 Poster: A snowHead
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I’m sure that most of us find we can make a better turn in one direction than the other. I’m told that my clockwise turn is much better than my feeble anticlockwise turn, by a number of instructors.
I’m trying to work out why and what I can do to improve it.
This to me seems strange as my left ankle is very dodgy with arthritis and only limited flexion compared with my right ankle. So I would expect that the better ankle would be able to perform the heavy lifting on the outside of the turn.
Today I had a bit of an epiphany when I decided to use a scooter (the sort that we used to use before we rode a bike). I found that I was much more comfortable standing with my left (dodgy) foot and scooting along with my right foot. I decided to try using the feet the other way around i.e. Right foot on the deck and pumping along with the left.
It was obvious then that my left ankle was the dominant one and it was much easier balancing on it than my right. Thinking more about it, we say we are right footed because we favour kicking a ball with it, but all the balance and weight is on the left.
The same thing goes when I ride a bike, I set my left foot on the left pedal and push off.
I don’t think I could dare to mount a bike from the other side.
Please excuse this long post, but I just wanted to get this off my chest and ask does everyone else have this problem and what can I do about it?
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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 have to be much more conscious about my movements on my anticlockwise turn, and actively try to match what I do on the other turn. In my early years, I would get stuck and unable to turn left, one time getting ever closer to the edge of the piste - and the drop! So that's my approach - become aware of what I do when I turn, and then practise a mirror image of it. When I think about it I can become aware of differences in strength, balance, flexibility and just sheer inclination, and then I play with these. I find turning on a slope which drops towards the right is easier than turning on a slope dropping to the left which requires more conscious and determined skiing. Sometimes though I've been told by instructors that my anticlockwise turn is better ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
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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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@DrLawn, I am the same when we come alongside in our boat and I jump off with a line. I always like to land on my right leg and I think that is the leg that seems to turn better.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
I found that I was much more comfortable standing with my left (dodgy) foot and scooting along with my right foot.
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If you were a snowboarder, that would be "regular". I'm like that too - and my balance is far better on my left leg. I do 30 seconds on each leg alternately for the two minutes cleaning my teeth - much steadier on left leg, even after years of doing it. When we did turning on one ski (i.e. going down the slope on the same leg) I was much better on the left leg. Even though my left knee, badly sprained years ago in Cairngorm, is not as good as my right. Taking off to do a cartwheel (many years since I did that....) I would take off off my left leg and put my left hand down first. And kick off my left leg into a handstand. Wasn't much cop at either, but certainly could never have done it the other way round. I think most of us have a dominant leg. Just thinking about boats...... I think jumping off the boat I'd land on both legs as the boat is often still moving (and I'd have to get a rope on a cleat sharpish to stop it). Couldn't risk one leg being left on the boat and doing the splits!
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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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Hi @motyl, Are you right footed? But its strange that instructors see your anti clock turn as better. I'll watch, next time I ski with you.
And @Pamski, I was down your way in a traffic jam on the bypass Monday.
It seems to me that your right foot is the dominant one.
Is that the one that stays on the ground if you kick a ball?
But I'm not an expert on this.
I'm not very good at balancing on one foot, but I've got to get better.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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@Origen, Gosh, its very busy down in Chichester!
When I've done the odd spot of boarding I did regular as well.
It sounds like you are similar to me .. my dominant leg is my left, but the ankle is rubbish.
I have not got to the stage of skiing on one ski, but I practice trying to ski on one ski when I'm on a Poma lift in the fridge.
I can do it fairly well on the left on the left, but I don't last long on the right, just a few seconds.
Anyway time to clean my teeth now 
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I can never remember which way is my stronger turn, but I know I have one 
I kick a football with my right foot, ride a skateboard goofy and feel happier skiing only on the right ski, so I guess my left turn is probably stronger
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I have seen a Dave Ryding interview where he talks about working in a fridge with Tristan.
Every single turn was filmed for analyses.
The object of the project was to bring his "poor turn" to the standard of his good one.
It would seem that no matter where we are in the pyramid of ability, we all have a stronger side.
