Demo skis How useful and for how long should the demo be?

A snowHead

spyderjon, Wear The Fox Hat,

The last time I saw you both ski...fleetingly but on undemanding terrain... in April and Oct respectively, you could both use a better position over the skis. Varying degrees of the back seat driving. If you want to ramp up the bindings, move them forward or whatever, you both need to work on getting centred to make any big strides.
I actually thought Spyder was heading in the right direction so might be prepared to say what gets you there, gets you there

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Hatters, 1&2 are sometimes interchangable, for example if the lateral cant is so far out that they can't edge effectively. So we need to fix the boots furst before progress in technique.

spyderjon - Meh (regarding sidecuts etc.) I know I get more performance out of the ski at the focus of the parabola (which is back from the centre of the running surface near the manufactures mark) Very Happy

Here's something for you all to try.... When I get bored, I regularly step into my bindings backwards (ie; put my heel into the toepiece, and toe into the heelpiece). I then ski a variety of turn shapes, variety of turns (skid, carve etc.), ski forwards, ski switch etc. No, I don't do this with twin tips.

Interesting results! Your stance and balance has to be good to cope!

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JT, yep you're right. My bindings have only moved a cm since you saw meet at PSB 05. However since then, & supporting V8's comments, I've had major changes to the forward lean & ramp angle on my boots which were set-up for the binding angle on my skis. I don't think I would have ever have been able to get in the correct position until those problems were corrected.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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easiski, I think that there's a difference between you, and the average punter though. I'm sure that for you, as a professional skier, it makes a huge difference where your binding is mounted as to how the ski performs, due to you having almost perfect posture, however for me, an above average recreational skier, I don't see that there's much point in messing around with my bindings, when in actual fact, what I need to do is correct my posture to get better performance out of the ski - as pointed out by yourself in LDA earlier this year.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

By technique I mean coaching, one on one lessons with an instructor with customised exercises given to you to do which would hopefully stop the overcompensation.

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rob@rar.org.uk,

I think revewing yourself skiing on video is a help. I visualise my stance on skis and then HATE the playback on video.
People have commented on my position over skis favourably but I hate it, so when I start every season, its always stance, stance and stance. So I am very aware of other peoples 'position' when I look around the hill.

Maybe I don't practice enough and will have to find time to rectify that

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I do think there may be something in the article, however there's also something in (to a degree) alignment. I have a big problem with all this stuff because they tend to promise instantly good or better skiing.

If you've been majorly out of alignment for instance, you're in your 30s or 40s, then to get aligned to "straight" is positively dangerous IMO. You're changing which muscles work certain parts of your body, and risking other problems. eg: Tomasz Ondrusz's back problem which was entirely the result of his eliminating his rotation, which was due to having one leg 3" shorter than the other. I have consulted with top world biomechanists and physiologists about this, and they agree, that if alignment correction is not done early enough, and if it is more than a "gentle nudge" then it's a risk. Look at my feet!

Now a little correction to a neutral position (if necesary by many little increments) can be very helpful. Either way, nothing except working at technique is going to make you a good skier, and without good stance/body positioning you're never going to improve much. It's a common misconception among holiday skiers that if they have a problem on, say, red runs they need to fix it on red runs. NO! If there's a problem it's 99% likely to be a basic technique problem and you have to start fixing it by a) using easy/green runs, and b) by actually practising what you're taught in your lessons. So, there's no alternative to good technique, but you can help it along a little.

Having said all that, (and being in danger of agreeing with Veeight again I'd better shut up.

Wear The Fox Hat, How many times did you practise your exercises?? Not much I bet.... I didn't hear about it.

Also, we should not forget that most skiing clients are on rental equipment, and are unlikely to be set up even half correctly (judging by the majority of shops). Shocked

Wear The Fox Hat, ahem "I disagree that you should just focus on technique, as you may be compensating for one problem by creating another, or worse still, end up working too hard to make simple movements." Who won the race?????

You know it makes sense.

