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Other than leaning forward, how to tackle steep blue runs? (warning: long post with 3 questions)

mister moose

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I think part of your problem is trying to move to blue terrain too quickly.

All you need is right here.

The color trail you ski doesn't bear any relationship to your skill level just because you are on it. Your turns are telling you it's too much for you. Move to an easier blue (not all blue trails are the same) or to harder green trails.
 
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peepo

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thanks everyone! yeah i also realized i tried to go to blue too early so wanted to check what's wrong with my fundamentals, will try more in the greens with the advice here and will try to get a proper video too!
 

Mendieta

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thanks everyone! yeah i also realized i tried to go to blue too early so wanted to check what's wrong with my fundamentals, will try more in the greens with the advice here and will try to get a proper video too!

Yes, don't worry about the run classifications though (a blue on a mountain will be a green on another and a black in a third one). Fundamentally, at this stage you want to control your speed by turning smoothly, not by braking, and you want to move to slightly more challenging terrain once you master the terrain you are skiiing. All the best!
 

RoninSkier

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Lessons.You don't get what you don't pay for.

Unfortunately alpine skiing is one of those sports where doing what comes naturally is often counterproductive. You need some sound movement patterns to build on when you're starting out.
Indeed!

Or pay a lot more in money time & frustration fixing bad habits, learning proper motor function later.

Or be stuck forever, not able to progress, fully enjoy this beautiful sport at your potential.
 

Tony Storaro

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Lessons.You don't get what you don't pay for.

Unfortunately alpine skiing is one of those sports where doing what comes naturally is often counterproductive. You need some sound movement patterns to build on when you're starting out.

I am trying to think of another sport as counterintuitive as skiing…even paragliding feels somehow more natural.
 

martyg

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Yeah, good call. Although that does not apply to fishing yaks which are a challenge only in surf but I guess you mean the other ones.

Thinking more performance paddling in sea or WW kayaks. Many aspects are very counter intuitive. Many well-meaning people provide very poor advice.
 

raytseng

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Thinking more performance paddling in sea or WW kayaks. Many aspects are very counter intuitive. Many well-meaning people provide very poor advice.
Golf also suffers from the expert beginner.

So much so, that you can remind chatty folks that there is actually a rule against giving or asking advice during a round to shut them up.
 

martyg

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Golf also suffers from the expert beginner.

So much so, that you can remind chatty folks that there is actually a rule against giving or asking advice during a round to shut them up.

Nice ruling!

While I am thankful that people like Phil and Tricia put the energy that they do into these efforts, I don't get that seemingly 100% reliance on advice from anonymous strangers on the internet. Go take a lesson. If you really want to hone the craft become an instructor.

That being said, every once in a while I will flip through YouTube and a piece by someone who really knows what they are doing (Think Deb Armstrong and a few others) will catch my eye. They may say something, in a different way, that my coach or a clinician said to me, and it resonates more firmly.

Those audio / visual exercises in front of the TV however, are supplemental and very, very far down the food chain in how / where I receive my advise.
 

dan ross

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I agree with @ King Grump, don’t get caught up in the terminology/lingo/babble yet, it will only confuse you - it confuses most of us . Taking lessons , group or private, should help you develop good fundamentals from there you can grow at a much faster rate. Without those basic building blocks you will never become the skier you seem motivated to be. Enjoyable recreational skiing isn’t that complicated, it just takes some skills which are much easier to acquire with lessons. Have fun.
 

Tony Storaro

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Nice ruling!

While I am thankful that people like Phil and Tricia put the energy that they do into these efforts, I don't get that seemingly 100% reliance on advice from anonymous strangers on the internet. Go take a lesson. If you really want to hone the craft become an instructor.

That being said, every once in a while I will flip through YouTube and a piece by someone who really knows what they are doing (Think Deb Armstrong and a few others) will catch my eye. They may say something, in a different way, that my coach or a clinician said to me, and it resonates more firmly.

Those audio / visual exercises in front of the TV however, are supplemental and very, very far down the food chain in how / where I receive my advise.

That really depends tho. I mean where I am almost 100% of the instructors are solely focused on newbs and that’s alright as this is their bread-and-butter demographics. When someone whose skiing sucks at a higher level asks for a lesson they are met with this face: :geek: :geek: :geek: A lesson? For you?:geek::geek: You good enough mate, don‘t need no lessons, just go ski.

And this is where YT vids come into play. I can learn 100s of times more from Deb Armstrong or Reilly or that Finnish guy Triggerboy62 than from any instructor I have access to.
 

Bill Miles

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That really depends tho. I mean where I am almost 100% of the instructors are solely focused on newbs and that’s alright as this is their bread-and-butter demographics. When someone whose skiing sucks at a higher level asks for a lesson they are met with this face: :geek: :geek: :geek: A lesson? For you?:geek::geek: You good enough mate, don‘t need no lessons, just go ski.