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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’m not sure how you define dominance, but I would push off my left foot to land/continue on my right. I wonder if it’s more to do with how you use your body/core during these two moves, and I’m trying to think of what’s happening in my own body. Pushing off is an unbalancing move so requires more muscular work and flexibility throughout. Once you have the momentum, you are supported a bit like riding a bike, so there is less work to do, hence from habit this side will be weaker and the turn on this foot will be challenged. When skiing, more work over a period of time will be needed to bring this side up to scratch.
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When I was the Southampton dry ski slope, many moons ago, a gang of schoolkids came in for a snowboarding introduction (prior to a school trip). The lad organising the gear threw them a sweeping brush and told them to show how they'd sweep the floor, without thinking about it. The ones who (like me) put their right hands on the top of the brush (and had their left foot in front) he set up regular.
A lad in my husband's family, a very good squash player (was in top of his age group in Western Australia) would throw his racket from hand to hand in preference for using backhand. His coach tried in vain to stop him. When he learnt to snowboard he really struggled with both regular and goofy set up. The instructor in his private lessons was swapping the set up around for him. In the end it seemed that he was best set up "duck" - symmetric. Then he got on really well. "Mixed dominance" can be a problem for some people but it seemingly wasn't for him. Apparently some people have mixed dominance vision/hearing (a brain thing) and find it hard to look and listen at the same time. And it can cause learning difficulties.
My husband screwed up his little brother by teaching him to bat (cricket) left-handed when really he was right-handed. He just thought it would be cool to have a left-handed batsman in the family. 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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I am very much right footed, however I also turn better off my left leg.
I think the answer may be quite simple. In most sports if we are right footed our left leg is the balancing leg. I would kick a football or a rugby ball right footed but I was balancing on my left leg.
In tennis I would serve right handed but balance on my left leg.
Look at the line ups of runners in the recent Olympics. Most will set off on their left leg. Long jumpers usually jump off the left leg. Most people in throwing events, throw off the left leg. There plenty of other examples.
As someone very right handed and right footed, I always thought that my left leg was pretty hopeless. In fact it is the left leg that is doing the all important task of balancing so it is not actually hopeless at all.
I therefore think that is quite logical, that in skiing a right footed person will turn better off the left leg.
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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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| richjp wrote: |
I am very much right footed, however I also turn better off my left leg.
I think the answer may be quite simple. In most sports if we are right footed our left leg is the balancing leg. I would kick a football or a rugby ball right footed but I was balancing on my left leg.
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Exactly this.
My left leg turn is probably my stronger, but i'd say there's barely any difference in my turns nowadays. That said, I haven't specifically worked on it, or had a big difference at any point, but just through lots of skiing and training, i'm fairly symmetrical now.
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Thanks for the feedback all of you that have contibuted to this.
What @richjp, has just mentioned enforces my own view.
I think I just have accept that the clockwise turn is going to be better and
the anti-clockwise is going to need a bit more honing to get it so the instructors don't notice.
Winding the clock back to pre 1996 we used to use both legs similtanously more or less.
So we could always fudge it.
Cheers!
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You know it makes sense.
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This is not as simple as some may think. IME of teaching I'd say perhaps a third of skiers have a noticeable preferred side, but I don't think there's really any correlation with footedness, or handedness, for that matter; it's much more often to do with some movement, or lack thereof, of the hands, arms and shoulders.
Pole usage can often by a sign, or indeed a cause, of this, so practising aggressive pole-planting short turns can be a good technique, as can exercises that involve keeping the hands in fron of your face, which avoids what is probably the most common link with the sidedness of the turn, where the arm that's just planted and is now becoming the uphill one, is allowed to drop back through the turn, meaning that the shoulders may also do so and before you know it you've got over-rotation involved as well.
Sometime it is specifically leg related though - on my BASI3 tech the trainers were able to see the difference between my legs, one of which had surgery to alleviate a knee problem by straightening my natural bow-leggedness, involving inserting a wedge in one side of the top of the tibia, making it slightly longer and with the lower leg making a different angle to the ground and therefore meaning that the skis are at different angles to the snow. As such I effectively need to introduce more hip angulation on one turn than the other in order for the edge/snow angle to be consistent. Very specific, but at that level these things can make a significant difference.
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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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| Quote: |
probably the most common link with the sidedness of the turn, where the arm that's just planted and is now becoming the uphill one, is allowed to drop back through the turn, meaning that the shoulders may also do so and before you know it you've got over-rotation involved as well.
