2022 New Zealand focuses (Rookie Academy)

[Mike King]

Mike, just an update on Jonathan Ballou. He was promoted a number of years ago and again this summer. He is now the Vice President of Ski and Snowboard Schools of Aspen/Snowmass and Product Sales. A mouthful, for sure. Jonathan is in his final third term on the Demo Team. Josh Fogg, also a PSIA Demo Team member (2 times) is the head of training and has been for 5 or 6 years.

 

[Zirbl]

Thanks @mike_m . With the Rookie approach, am I right in imaging there's not much of a float before the rise line - the cap twisting move has you pretty much pressuring the outside ski as soon as you're upside down, right?

 

[mike_m]

Right! So, do you ever come to the States to ski?

 

[Zirbl]

Sadly not. I gather it can be rather nice.

 

[Henry]

I think I counted 33 steps to make a perfect turn. Really? Who can actually do this?

Picking a couple of nits:
--While technically accurate, pronate or supinate usually describes a position. Inversion or eversion always describes an action that puts one into the supinated or pronated position, respectively.
--Dorsiflexion to get more angle in the ankles is a weak movement. It works when one is close to their desired position and knows what they're doing. Pulling back with the strong hamstring muscles is quicker and has more power when one needs greater movement.
--When I look at the calcaneous bone, it is the heel bone that arches from the back of the heel to under the ankle bones. I don't understand the description.
--I learned the "start each turn..." sequence years ago as part of a different system. "Drive the new outside foot forward toward the tips"??? Drive the foot forward is exactly pushing the body back.
--Establishing immediate grip with the new outside ski is easily done without the stated movements by simply rolling it onto edge and allowing it to ski away from the body without any drive or push. Grip comes from the angles, not from the drive or push.

There's lots more to comment on, and I won't. This whole thing seems like someone complexified (I made up that word) just to, well, complexify it. There is a simple, efficient, elegant, quick way to accomplish the same thing that has been taught for years. Ski like the Schlopy drill in this video with the hands doing normal pole plants with minimal arm swing.

 

[Chris V.]

I think I counted 33 steps to make a perfect turn. Really? Who can actually do this?

ROTFLMAO! I think of it this way. There are 200 skeletal bones in the body. There are about 400 muscles. They all have roles in skiing. No coach could possibly have the time to tell you about what you should do with them all, and you couldn't possibly absorb that much information. A coach can tell you no more than 5% of what you need to know to ski well, and the other 95% you have to figure out for yourself. Consciously, or largely subconsciously. Maybe it's more like 99.9%. But that small amount that your coach teaches you is very important. The skill in teaching skiing is figuring out which particular fraction to coach you on. If there are 33 steps, a good course of lessons might focus on 5 or 6.

--While technically accurate, pronate or supinate usually describes a position. Inversion or eversion always describes an action that puts one into the supinated or pronated position, respectively.

Well, the inversion or eversion is only part of it, but as I said in a previous comment, the others are pretty firmly linked.

--Dorsiflexion to get more angle in the ankles is a weak movement. It works when one is close to their desired position and knows what they're doing. Pulling back with the strong hamstring muscles is quicker and has more power when one needs greater movement.

Again, on the position vs. action thing--the goal is to get dorsiflected, and this requires the action of dorsiflexion, but that doesn't mean that the muscles acting on the ankle joint should be the ones most strongly involved. Contracting the hamstrings indirectly leads to it, as well as causing complementary bending of the knees. Be that as it may, many or most skiers need to focus more on dorsiflexion at the right parts of the turn cycle. They get stiff and resist it.

--Establishing immediate grip with the new outside ski is easily done without the stated movements by simply rolling it onto edge and allowing it to ski away from the body without any drive or push. Grip comes from the angles, not from the drive or push.

Well said, and important.

