Bumps vs steeps vs trees vs carving

[graham418]

A couple of things I have learned is the short rad turn will save your bacon in a lot of situations, and skiing with a flat ski is the other thing. . Trees , bumps, steeps. You need to be able to make some short turns. You need to be able to get your skis across the fall line in order to control your speed. And while sometimes you can carve your skis, you also need to be able to ski with a flat ski. As soon as your edges engage , you accelerate. Sometimes thats the opposite of what you need to do

 

[Philpug]

It is when you don't have to think about those things that your skiing will take a leap forward.

Unconscious competence.

 

[Rod9301]

In the 25+ page Percentage of skiers that can carve a turn thread there's a bunch of discussion of whether strong carving skills leads to being able to ski other terrain proficiently with some difference of opinion. This got me thinking about my own skiing, the tools and techniques I try to use in different terrain and what is most challenging to me. I hoping this thread can be more about what terrain you struggle with most, why and a sharing of ideas on how you're addressing those issues.

For me, like many others, it's the single or double black, moderately steep bump runs with big moguls that I find most difficult to ski well. The constantly changing demand on fore-aft balance is the challenge for me. Trying to be more proactive rather than reactive to the bumps seems to be helpful. What that means for me is starting tall and actively flexing my knees and ankles to absorb the mogul. If I relax my knees and let the mogul push on on my feet I find it frequently knocks me into the back seat. I think of it as more of an active process and trying to catch the mogul with my feet and legs much like catching a medicine ball thrown to you by actively bringing the weight of the ball into your body with your hands and arms. Then on the backside of the mogul I push my tips down on the snow to maintain ski-snow contact, try to keep my shoulders/chest moving forward to topple and get tall again. Focusing on raising my tails or heels to my butt to helps although too much of it results in more of a hopping movement. On flat terrain working on dolphin turns has been helpful, although my toenails don't like them. My bump skiing is definitely a work in progress and yes, more than any other terrain, the moguls prove it.

If you push the tips down on the backside, you will end up in the back seat exactly where you want to be forward.

Pull the feet back instead as you crested the bump.

 

[Scruffy]

If you push the tips down on the backside, you will end up in the back seat exactly where you want to be forward.

Pull the feet back instead as you crested the bump.

Any movement done in isolation can leave you out of position. I could certainly pull my feet back and still have my COM back and out of position.

The key is driving the hips forward as you pull feet back, and drive ball of feet down planter flexing, and raise heels to butt, and drive the shins down, and drive the arms and hands forward, all in a dynamic motion and timed perfectly to the speed you're traveling through the moguls, the size of the mogul, the slope, the snow surface conditions, and your skills and ability.

@Prosper If you haven't seen this video of Tom Gellie explaining these concepts, have a look.

 

[Mike King]

I really doubt Caston fell much if at all during the filming of this. He may look like he is on the edge of control. But that is more his chosen style I suspect than him actually being on the edge of control.

Now some of his lines in his "Church" edit? Those are the high stakes.

That is some amazing skiing. I also bet Marcus Caston could nail the Level 3 PSIA task of Spiess Turns -- I actually saw a significant use of them in that amazing video!

 

[Rod9301]

Any movement done in isolation can leave you out of position. I could certainly pull my feet back and still have my COM back and out of position.

The key is driving the hips forward as you pull feet back, and drive ball of feet down planter flexing, and raise heels to butt, and drive the shins down, and drive the arms and hands forward, all in a dynamic motion and timed perfectly to the speed you're traveling through the moguls, the size of the mogul, the slope, the snow surface conditions, and your skills and ability.

@Prosper If you haven't seen this video of Tom Gellie explaining these concepts, have a look.

When you pull your feet back, you automatically raise the tails of your skis and the tips will go down and stay on the snow.
That's no need to push the hips forward. When you pull the feet back, the hips will end up ahead of your feet.

So instead of thinking of three things at once, of you just think of feet back, you'll be ok.

 

[Prosper]

Unconscious competence.

I think for me it's more like unconscious incompetence which is might be a little better than conscious incompetence.

 

[Tim Hodgson]

Any movement done in isolation can leave you out of position. I could certainly pull my feet back and still have my COM back and out of position.

The key is driving the hips forward as you pull feet back, and drive ball of feet down planter flexing, and raise heels to butt, and drive the shins down, and drive the arms and hands forward, all in a dynamic motion and timed perfectly to the speed you're traveling through the moguls, the size of the mogul, the slope, the snow surface conditions, and your skills and ability.

@Prosper If you haven't seen this video of Tom Gellie explaining these concepts, have a look.

I agree with all of the above including that excellent Gellie video.

I don't want to overstate my bump competence, but I will pass on what I tell my intermediate students. I tell my students' that your "Body" must (almost) always be at a Right Angle to the snow surface.

I show this by holding one pole horizontal and the other vertical at 90% to each other and say that the reason you don't fall down standing on flat snow and the reason you don't fall on your butt when you get off the chair is because your Body is at a Right Angle to the snow surface.

