 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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In short radius, or in tricky situations (steeps, bumps etc.) the Number 1 problem with pole plants is that people plant them too late, as as beginners and early intermediates, they have been told to plant to initiate the turn.
So in this respect it's more "correct" to think about planting at the end of the turn, in steeps it will be when the body/joints are at their most compact, maximum flexion, and to stop/block that nasty upper body rotational momentum taking over!
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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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veeeight, You may be right, but I find the biggest problems with peeps' pole planting is that they try it on their own and then allow their inside/planting hand to drop back and thus create a rotation. Do you agree that we no longer plant with a wallop on a downsink at the start of the new turn? I'm sure you do...
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easiski, Yep! No wallop.
But a shift in timing, definitely! (Note that the plant below is when all the joints are at the most compact, max flexion in this situation).
And here's a video I stumbled across today, but some of you may not like the skier....
http://www.web.pdx.edu/~petersj/Skills/Videos/PolePlant.wmv
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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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Ok I get it though I think the premise is mainly semantics - end of turn is a good cue to get the plant in early.
Got to say really reaching and planting with short poles has IMO really helped my tele turns & one guy at MK seemed to comment that I was getting forward a long way which I took to be good feedback.
Time to start thinking about it more in alpine maybe.
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veeeight, Actually I would say that the pole planting action in the middle of the exploded photos is very reminiscent of what we used to do about 30 years ago. It didn't work then as peeps kept tripping over their poles - I don't much care for it now. After all it took me years to unlearn turning my wrist out!!  I would say that actually, instead of planting at the bottom of the movement, we should plant just after that or as we extend. Of course with short radius this is changed a bit. Sorry - eyes going, so I'll watch the video tomorrow.
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veeeight, I've been dipping in an out of this thread, as I think perhaps the semantics of when I stick the pole in the snow is a little lost at my level. However, I have looked with interest at the picture and associated text posted above. Both instructors that have worked with me have encouraged me to crouch and standup again as I progress through turns - I have never understood why and assumed that it was an exercise to take your mind off the skis and do things a little more naturally. However, reading the text that goes with the pictures does it have more to do with this weighting and unweighting of the skis?
Also, more in keeping with this thread as a beginer where does the premise of stick the pole into the snow and then turn round it as an exercise fit in with when to make a pole plant? It strikes me that if you got good with the exercise (which I'm currently hopeless at) it would encourage and earlier rather than a later pole plant when you start skiing better.
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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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Megamum, pay no mind to the illustration, see V8's video for least confusion.
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comprex, The video really breaks it down doesn't it. I might well come back and digest it more fully when I've got a little more time in the week.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Megamum, I find it easier to think of what's shown in the expanded illustration as "active effort by body muscles to keep chin on same plane".
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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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Megamum, Judging by your vids and so on, you shouldn't be worrying about pole planting yet. Get really good basic parallel turns first - then think about poles.
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Megamum,
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Both instructors that have worked with me have encouraged me to crouch and standup again as I progress through turns - I have never understood why
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There are two main reasons why instructors work with "up and down" in the skiing progression of beginners and early intermediates:
1. Mobility (people are farrrr tooooo stiff) in their main skiing joints (ankle, knees, hip)
2. To manage the pressure that occurs in the different phases of the turn when the terrain changes, or to account for the "virtual bump"
So - in the main, folk don't move in their joints nearly enough as required (they think they are moving 10 metres in reality they are moving 1 cm) - and this becomes apparent when they try to ski something more challenging, eg: off piste or bumps, and find that they cannot effective manage the ski/snow interaction and have poor pressure control skills.
In later life (later intermediates), we try and adapt/change the "up and down" into a more lateral plane, so you are still flexing and extending your joints, but not in a vertical (up and down) plane as this is ineffictive and inefficient skiing in many situations. Re your query about "unweighting" - see the links below for more explaination.
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where does the premise of stick the pole into the snow and then turn round it
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I really dislike this description as it usually leads to some sort of induced rotation on the part of the student. As easiski, says above, really concentrate on your feet/skis first in making good solid parallel turns, before working on your pole plants.
Sometime last year I put together a series of "Myth" articles (one more on the way soon about carving & steering  ) - have a digest of these and see if they bring any more light to the tunnel:
Skiing Myth #1 - We no longer move up and down in the transition
Skiing Myth #2 - We no longer pole plant in modern technique
Skiing Myth #3 = 50:50 equal weighting on modern skis
Skiing Myth #4 = Face down the hill / Stand square to the skis
Skiing Myth #5 - A Frames
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You know it makes sense.
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Megamum, I'm sorry to say that the instructions to crouch and stand up again (didn't you have to crouch again?) is very old hat and should be binned. There is no need to crouch at the beginning of the turn any more. veeeight's, point about vertical movement being translated into lateral movement later on in your skiing life is absolutely true, but I think you've been given duff info - sorry. 
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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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easiski, BASI have gone full circle, and now they "extend" and "settle"..... 
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Poster: A snowHead
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veeeight, well, that's better than crouch and stand up isn't it? I could live with that one. 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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easiski, for sure, I'm not sure 'crouch' paints the right mental picture 
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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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Crouch is perfectly valid in bumps...... 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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veeeight, I think crouch suggests bum down - I would use the word as a correction, but not as a general instruction. It's deffo what we used to do in the bad old days!
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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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easiski,
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crouch suggests bum down
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Does/should the bum not go down when the knees bend?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Hurtle, I spent years learning to flex my ankles, and am still being harassed over bending too much at knees and not extending enough at hips....