Going back to the golf analogy, there are plenty of pros who will say that you are better off spending £100 on lessons than £300 (say) on a new driver. Surely if your technique is good and you know what you are trying to achieve, you can get your skis to work even if the bindings are a bit too far forward or back?

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

easiski, the person with the fastest aggregate time! In terms of learning to ski, are you saying to forget about boots and balance and just work on using your muscles to power through problems that could be fixed by someone with a bit of skill?

A snowHead

Arno, true, but what is good golf technique about? Surely it's about having balance and control of your body first, then the club, then the ball.

If you say technique is nothing to do with how you are set up, and your interface with the equipment, then if a golfer holds the driver half way down the shaft, do you congratulate him on perfect technique, or try to get his body more upright, his grip nearer the end of the shaft... and THEN work on the rest of the technique?

A snowHead

Wear The Fox Hat, I'm saying that to race fast you need to have good technique, and good balance. Kramer, worked very hard on his body positioning when out in LDA last winter, and also practised his exercies so religiously that he was cheered from a chairlift - maybe that's why he won the race???? His body positioning was better, therefore he was better able to deal with ruts, mistakes, whatever occurred during the race. He was one of the few who was much faster on the second run .... OK, most of us expected either JT or DBiggins to win, but nevertheless it was not a total fluke. I don't think he's had enough credit for his win.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

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Wear The Fox Hat, how you set up is very much part of technique in skiing and golf. your interface with your kit is a different thing. within reason (and we're really talking about a couple of centimetres on a ski which is about 170-180 cms long here) your interface with your kit is very much fine tuning compared with the fundamental requirement to be standing on your skis properly or set up to your shot properly IMO

edit: holding a club half way down the shaft is a technical thing; having a dodgy grip is a technical thing - these are matters which are in your physical control. i think the adjustments achieved by this campbell balancer thingy are more like changes in the size of a club's grip and stiffness and length of shaft. these things might make it a teensy bit easier to get the technical parts right, but they are by no means vital. can't help but think that the same applies (within reason) to where you mount your bindings

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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oooOOOOOooooo

OK Ladies: A few rules about men:

1. You can poke fun at a mans wife or gf
2. You can poke fun at the size of a mans w1lly
3. You can even make jokes about his car.

But never never never criticis(z)e their driving or skiing....... Laughing

(that's below the belt) Laughing

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

veeeight, I don't think that was criticism, more a statement of belief.

brian

brian, I thought it was fairly obvious!

brian

Wear The Fox Hat, ok, you need to spell it out for us thickies then Laughing

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Many of my friends play golf, I don't, because the temptation of a sport where you can go out and spend £300 on a new club rather than practice more would be too much for me. I would be bankrupt within a year. Embarassed

I was lucky in the race, and I certainly wouldn't count myself as the best skier at the EoSB, not even in the top five probably, however what made the difference between the first and second run for me was concentrating on the things that easiski had taught me in the lessons that I had with her earlier in the season. The first run I took it easy, the second I skied a far more aggressive line, and also a lot more smoothly, with far better edge control and my weight significantly further forward. It also helped as someone said that it was steeper at the start and then became flatter further on, which favours the fuller bodied skier, shall we say. Very Happy

However lucky I was, I do believe that the second run was more representative of my true time than my first. That was my first time through gates in twenty years, and so my first run was skied with no small trepidation, the second with a bit more confidence. I knew that the second run was quicker whilst I was doing it, and this may surprise some people, I felt that I actually had more to give, if I'd had the chance to ski it again, mainly because I took some of the gates slightly wider than necessary. My surprise at winning wasn't so much that I'd done a quick time, but more that others (who I feel to be better skiers than me), hadn't gone quicker still, when I felt that it was possible to ski the course quicker still.

My point about the possibility of moving my bindings forward is that whilst it may have corrected the weight distribution on my skis, it would not have corrected the other problems with having a stance that is somewhat rearward, such as the instability that occurs when the ski hits some obstacle that throws it off line, and so to my eyes is an inperfect fix of the problem.