 

[slow-line-fast]

Liquidfeet: Ah, the question of the lifted inside knee and thigh pointing across towards the outside shoulder! Try this: Put one arm against a wall to support yourself, then lean against it, standing on your outside foot. Lift your inside pelvis, knee and thigh and rotate the outside leg and thigh around and inward. Now point your lifted inside knee toward your outside shoulder. You can pull your lifted thigh right up to your chest and that foot need not flatten! I think you'll see this movement pattern in the Patrick Baetz video I embedded, and in any photo/video of a dynamic expert skier in a carve.

In regards your question about "hip dump" in a later post, let's continue leaning against a wall. If you allow your outside pelvis to rotate back and tuck under to lift your inside pelvis and achieve "counter," you are dumping your outside pelvis and in a weak position. If, however, you rotate and drive your pelvis around and across in the same direction your feet and femurs are turning, you are countered but strong! (This is probably the most misunderstood component of skiing!)

Like @LiquidFeet I'm not sure what you mean by 'lifted inside knee and thigh pointing across towards the outside shoulder'.

Here you clarify that you are not talking about excessive hip counter and dump, good.

But with the little wall demo you suggest, the inside edge flattens out (A-frame). If you mean something else, I think we need a visual.

 

[Scruffy]

Like @LiquidFeet I'm not sure what you mean by 'lifted inside knee and thigh pointing across towards the outside shoulder'.

Here you clarify that you are not talking about excessive hip counter and dump, good.

But with the little wall demo you suggest, the inside edge flattens out (A-frame). If you mean something else, I think we need a visual.

I think the confusion may be where on the knee is the pointer one is using as a mental visual. If one draws a mental image of a line up the tibia and thru the knee as pointer to aim the knee then yes the inside ski flattens. If one draws a mental line from the snow surface up thru the knee, entering the lateral (outside) of knee, and exiting the medial (inside) of knee, then the ski does not flatten.

The point of this knee/thigh pointing the outside shoulder is to lift and rotate the inside hip to the outside of the turn, and consequently the outside hip to the inside of turn, thus increasing strong counter and aiding in overall angulation.

In my mind, if one is strongly stacked over the outside ski's inside edge, and in a strong counter, hip dump should be hard to achieve. Hip dump happens when one is weakly stacked and attempting to put the hip to the snow as the misguided goal of achieving the ultimate carving position.

 

[JESinstr]

In my mind, if one is strongly stacked over the outside ski's inside edge, and in a strong counter, hip dump should be hard to achieve. Hip dump happens when one is weakly stacked and attempting to put the hip to the snow as the misguided goal of achieving the ultimate carving position.

Good post. It's refreshing to focus on the ski that is doing the work.

 

[geepers]

Lift the inside thigh and cross it over toward the outside shoulder.

This?

 

[James]

There’s nowhere else for the leg to go. I don’t get the problem. Not that many are going to get there anyway.

 

[slow-line-fast]

So it's just that anatomical inevitability that kicks in only at very high edge angles?

(So not applicable for the 99%+ of skiers who are not at those high edge angles)

 

[LiquidFeet]

I think the confusion may be where on the knee is the pointer one is using as a mental visual. If one draws a mental image of a line up the tibia and thru the knee as pointer to aim the knee then yes the inside ski flattens. If one draws a mental line from the snow surface up thru the knee, entering the lateral (outside) of knee, and exiting the medial (inside) of knee, then the ski does not flatten.

The point of this knee/thigh pointing the outside shoulder is to lift and rotate the inside hip to the outside of the turn, and consequently the outside hip to the inside of turn, thus increasing strong counter and aiding in overall angulation.

In my mind, if one is strongly stacked over the outside ski's inside edge, and in a strong counter, hip dump should be hard to achieve. Hip dump happens when one is weakly stacked and attempting to put the hip to the snow as the misguided goal of achieving the ultimate carving position.

All along I've been thinking that there's a misunderstanding about what is meant by "lifted inside knee and thigh pointing across towards the outside shoulder." But I'm having trouble drawing the line the alternate way @Scruffy is suggesting. The mental line in my thinking is from top of femur to the knee. Crossing the thigh over towards the outside shoulder implies drawing the line along the length of the thigh.

The .gif offered by @geepers shows admirable skiing. And that inside knee does get close to the outside shoulder without the inside ski flattening. No argument there.

