I have bumps in my head...

[Chris V.]

You can ski your own secret invisible bumps on a groomer. All you need is a pair of modern SL skis and the ability to cleanly carve high-tipping-angle pure arc-2-arc turns. The good thing about these bumps is they are never too big for your ability, although you can find you may be carrying too much speed for them and get launched by a nasty one. This is where you can learn to absorb the virtual bump, get some air off it, or adjust in between the two extremes.

Yes, I believe this is key! The biggest reason most skiers struggle with bumps is that they put little effort into building really solid short radius (very short radius) turns on groomers. The biggest reason most of us aren't as competent in bumps as we'd like to be is that we don't spend enough time working on those short radius turns. Most of the time, there's not a strong incentive for skiers to make short radius turns on groomers. One can get down the mountain and have a great time making nothing but longer radius turns. But if we don't work on the skills in less challenging conditions, they won't be available where we really need them.

And really, one needs to practice and be able to make a variety of types of short radius turns--more carvy, more slippy, with more of a high C, and with a sudden edge set. Because out in the wild, sets of bumps are rarely uniform in size and nicely spaced out. They're constantly throwing something new and different at you. While there are various tactical approaches to skiing moguls, you'll generally have to mix them all a bit in a single run--banking off the sides of bumps, skiing the troughs, slipping down the faces, absorbing the peaks, diving into holes.

Much of the time, the bumps don't truly dictate a line. Often you could realistically ski any line, even GS turns. It's just that some lines are easier or less punishing than others. Trying a variety of lines is a good way to practice the variety of movements that come in useful. Then when you get to a really gnarly bump field, with icy angular bluffs on the sides of the bumps, constraining your line much more, you'll have access to the moves needed to ski that constrained line successfully.

The one thing you and many other experienced skiers that don't ski bumps well have in common is your brain has not developed the brain control to muscle action structures to do so. For example there are many pro skiers racers that never learned to ski bumps well because they spent their ski lives focused on racing with very little time ever in mogul fields. Ever notice how the more you play a simple video game like Pac-Man that after a few months of occasional play, one gets amazingly better as though one is on auto-pilot? One can say the same thing about driving vehicles on urban freeways.

The conscious mind isn't capable of rapidly issuing the many small instructions that our muscles need to rapidly ski a bump field. What long hours of practice do is train the subconscious brain to handle the majority of the management duties. The conscious mind can then focus on making the larger decisions. When people speak of looking 30 feet ahead in a mogul run, they don't mean that you should be consciously plotting out all details of the next 30 feet of the run. That would be overload. By looking ahead you get a mental picture of the terrain, that the subconscious brain can use to make most of the small decisions.

 

[Fuller]

The conscious mind isn't capable of rapidly issuing the many small instructions that our muscles need to rapidly ski a bump field. What long hours of practice do is train the subconscious brain to handle the majority of the management duties. The conscious mind can then focus on making the larger decisions. When people speak of looking 30 feet ahead in a mogul run, they don't mean that you should be consciously plotting out all details of the next 30 feet of the run. That would be overload. By looking ahead you get a mental picture of the terrain, that the subconscious brain can use to make most of the small decisions.

In other words it's a foreign language, something else I'm not very good at!

It's time to put some time into it though. Lot's of positive things have been brought to mind here, thanks Pugskiers.

 

[Jerez]

The conscious mind isn't capable of rapidly issuing the many small instructions that our muscles need to rapidly ski a bump field. What long hours of practice do is train the subconscious brain to handle the majority of the management duties. The conscious mind can then focus on making the larger decisions. When people speak of looking 30 feet ahead in a mogul run, they don't mean that you should be consciously plotting out all details of the next 30 feet of the run. That would be overload. By looking ahead you get a mental picture of the terrain, that the subconscious brain can use to make most of the small decisions.

THIS THIS THIS! Truly the secret sauce.. Actually this is how the thread started on page one or two with @crgildart 's post.

BUT this is for after you master @LiquidFeet 's progression and can get down the run as slooooowwwlly as you choose. At least in my opinion.

From what you wrote, that should be pretty easy since you already have well developed groomer skills.

 

[mdf]

Often you could realistically ski any line, even GS turns.

Off topic, but I love doing that! A lot of bump runs at bigger mountains start gradually, starting smooth, turning into bumplets, then small but real bumps, and finally the meat of the bump field. A game I like to play is to see how far down the run I can get before I have make my first real bump turn. You need loose ankles and knees to make it work.

 

[SSSdave]

Will temper something often stated as a tip in bump skiing discussions that is more true with comp mogul styles and less with rec bump styles. That is the look ahead 3 or whatever turns ahead narrative. Not as necessary at lower speeds versus comps though an experienced bump skier can perform such anywhere. For the less experienced, rotating one's head upward ahead helps position one's spine/back where it needs to be until such is second nature.

When skiing fall line rec bumps leisurely at low to moderate speed, at compression before launching my body mass into a next turn, most often momentarily look right down at where I will be making each next turn, sort of sneaking a look, and the rest follows from repetitive dynamic conditioning. The better I see the snow surface during that moment where I am projecting, the more my visual brain follows through making better, more stable, and in control turns.

 

[Scruffy]

Off topic, but I love doing that! A lot of bump runs at bigger mountains start gradually, starting smooth, turning into bumplets, then small but real bumps, and finally the meat of the bump field. A game I like to play is to see how far down the run I can get before I have make my first real bump turn. You need loose ankles and knees to make it work.

I do that also. Another game I like to play is the reverse of that: Most bump runs end on a groomer or cat track or some place with groomed snow or non-bumps. I like to stop turning in the bump field somewhere above that flat or groomed zone and just use flexation and extension to straight line the rest of the bump run (with pole plants, of course, but no turning the skis side to side). How far up depends on the bumps, my mood, the day etc., but if you start playing with that you'll find you can get higher and higher up the bump run before you start this. Adding this little drill to the end of your bump runs, one can gain a lot of confidence in the ability to attack the bumps straight on from the get-go.

ETA: The reason this works so well may or may not be obvious, so I'll just add: it works well because you know you have a safety zone coming up ( the groomed area ) so you can let go of any anxiety and just relax and let the bumps push your legs up into flexation, and them let your legs fall into the extension.