IMHO more people need to learn to extend at knees than to flex at them... (eg bump skiing if you don't extend you cannot flex for the next one as you have lost range of movement).... and in that case legs flex UP under you - so bum not really going "down"..... It is like when folks want to get hip closer to snow like a WC racer pic..... they try to drop the bum to ground.... but the way they try to achieve that is not conducive to an extended outside leg - which they need to match the piccy they want to look like.... Bum gets near ground when they get high edge angles and flex inside knee - not from putting bum to ground by dropping it...
Look for video of the Australian that won Gold at Olympics in moguls (was Canadian but converted) Dale Begg-Smith IIRC.... I don't think his bum dropped much
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little tiger,
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bump skiing if you don't extend you cannot flex for the next one as you have lost range of movement).... and in that case legs flex UP under you - so bum not really going "down".....
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Yes, I can relate to that. It's interesting, I have difficulty sometimes in perceiving subtle differences in these technical threads eg the title of this one, in fact, but if the words are carefully used and analysed, it really does help. It shows, perhaps, that it's important to have instruction from someone articulate, whose language one understands. And from a good teacher, of course: just from reading these threads, I have become conscious of a few nonsensical things I've been told over the years, not just old-fashioned, but plain wrong.
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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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Hurtle, ah good glad I chose right example then.....
I find that one the easiest myself...
Agree re the instruction - one reason I like skiing with Fastman, and have found him helpful on cyberspace is that his choice of words usually works well for me.... I can easily picture what he is talking about and what I need to do.... Doing it may be difficult or impossible atm... but I understand WHAT i should be aiming for... which I find a great start...
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little tiger, Wow, amazing video and it illustrates your point well. However, my enjoyment of watching people 'ski ze bumps' like this is tempered by the thought that these guys will probably have difficulty even walking by the time they're in their 40s! You'd have to have bionic knees to survive this kind of treatment without damage. At least knee surgery has come on in leaps and bounds (excuse pun) in the last few years.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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There is a current vogue amongst instructors to remain "stacked" and/or to keep your hips above your heels. Whilst this may be true for many things (eg: in transitions), there are situations (due to terrain, tactics etc.) where you do have go go into "deep flexion", and yes, crouch.
Take this picture as an example: Fresh powder, *very* steep off piste on Blackcomb.
Turn shape, size, pitch and speed all affect the "virtual bump" - which has to be dealt with with good pressure control skills. One guideline when assessing fore-aft balance is to look at the alignment of the shoulder, knee, and ball of foot.
So, consider the photo above: It shows deep flexion, which will inevitably move the hips back. But the shoulder-knee-ball alignment holds up well, showing that the position is centred, the bum being back is compensated by the shoulders going forward. It's when people crouch and do the bum down thing, with no forward compensation that leads to a bad situation.
*More on virtual bump in RonLemaster's book.
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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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Hurtle, I once skied in a group lesson with an instructor that was training with my regular instructor.... He asked me why I did not do something on a flatter slope that I had done up higher on the hill on a steeper slope.. I gave him an explanation of why I had been told to adjust my skiing for the terrain.... He looked sort of like this ... end of lesson just after.... On return to ski school locker room my instructor asked how lesson had gone.... He replied that "she knows more about skiing than me" to which my instructor answered that "she damn well better I've been drumming it into her skull for a while" .... I had to give my instructor a description of the whole thing to which he replied that yes that was something the instructor concerned did struggle with the concept of... Seems the message got through after that lesson and a chat with my instructor during training who clarified my simple "bear of little brain" explanation for him..... I tend to ski with the more articulate end of the spectrum... "Follow me, ski like I ski" never really worked well for me....
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I think it's important to mark the difference between making specific movements to control your ski's which result in a 'crouch' (or other silhouette), as opposed to making a 'crouch' in the hope controlling your skis.
Or to put it another way, the 'crouch' comes from doing the right things, BUT the right things don't come from doing the 'crouch'.
veeeight, I guess another example of "shoulder-knee-ball alignment" with the hips 'back' would be the racing tuck.
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You know it makes sense.
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veeeight, can you disclose where on Backcomb that is?
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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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Take the Showcase T-bar up. Turn right. Take skis off, walk up the little hill as if you're going in the Blackcomb Glacier. But when you reach the plateau where you normally put your skis back on, look up ahead of you, and continue climbing up, it's a very steep 25 min trek........
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Poster: A snowHead
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david@mediacopy, Very well put. In addition we have Hurtle and Megamum asking questions when they (by their own admission) don't ski to the level of these examples. there are plenty of snowheads out there who do - but they're not asking the questions.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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easiski, oh, should I not be asking questions?  (I've been assessed as 'silver on piste' by the Ski Thing of Great Whatsit. But since they assessed me as 'minus silver off piste', I think the guy needed to have his eyes tested!)
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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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veeeight, gotcha
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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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Hurtle, I think that was a complement from easiski
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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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david@mediacopy, Oh.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Hurtle, Sorry if you took it the wrong way. What I meant to say was that, when only one or two peeps are asking questions the answers should be to them - not to DM who can already ski bumps pretty much like a god anyway! If you say to most peeps 'crouch' they drop their bot which is highly undesirable (IMO). However if you then proceed to say when bots can be dropped (but as david@mediacopy, neatly put it that's not what's actually happening) you get peeps dropping their bots, getting on their heels and consequently being out of control. These are just my observations. It's very useful for students to know where they're eventually going, but it does need to be explained as cause and effect. Folding the legs results in the bot lowering - not the same thing at all.
Now I've confused you even further I'll have to do some more DIY! 
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Amazing what can come out of a tounge in cheek video clip 
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easiski,
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I've confused you even further
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Not at all! Thank you.
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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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| Dypcdiver wrote: |
| Amazing what can come out of a tounge in cheek video clip |
Quite!
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FAQ