But does that knee get there because the skier has learned to purposefully move that inside knee closer to the outside shoulder than would happen as a by-product of the leg flexing and ankle-tipping? @mike_m said yes when I asked this specifically. His wording sounds like a skier should move it over more than it would go on its own.

I'm uncomfortable with that.

"Not that many are going to get there anyway" @James.

 

[mdf]

But does that knee get there because the skier has learned to purposefully move that inside knee closer to the outside shoulder than would happen as a by-product of the leg flexing and ankle-tipping?

I can see an argument for that. If the goal is to pull the body down towards the snow (which by geometry alone means higher edge angles) then a force-and-reaction aligned perpendicular to the snow is going to have more effect than if it is aligned with the body. Which boils down to aiming the lifted knee towards the opposite shoulder instead of its own shoulder. I still think the effect of reaction forces is underappreciated, vs imagining the movements as a series of movie frames of postures.

I didn't know of the distinction in where the knee goes the last time I was on snow, so I haven't experimented with it myself.

 

[geepers]

There’s nowhere else for the leg to go. I don’t get the problem. Not that many are going to get there anyway.

Maybe. Maybe not.

If we do @mike_m 's lean on the wall (or better still a large diameter exercise ball so the floor is there as a hard reference) seems there's plenty of room for the inside knee to dangle even at large angles.

And whether the knee goes to the inside or outside shoulder may depend on the amount of upper body angulation. Here's Marco with his knee very definitely to his inside armpit.

Question is: does a movement to the outside shoulder serve functional purpose? Or is it just that

it looks cool

MHO is that the functional purpose is to help stabalise the body rotationally. The inside and outside halves work in towards each other. And since the hips refuse to hinge down the middle it's the thighs (and even the arms) that do the work. Can try this with a one legged pistol squat (only have to go into it a small amount, not a full squat!!). If the raised leg out front is brought towards or across the centerline of the body and both arms come around from the outside to the meet in the middle then the position feels more stable and stronger. (Doing that I can get far enough into the squat to strain the vastus medialis... )

As mike_m says that inside thigh coming towards or across the centreline is visible on practically all high end skiers. (The Marco image is something of an anomoly for his GS run in that the knee is not past the body centreline but that's mostly 'cause he's ducking the gate.)


Course if @razie and The Apprentice say bs then I respectfully reserve the right to become more confused.

His wording sounds like a skier should move it over more than it would go on its own.

Played around a bit with this movement of the knee towards the outside in carving turns on snow back in July. Now I'm firmly in the 99% group but even for the timid angles I attain it feels more stable. (The move is likely more towards the midline of the body but nothing exceeds like exaggeration.)

If the goal is to pull the body down towards the snow (which by geometry alone means higher edge angles) then a force-and-reaction aligned perpendicular to the snow is going to have more effect than if it is aligned with the body. Which boils down to aiming the lifted knee towards the opposite shoulder instead of its own shoulder.

Looking forward to trying it quicker (as per your earlier post) to see if that makes any difference.

 

[Matt Merritt]

I have hypermobile ankles so what they do in sneakers has no relationship with what happens when they are in ski boots.

Hence, LiquidFeet?

 

[Chris V.]

In the early 2000s, Nicola Werdenigg in Austria was coaching shoulder and pelvic rotation into the turn, while most Austrian and German instructors thought she was out of her mind. (See carving-ski.de posts around 2003). Sandi Murovec in Slovenia was emphasising the importance of a similar position during initiation around the same time. (Talks about it in a recent Global Skiing podcast.) And the Swiss federation had it in their racing basics, certainly by 2009 at the latest. Watch most Italian instructors these days and you'll see them doing the same thing, some, but not all, of them with very pronounced shoulder rotation. Meanwhile, the Austrian and American schools were all for early counter rotation or certainly for avoiding and rotation in the direction of the turn. (No idea what the current position of either organisation is. Looking in from the outside, I can only think of Tommy Kirchhoff's "waist-steering". Most of the American stuff I've seen emphasises a strong inside half throughout the entire turn, but it's been a while since I looked.)

