear is still trying to grip the snow a bit.

You shouldn't need to be lifting the ski at all, and exercises to lift one ski are all very well and can be useful, but that is not the cause of this problem.

Probably.

What you might try as an exercise is to really push the outside ski forward through the turn, or pull the inside ski backwards if you prefer (same thing, but some people work better if they think of it one way rather than the other). In a nice round turn you can exaggerate this to the extent of keeping the tips in line with each other, whereas normally you'd expect the outside ski to be perhaps up to a boot's length behind the inside. This helps to rotate the hips (in line with the direction of travel), which in turn allows them to thrust upward and forward, making a much better balance both fore/aft and left/right, really setting up to start the next turn.
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@Chaletbeauroc, for God's sake, don't start an Inner Tip Lead discussion on here.... Toofy Grin
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@Charliegolf, IMV. There is a lot of good stuff in this video clip by Deb Armstrong....Though personal instruction is the way to go. It could provide food for thought that might help.

It covers Foot to Foot pressure; Where that pressure should be (and when, via early weight transfer); Knees rolling into the turn; Ankle Flexion; Stance; Balancing on the outside ski; Body orientation and "Attacking the tip" at the start of the turn.


http://youtube.com/v/wslCf5YHF00&list=PLh0l0yitlWRFuEueEsEqx0pRppezWOiqn&index=80
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
i have almost the exact same problem as OP during left turns (right leg is the stronger side). this also occasionally causes my left ski to "jam up" at the tail and i have to power it through to get it parallel to the right ski.

my 2c from a beginner-to-intermediate skier.

the issue (and the fix) for me (turning left) are:
- weight is not forward enough. need to lean forward more before turning.
- weight is not on the outside/right ski enough. need to lean to the right more so that the weight will be well established on the outside/right ski.

both of these will cause the left ski to be lighter, easier to lift/turn and avoid catching the edge. it will just slide into position naturally (just like on right turns for me).

interestingly, i have less problem on slightly steeper slopes since i *consciously* focus on leaning forward and putting weight on the outside ski.
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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
I find that doing turn with the inside ski lifted off the snow (front still on the snow) is a good settling sort of thing to do. Javlin turn?
http://youtube.com/v/Asj0tBAs7Uo I do them a lot slower than that video. You can't catch the inside edge of the back of the new uphill ski if its 10 inches off the snow.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
Actually, now I look at it again, that's NOT a good demo - our instructors will find us a better one.
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@pam w, Personally I wouldn't dream of it. Like with the instructor in the video this can tend to actually make you lean further back, as can be seen by the fact that the tip of his inside ski is much higher than the tail. IMO it is not a useful exercise, and I've never even thought about using it in a lesson. It's difficult to imagine a problem to which this could help find a solution, certainly not what the OP is struggling with.

And in general, particularly for carving turns, we really want to have both skis working - twice the edge means twice the control surface. Right now I'm still struggling with an injured knee, which will have to wait until the end of season to get sorted, and I was finding last week that I could really help that by using the outside edge of the inside ski as my main turning edge. Now _that_ can be a useful exercise at a sufficiently advanced level... but no, not for this issue either.

Raising one ski, then the other, on a slow traverse is something I occasionally use for more beginner-level skiers, if they're struggling to be properly two-footed and are always using one ski rather than the other, but only as a one-off drill to get the feel of it.
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 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Chaletbeauroc wrote:
....and I was finding last week that I could really help that by using the outside edge of the inside ski as my main turning edge. Now _that_ can be a useful exercise at a sufficiently advanced level... but no, not for this issue either.

A few years ago, when I tweaked my knee after a fall - luckily on the afternoon of the last day - it hurt to put the normal amount of weight on it. I got home by doing pretty much exactly that ie. 80% of the weight on the U/Hill ski when turning. Luckily it was a minor tweak that resolved itself after a little physio.
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Quote:

Like with the instructor in the video this can tend to actually make you lean further back, as can be seen by the fact that the tip of his inside ski is much higher than the tail.

That's why it's a bad demo - supposed to have the back of the ski well above the tip. There are much better videos out there. I'll find one. It's pretty impossible to lift the back of your ski if your weight is back! So, I find it's a useful exercise and I think it would be useful for the OP who still has weight on the downhill edge of the new inside ski.
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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?

http://youtube.com/v/AqY3njpOnmw
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