And this is where YT vids come into play. I can learn 100s of times more from Deb Armstrong or Reilly or that Finnish guy Triggerboy62 than from any instructor I have access to.
We should have a Pugski contest to see whose skiing sucks at the highest level.
 

dan ross

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That really depends tho. I mean where I am almost 100% of the instructors are solely focused on newbs and that’s alright as this is their bread-and-butter demographics. When someone whose skiing sucks at a higher level asks for a lesson they are met with this face: :geek: :geek: :geek: A lesson? For you?:geek::geek: You good enough mate, don‘t need no lessons, just go ski.

And this is where YT vids come into play. I can learn 100s of times more from Deb Armstrong or Reilly or that Finnish guy Triggerboy62 than from any instructor I have access to.
Yes, at a certain point, we’ve “ built the house” but now we want to add an addition to use a construction metaphor. That’s where those YT videos can be useful. The OP is laying the foundation ( flogging the metaphor here) and needs to get that right in order to build on it. At the OP’s current level, in person immediate feedback is worth pursuing and should accelerate progress.
 

Tony Storaro

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Yes, at a certain point, we’ve “ built the house” but now we want to add an addition to use a construction metaphor. That’s where those YT videos can be useful. The OP is laying the foundation ( flogging the metaphor here) and needs to get that right in order to build on it. At the OP’s current level, in person immediate feedback is worth pursuing and should accelerate progress.

Yeah, totally. At the beginning lessons are priceless and absolutely necessary.
 

justplanesteve

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You should take a lesson, even a group lesson works well for many beginners. A typical package of 4 or 6 group lessons over the same number of weeks with personal practice between would be ideal. For people like me, i like a group lesson not only because of economy, but it allows me to process stuff more easily by watching a range of responses from others in the group.

But if you can't, the easy summary of skiing is to keep dynamic fore-aft balance, and control your edges. Control your edges means being able to use any section of them anywhere along the ski. That's about it.

To get you safe on "steep" blues and hopefully not add too much to bad habits:

Do stork turns on green terrain until they feel sort of natural. Maybe not all in one day out.
Reason for stork as opposed to javelin or get-over-it if you are self teaching is that the last 2 can be cheated, and often are, by people initiating by leaning back. You need to lean forward and balance over the toe of the outside ski for a stork turn, and it starts dorsiflexing the inside ankle.

When you can drive and carve the single outside ski (or controlled skidding turn), go to a groomed section of slope that seems "steep" in your estimation.
Point your parallel skis straight down the fall line. Dive and fall forward right out over the tips and keep facing your fall & torso down the fall line as you pressure the outside ski like you felt in a stork, and keep that pressure on until the ski comes around under you & forces you uphill to a stop, or to a speed you feel completely comfortable falling straight forward down the fall line again and pressuring the opposite ski to go the other direction. Don't do it half -ashed. Dive straight into your discomfort zone fully committed and trust your skis to do what you practice in the stork turns while staying fully in a forward position until stopped. If the slope is off -camber and you dove the wrong direction, don't get confused mid carve (or skid) and try to reverse. Keep the turn going hard until you are back up and slowed or stopped.

Focus on driving the fronts of the skis, if you do not commit to fully forward you'll never get the tails of the skis around under you. Torso needs to be perpendicular to slope, not to gravity.

There are still plenty of bad habits that can be accumulated here, but it is a start with a tool you can build on.
If you really want to progress, get on you tube & do all the footwork drills every time out, on greens. You can't drill to perfection in one or 2 sessions or maybe even over a lifetime, we all go in and out of practice. There are plenty of muscles involved in efficient skiing that some of us (myself included on my broken side) barely use in regular walking. Just keep doing a mix of footwork drills every time you ski. Over a season (20 - 30 x out?) each will get more natural and you will unconsciously entrain the muscle movements and increased muscle strength into your skiing. Watch the videos especially focusing on where they show you how they can be done incorrectly so you can minimize the bad habit accretion.

smt
 
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raytseng

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I will throw this out there, as OP wants to study get better, but perhaps doesn't have an unlimited budget for lessons

If OP wants a middle ground perhaps they will benefit from trying Carv instead, and spending $400 and getting some feedback and targetted video drills. Not going to be as good as lessons, but will be better than the YouTube algorithm.

There's a couple threads somewhere here if they want to review.
 

Tony Storaro

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I will throw this out there, as OP wants to study get better, but perhaps doesn't have an unlimited budget for lessons

If OP wants a middle ground perhaps they will benefit from trying Carv instead, and spending $400 and getting some feedback and targetted video drills. Not going to be as good as lessons, but will be better than the YouTube algorithm.

There's a couple threads somewhere here if they want to review.

What’s wrong with YT vids? If he doesnt know what proper skiing looks like he won’t learn it from a pair of smart footbeds in his boots.
It is better to be shown once than told 10 times.
 

crusty

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I look around YT for various drills to learn the feel of things. I haven’t had a lesson since I was a kid, and I plan to get one at some point. But for now, I’m finding things to try just to get self awareness.
 

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