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That's a really important point - but I can certainly do it on both sides. When I skied La Grave (badly) with Charlotte, she would yell "ARM!" at me to stop me allowing that arm to drop back. I'd dialled it in on piste, even on difficult pistes, but it deserted me when I was really scared of the turn. I don't think I was any less bad at it one side or other other. Crap both ways!!
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Poster: A snowHead
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@Origen, It's particularly noticeable with people who've acquired some injuries along the way - my wife (BASI2) has one knee replacement and tends to do this a little when she's not thinking about it, but I'm not sure it's intrinsically linked, more that she's subconsciously protecting the weaker and sometime more painful knee, although of course the result does not protect it at all. A quick word is usually enough, it's all about thinking, all the time, about everything that you're doing.
But honestly I like it when presented with issues like this, because there is often an easy fix which can be quite transformational, particularly with folks who don't really use their poles very much, or at all. I've seen posts here suggesting that poles are a waste of time but they can really make a huge difference to overall body position and weight distribution even when the actual planting thereof isn't doing very much in itself.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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For many, which leg (and therefore turning direction) is the better one is often a game-time decision. "Let's see, do I want to protect my back today, or the left knee, or the right hip?" "Which problem child is least problematic today?" If you don't know in the parking lot, ten turns in you do, and adjust. And it can change as the day goes on and the snow evolves and your gas tank drains.
To expect perfect, or even really good symmetry, strikes me as unreasonable. Is there another sport where bilateral symmetry is so closely approached and generally assumed? In various sports I worked hard to improve my off hand/foot, but it would never be equal. Maybe running?
Hewing to someone else's vision of proper skiing is fine if that's what rings your bell. So is forming your own.
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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 used to instruct kayaking and when teaching Eskimo rolling would always emphasise trying to get the weak side as near to the strong as possible - you don't always have a choice as to which way to come up!
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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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@DrLawn, I’m left footed. It feels more natural to me to stand on my right leg and push with my left on a scooter.
The left is doing the coordinated work. The right is just a peg holding me up.
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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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Thanks again guys.
The more we have talked about it, the more I'm realising .. Why bother?
I'm never going to atain the Nirvana of perfect symmetry.
Perhaps the instructors who pointed out that I turn better one side than the other arrived at the bottom of the barrel of faults in my technique? 
They have moved on from the usual bollickings for narrow stance and leaning back.
So I'm not going to get hung up about it, and just enjoy it.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I'm trying to unlearn the wide carving stance I learned as a novice. A narrow stance is more fun, especially in bumps. If it helps, I'm right footed and turn marginally better anti-clockwise.
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@DrLawn,
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The more we have talked about it, the more I'm realising .. Why bother?
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For me it's quite fun to try to make both sides even (more fun on tele because I use both feet more). My right foot is definitely better than my left, so working on making my left better -- which for me means softer gives me a nice focus, and I end up with better skiing performance
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I never understood why there were so many dominant footed pro footballers. They train daily from a young age - surely they would make sure to train with the weaker foot as much as possible. I played a lot of football when younger and was proud to be comfortable with both feet (because I worked at it) - although granted I couldn't say it was perfectly equal. Some footballers are extremely one footed though.
I think in skiing perhaps it's more important to be two footed - but perhaps more difficult - as it's much more obvious in football which foot you are using as the lead.
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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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Quoting from that link: "These studies show that ambidextrous people perform more poorly than both left- and right-handers on various cognitive tasks, particularly those that involve arithmetic, memory retrieval, and logical reasoning, and that being ambidextrous is also associated with language difficulties and ADHD-like symptoms. Ambidexterity is also associated with greater age-related decline in brain volume."
Anyway, here is an interesting one. I heard that if a left hander should write from right to left across the page using mirror image letters. Apparently, Leonadro wrote that way. I suggested this to a left handed colleague and he reported that he took to it quickly. I don't know if he still does it when writing notes to himself (obviously to himself).
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Do we walk with one leg being more dominant - no, not really. Skiing really ought to be the same. I conclude that any one sided difficulty is likely to be either caused by an upper body issue, or an actual physical difference between the legs, rather than being left or right dominant. For me, if I stand with me knees pointing straight ahead, my right foot will point out at 30 degrees, whereas my left foot is much straighter. So when I rotate my feet straight, ala on skis, my right knee then points someway across my skis, unless I force it straight (that hurts). So I have an a-framing issue on my right leg only and that affects turns to the left. I've learned to live with it and compensate...mostly.