With many of the skiers that I admire, there's a pronounced difference in the amount of rotation into the turn, as between long- to medium-radius turns (more), and short radius turns (much less). Do you see that distinction as widely accepted among the schools you're discussing?

 

[Chris V.]

Chris V: ...Immediately pressing the imaginary bottlecap down in the snow as the skis start downhill - Yep, this was a new one for me, but once I tried it, it really worked. I'm not actually twisting my foot in the negative sense of sliding it/skidding it on top of the snow but, rather, by using the image of pushing down on the childproof cap of a pill bottle with my new outside foot, I establish weight on it completely before redirecting and steering the skis in the new direction. It guarantees early grip and provides more emphatic commitment into the new direction. Give it a try this season!

Steering - Easily misunderstood and misinterpreted. We focused on starting each turn by turning the feet (see above), then progressively, but emphatically, moving up the kinetic chain right up to including the shoulders. All the parts of the body were rotating and driving in the direction of the new turn until the knees and pelvis actually crossed over the skis, which was the cue to transition.

I have the same question for you that I asked Zirbl--when you speak of "all of the parts of the body...rotating and driving in the direction of the new turn," do you see there being a distinction between long- to medium-radius turns, and short radius turns? More of the above in the former, and much less in the latter?

And...in either case...I question the purposeful "turning the feet." This to me implies turning the feet relative to the shins, by movement in the subtalar joints, which as I said above has an effect of flattening the skis.

 

[LiquidFeet]

....And...in either case...I question the purposeful "turning the feet." This to me implies turning the feet relative to the shins, by movement in the subtalar joints, which as I said above has an effect of flattening the skis.

For people reading who might be unfamiliar with this foot-turning (or foot steering) phenomenon...

Turning both feet to point to your left, independently of turning your shins/knees/thighs, will lift the left edges of both feet. This tips both skis toward their right edges. So if you foot-steer to your left = skis edge the wrong way for a left turn, onto their right edges. And the opposite for turning feet to your right. You can check this out while sitting at your computer.

This tilt happens because the subtalar joint inside the foot lies on a diagonal axis. It's one of those anatomical things.

So if one is only foot-steering to the left, the boots will lift the left edges of the skis. This movement is counter-productive for starting turns motored mostly by edging.

This is also why, during a left turn, a subtle point of your feet to the right (outside) will strengthen the edging.

 

[Zirbl]

With many of the skiers that I admire, there's a pronounced difference in the amount of rotation into the turn, as between long- to medium-radius turns (more), and short radius turns (much less). Do you see that distinction as widely accepted among the schools you're discussing?

Sorry, I don't know enough about the national organisations to answer that. Haven't seen them address it, but that doesn't mean they haven't.

I question the purposeful "turning the feet." This to me implies turning the feet relative to the shins, by movement in the subtalar joints, which as I said above has an effect of flattening the skis.

I think "turning" and "rotation" can have the wrong associations to most people who've been exposed to common coaching terminology, because the tendency is to automatically think of spinning the body or ski around an axis perpendicular to the snow, or rotating the femurs to skid a flat ski. Technically, there is rotation going on in, but it's not around the axis that usually comes to mind when you hear the term. If I'm picturing the same thing as mike_m is describing, t's a rotation down and into the surface, not wiping across the top of it. The foot is still pointing to the trees, the shin is rotating in the direction of the new turn.

@mike_m - the "pressing" of the bottle cap combined with the rotation - as I'm imagining it, if you just did the subtalar move without really pressing, that motion would send you increasingly inclining as the turn develops and you'd have to make a secondary angulation move when you wanted to get pressure back to the outside ski. The purpose/effect of the pressing bit is to align everything with the inside edge and set up some flexion in the joints to allow increasing but "natural" (i.e. unforced) angulation as the turn develops, right? Effectively, you could focus on smoothly increasing this one sensation throughout the turn and move seamlessly from an inclined rotated entry to an angulated counter-rotated position. Am I picturing it correctly?