 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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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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jedster, my name is slikedges and I am an A-frameholic. It has been not very long since I last had an A-frame. In fact it was almost certainly the last time I went skiing and the next time as well. My confessed sins are not being square enough on the skis (ie too much countering), not having a wide enough stance, and not releasing the inside ski quickly/well enough so that the inside leg isn't being activated to follow the outside, and there's often actually still too much weight on it. I don't see any of the first 2 in your pics but I think the latter may apply to you. From your first sequence I also wonder if you are progressive enough with your edge application as you've got a lot of edge and outside leg extension in the 1st frame but no discernible line in the snow (at least as far as I can tell from the pic). 
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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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He he - I love this topic 
Jed, when this was discussed last time, it was suggested that perhaps your inside knee was not opened enough toward the inside of the turn. I wonder though from looking at these new pictures whether the problem might in fact be your outside knee. Although the outside leg looks quite well extended, it appears as if the outside knee is twisting toward the inside of the turn, hence creating the A frame and tilting the outside ski more than the inside.
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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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jedster,
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I got my other half to take a few action shots which I have finally merged into sequences
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how did you manage to create the sequence shot, it looks quite good, any special software???
I think it is really tought to pick holes in someones skiing from a couple of shots
The first sequnce your downhill ski is lagging behind you and you could try to drive your outside hip forward, a drill to help is to pretend there is a link bar between your skis tips holding them together and when turning around the arc on an easy gradient dont let the outer ski tip get behind the inner one.
But to me more critically from the second sequence it looks as though your hips are well back and the downhill ski is breaking away,with not enough weight on the uphill ski. A drill to help eliminate this is to make long radius turns and when across the fall line drive and lower your uphill shoulder and hand to try to touch the tip of the uphill ski with the downhill hand quite high. this gets weight forward and crucially helps drive the upper knee into a stronger position.
another good drill is "midgets" where you stay as low to the hill as you can and turn by rolling the feet onto the big toe and little toe whilst keeping the knees seperated, this helps promote better crossover.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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thanks for the commments
slikedges - interesting, what's the cause of the failure to release the inside ski? what do you focus on to improve that?
I know exactly what you mean about the lack of the line in the snow. I think it's wierd - it's pretty difficult not to carve with that amount of edge angle and leg extension !?! I wonder if it's just an artifact of the snow conditions - actually was thawing refrozen slush on a hardpack base - maybe the track just got obscured by the gravelly stuff lying on the top.
petemillis - I think you are on to something here. I have a slightly wierd alignment issue with my right leg/foot. Standing normally my right hip/knee and ankle all open-out a bit meaning that my right foot points to about 1:30, left foot to 11:30. To make my right foot point to 12:00 I have to twist my knee in. When I flex in this position my right knee dives towards my left knee. My right foot also overpronates quite a lot. I have custom footbeds which help with this (tip my right foot out) but don't fix the knee issue.
So, when my right ski is outside/dominant my knee will point "too far" into the turn. SHould be more normal on the otherside except I am somewhat restricted in my ability to get to high edge angles on my right/inside ski because it naturally wants to tip towards the inside edge.
These problems were a lot more pronounced before I got my latest footbeds (couldn't really get my right ski flat) but it seems they have not gone away. Realistically, there's probably not much I can do.
I also wonder if the tip lead issue is connected - need to make some space for my right knee to point in? I've got big thighs so I may need to advance one in order for my right quad not to push against the inside of my left.
hmmm
Jed
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skimottaret,
we just cross-posted - thanks for the input
Software is Adobe photoshop elements which came with an EOS300D. You can cut pieces from one shot and paste them in to another shot. It's basically manual - had to line up each pasted section with the scenary.
I think your first observation is correct but probably stems from the alignment issue above - not sure how much room for manouvre i have but will find out!
Your second observation, I'm not sure about. I may be a little back but not that much I think. What do you mean by the outside ski breaking away - skidding? Not sure about that - it seems to be tracking a pretty natural arc to me. What are you seeing that tells you its breaking away?
I do agree that the inside ski is not carrying that much weight - in part this is due to my difficulty in tipping my right ski to the inside edge.
The drills you suggest sound good.
J
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In the second "person" in the second sequence you look pretty far back and by the third your downhill leg looks almost fully extended with weight on the tail of the ski, not neccesariuly skidding but at full extension and on the tails breaking way at the back on the downhill ski which could be giving you trouble with crossing over your uphill ski.
if this sequence is typical you may have trouble with "tipping" the right ski over because your downhill (left) leg is nearly fully extended. i would suggest trying midgets drill to see if you can isolate this.
Again, hard to judge from the camera angles you would know better from how you felt...
one mans opinion though
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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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jedster,
The failure to release is due to not being active with it - ie not actively moving it in to the turn, whether you call it inside leg retraction or initiating with the inside knee or a phantom move or whatever. I think that you can be fooled by how much weight is still on it. I think that you can feel that you're pressing/pushing on the outside without actually releasing the pressure on the new inside enough to allow it to roll over - best to do the release and roll consciously until it becomes unconscious (which it isn't yet with me). Do some javelin turns - lift inside ski off the ground from above the fall line part of the turn, then work on actively initiating the turn by rolling the new inside knee downhill.
There is an element of excessive internal rotation of your outside knee, that's resulting in your outside knee pointing too much into the turn. Any physical problems you might have notwithstanding, I think it's quite a common defensive movement seen in many skiers including myself - same thing as marc gledhill's talking about. As he says you've got to try not to overrotate the knee and get the power from the hip. If trying to carve at low speeds/shallow slopes, you can just use so called "ankle rolling". A little faster and steeper and the knee rotation comes into it - just try to keep it symmetrical - again this depends on actively releasing and rolling the inside knee. More speed and slope and you need to extend the outer and retract the inner and feel rib pinch. If not done progressively enough, or if much foot rotation in the mix at initiation, the first third of the turn is rushe, the edges don't engage, and no tramlines - I always try to think of changing edges but continuing in the same direction, and I'm still learning to do it consistently.
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