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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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If you are right handed-right footed and you go down on one knee, the right knee takes the weight. As a gardener I do that a lot and have developed a slight pain in my right knee so I am making an effort to use my left leg more, which is the same point made above by Chaletbeauroc.
I'm pretty sure that on our first day on skis we all turned better in one direction. If you don't remember you have just forgotten or failed to notice it.
About that pain in my right knee, the physio instructed me to do dips. On the way out she said "but don't forget to do the same number of dips on the left knee or you'll end up walking on circles." 
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But ambidextrous is a natural/innate state - we are talking about how important it is - or not - for non-ambidextrous people (the majority) to work on the weaker leg/foot/arm.
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You know it makes sense.
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Absolutely.
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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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| beeryletcher wrote: |
| So I have an a-framing issue on my right leg only and that affects turns to the left. I've learned to live with it and compensate...mostly. |
Have you looked at making any alignment changes with a bootfitter?
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Poster: A snowHead
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@rjs, I haven't, although I've played with canting etc and found just having boot canted at exactly same angle as my leg works best - not surprising really. Can't see how any boot changes is really going to change much when my foot is simply not straight on the end of my leg by 30 degrees. I remember years ago reading about Chemmy Alcott having her feet re-aligned by deliberately having her lower legs broken and rest with feet point straight ! YIKES ! My skiing is fine with what I've got I think.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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@beeryletcher, Changing the cuff position is not canting. The point of working with a good bootfitter is to find out how your leg biomechanics changes in response to fairly easy modifications they can make to the boot. Things like boot sole planing and altering the footbed posting will affect how your knee bends and can reduce the a-framing.
My turns are the same to either side, my boots have different modifications to them.
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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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@rjs, Yes - I understand that there are lots of things that can be done. I just doubt small changes at the boot end will make a whole lot of difference when it comes to having one foot so hugely different to the other in the way it is angled in relation to shin/knee direction. I'm not exaggerating when I say 30 degrees.
However, if/when I replace my boots next time I will get it looked at more deeply. I've managed to ski over 60 weeks like this already though and my turns are pretty effective in both directions, as it is - it might screw me right up if I change things now !
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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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| Quote: |
Do we walk with one leg being more dominant - no, not really.
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You might be surprised. On a training evening with my cycling club, we did an exercise in pairs where we observed each other walking. The differences between legs became quite apparent.
I have had a bike fit as I was suffering from a persistent strain on one side. The physio worked out that my right leg is 1-2mm shorter than my left. Such asymmetry is not unusual, he said. It was easily rectified with a shim under my right shoe and now I ride with no pain.
Applying this to the snow, it's now easy to understand why I'm a regular boarder - it's my (stronger, slightly longer) left leg pushing me back. I actively counter this to get my weight forward on the board.
Applying the same to skiing, I wouldn't be surprised if folk don't have minor asymmetry in their legs, which would affect their turns one way or the other.
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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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@beeryletcher, My experience from fixing my own alignment and working with several of my trainees is that you adapt to changes really quickly, I could see the difference on the first run.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| tomj wrote: |
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Do we walk with one leg being more dominant - no, not really.
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You might be surprised. |
I think it was Laurence Olivier who said that once he gets the walk, he's got the character nailed. His approach was rooted in the idea that external traits like posture, gait, and mannerisms can inform the internal aspects of the character, providing insight into their psychology, status, and background.
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I'm reading this bump on a day when I can hardly walk. For the last two days I have been working on lawns and its killing me.
My left ankle is riddled with Arthritis and my right knee is grisseling, probably the meniscus.
So I'm equally bad on both legs.. I'm not walking, but staggering.
I hope I recover soon.
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I'm sorry to hear that, get well soon.
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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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| ronniescott wrote: |
| I'm sorry to hear that, get well soon. |
+1
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Cheers @ronniescott,
I should not have had a rant on here, I'll probably be fine tomorrow.
I feel more silly than anything else, I can't help getting involved in these jobs.
I should just stay in the office, and get the lads to do the heavy lifting.
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