For me, the last couple of years, what's taken me forward in terms of my skiing has been the lessons that I've had, and not even particularly many at that. One three hour private lesson the season before last in St Anton, and two three hour lessons last season in LDA with Charlotte. veeeight makes a good point that although I thought that I was exaggerating the movements like Charlotte wanted, I wasn't, and hence she kept 'encouraging' me to do more even when I thought that she wasn't looking, however I believe that a talented (and assertive wink

) instructor overcomes this problem better than a video analysis.

All in all it seems to me that I agree with JT that most recreational skiers need to concentrate almost exclusively on improving their technique through coaching, I certainly think that the decision to start having a few more lessons is one of the best that I've made recently. As Charlotte also pointed out to me, at the intermediate level they don't even need to be that frequent as long as the correct problems are pointed out to you, and you're given the correct exercises to practice.

snow reports

Oh and you practice the exercises as given to you as well! Fortunately the exercises that Charlotte gave me were suspiciously similar to 'showing off' and so very enjoyable to practice as well, and although satisfying when I got my round of applause from some strangers for doing them well, a lot of fun when I totally cocked them up and ended up doing unintentional 360s and off piste excursions. Laughing

You know it makes sense.

Re, the race, I think most people could point at 3 or 4 mistakes that cost them time, I thought my speed over the ground was quicker second time round but that didn't show on the time, it was about a tenth slower... !!
Its all about a clean run, if you get one and make the fewest mistakes, or least costly mistakes, you are in with a chance.
Kramer's run was the fastest so he must have skied it well. The goal should be to get well within 3 seconds of the Euan.

I'm off to watch my video's and get depressed ....!!! and still 4-5 months to go to fix anything Mad

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

JT, I agree, what surprised me was that more people who I considered to be better skiers than me (yourself included) hadn't made less mistakes than I did on the second run if you get what I mean. Very Happy

A snowHead

Kramer,

We were trying to make less mistakes for sure!! Laughing

Can't remember a thing about the 1st run except I got a good-ish start and a few shocks on the way down...my only thought was a tuck ASAP. Certainly THOUGHT I could do better. I remember Dave B looking good all the way down.

This is what I remember for the second run, poor out of the start, skiddy 1st gate turn, another turn half way down not so good and getting thrown off over the little hump at the bottom by which time my time was probably shafted. I do remember whizzing over the line so I thought my time over the ground was good. It would be interesting to see it videoed and a pro tell you what time went where and then pay more attention to what Euan did to post 34 plus secs

A snowHead

I remember having a laugh. Maybe that's where I went wrong!

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

To bring the discussion back to equipment, I did the race on a pair of B3's, a ski that one rarely sees on the race circuit. ( I think several other people had off-piste skis as well) Could I have managed a better time with a pair of racing skis? Possibly, but I suspect that any any slight advantage that a faster ski might have given me would have been cancelled out by large errors in my technique.

If I were ever to get to the point where I could ski a perfect line every time, then it might be time to start thinking about the finer details of edge angles, binding position, etc. to squeeze out that extra bit of performance. However that day is a long way off, and for now I'm much better off working on improving my technique than thinking about the technical specifications of the hardware under my feet.

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johno,

As I remember we were being dragged straight off by Snowcazy - nearly didn't have time to do the race - and it was a pretty fun day in good snow. Thought you skied those B3's well and I don't think anyone changed their skis especially for the race..!! Chris was on Sugardaddies...

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There was one person who swapped to race skis for the event, but I shan't name him. Very Happy

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

FenlandSkier, I think that the lardy boys should have our own lycra suits in lardy racer colours.

After all it is free

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Lord Whitenoise did it on pocket rockets! One of the Q boys was deffo on park skis .....

The point is that, yes it was for fun, but it was a race at the end of the day. A race where no-one is trying to win is no fun at all! As with the world cup - good technique wins every time. Take a bow Mr. Raich! Very Happy

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Demo skis How useful and for how long should the demo be?

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