So when you hit the front side of the bump it may look like you are in the back seat with respect to Gravity, but because the front side snow surface of a bump is an upward inclined ramp and your movement is also creating a Centripetal Force, your Body is actually at a Right Angle to that snow surface/force (see videos above) when your skis are going up the bump's front side.

And when you go down the downward inclined ramp of the back side of a bump you must move, not just your feet down the back side but your hips also to keep your "Body" at a Right Angle to the downward inclined snow surface of the back side of the bump. Since there is no Centripetal Force keeping your skis engaged with the snow, I really need the weight of my Body to keep my skis firmly engaged.

I now ski bumps by steering pivoting, but I know from Gellie's video that firmly engaging the tip and torquing the tail to make the turn would be more efficient.

I am a work in bump progress, so take my Gellie-influenced but solely personal observation for what it is worth to you, if anything.

 

[WynnDuffy]

Wow if you're a few hours late on a thread all the good stuff has already been said. So I'll add some of the less good stuff.

• I think trees are similar to bumps but a bit easier. The trees perhaps force the bumps to be a bit more spaced out? Trees also have "flowier" rhythm where you can treat the side of the bump like a waterslide. It's not like that everywhere, but I feel like it's more common in the trees. Generally the trees are more creative but the bumps are more technical. I like them both but often avoid the trees after a powder day because I don't like having to make bouncy powder turns (now that I've stated that explicitly I think maybe I should make it a point to do them next season).
• I've found that for searching on mogul skiing in youtube, a good tip is to use google translate and translate "mogul skiing" to Japanese and search on that. The English pages have a lot of crappy material like the Bumps for Boomers stuff. The Japanese seem to be really into mogul skiing and there is a lot of great stuff even if you don't understand the language. Sometimes you'll even find English language bump videos with Japanese subtitles.

 

[locknload]

@Marcus Caston bumps:

​

Did anyone not want to ski like Mosely...man I love watching him ski and we all loved the "Dinner Roll"...Icon of the sport.

 

[wyowindrunner]

P.S. Your tax money paid for the seminar, just thought you should know.

Glad to know it was well spent!

 

[François Pugh]

Trying to add weight/force to the front often pushes you back, that's a problem in a lot of skiing, not just bumps.
You have to be forward and not let yourself get back when you push your ski tips down the backside; don't get left behind when you skis go over the bump. Ironically, trying to not go fast is what lets your speed get out of control.

 

[Ecimmortal]

Umm yeah I kinda agree with that. Tons of work and training, but I look at someone like Marcus Caston. Probably my favorite pro skier, that guy can rail EVERYTHING. He's got the racing background. Kings, alot more time in the park backgrounds.

Karl Fostvedt who has won Kings multiple times was a mogul skier as a kid.

 

[raisingarizona]

Did anyone not want to ski like Mosely...man I love watching him ski and we all loved the "Dinner Roll"...Icon of the sport.

After the 98 Olympics every young, hot little number in every ski town felt the same way!

 

[raisingarizona]

I think this is why really good skiers, particularly those who learned early, don't necessarily make good instructors or coaches. Some people don't remember ever having to think about it.

Definitely, teaching is a separate skill in itself. You don’t have to be the best skier to teach well.

 

[raisingarizona]

Always thought I did not THINK about skiing while free skiing. Last month had an ah ha moment on the topic.
Attended an on line seminar for work. The speaker spent 1 1/2 on "Mindfulness" and I was not thinking about work. Does this sound familiar to anybody else?
You immerse yourself in to something to the point where you are not thinking about anything, but you are aware of everything. This is foundational in a lot of Asian skill training and religions he was saying.
When skiing aggressively lunch, phone calls, or evening activities are not occupying concentration. Snow conditions, ski tipping, weighting, and steering are (and 100 other details) but not consciously, they are being handled at a "mindful" level, experience has taken over.
It sounds a bit new age, but this is some very old stuff. My permanently bent mind found it interesting.

P.S. Your tax money paid for the seminar, just thought you should know.

Thats the White Room. The state of grace. All high end athletes can relate. I used to call it the silence. Once you are forced to be in every moment everything else in the world no longer matters and it goes quiet.

 

[raisingarizona]

A couple of things I have learned is the short rad turn will save your bacon in a lot of situations, and skiing with a flat ski is the other thing. . Trees , bumps, steeps. You need to be able to make some short turns. You need to be able to get your skis across the fall line in order to control your speed. And while sometimes you can carve your skis, you also need to be able to ski with a flat ski. As soon as your edges engage , you accelerate. Sometimes thats the opposite of what you need to do

If you’re on a playful fat-ish ski you can butter through certain terrain features and cruxes too.

 

[Mike King]

Ok. So this is perhaps my favorite mogul skiing video of all time. There is nothing not modern about their technique, even though the clips are decades old...

 

[Prosper]

Ok. So this is perhaps my favorite mogul skiing video of all time. There is nothing not modern about their technique, even though the clips are decades old...

Has really good mogul skiing technique changed much with shaped skis? Clearly, carving technique is much different.

 

[Rod9301]

Has really good mogul skiing technique changed much with shaped skis? Clearly, carving technique is much different.

mogul skiing is best done on fairly straight skis.