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Gear Tele skis for learning

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Wendy

Wendy

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Got my skis back, mounted. Clicked in today. Pretty easy to get in and out, not much different that an alpine binding, except I need to pay attention to line up the tech toe with the pins, and make sure the claw is secure underfoot. They feel good getting into a tele lunge. Putting the ski on edge (on the carpet, LOL) is easy. Boots feel super comfy yet snug.

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Inserts on my DPS’s so I can switch the bindings over when I‘m ready.
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surfsnowgirl

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Someone told me once that you don't have to lunge when tele skiing. One of my trainers at Butternnut was on tele skis but I never even noticed because he never lunged. I'm looking forward to learning how to tele this winter also. We've a couple awesome skiers at Bromley who teach tele so planning on takinig a lesson with Paula at some point.
 
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Wendy

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Someone told me once that you don't have to lunge when tele skiing. One of my trainers at Butternnut was on tele skis but I never even noticed because he never lunged. I'm looking forward to learning how to tele this winter also. We've a couple awesome skiers at Bromley who teach tele so planning on takinig a lesson with Paula at some point.
I think what @markojp is referring to is the constant fluid motion in tele…one doesn’t stay in a “lunge” position; just as in alpine, one is continually moving one’s feet through the turn. I had to Google “leaf spring,” LOL but it is a great analogy!

Right now, I am working on noticing how it feels to have my weight equally distributed to both my leading and “rudder” foot so that I don’t do a fake-a-mark turn on tele skis. On the carpet, or using my furniture movers, it’s not possible to do this in a smooth continuous motion due to friction. I try, though. But I do sometimes remain in a “lunge” for a bit to think about weight distribution.

Allen & Mike’s Really Cool Telemark Tips book is fun and informative.
 
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Someone told me once that you don't have to lunge when tele skiing. One of my trainers at Butternnut was on tele skis but I never even noticed because he never lunged. I'm looking forward to learning how to tele this winter also. We've a couple awesome skiers at Bromley who teach tele so planning on takinig a lesson with Paula at some point.
If what you mean by not having to “lunge” (I think dropping your knee is a better term) it’s true…you can do regular alpine turns on tele gear by keeping your heel down and turning as you normally would with your alpine gear.
 

markojp

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More later when I have time, but in a nutshell, you've got x amount of vertical travel between your center of mass and base of support. Use it wisely. Knee to the ski? You're maxed out and lose mobility in all planes of movement. Think of separating the skis fore / aft, trying to keep the ball of your foot on the rear ski ON the ski. This will keep your stance tight and allow you to use your skeleton rather than relying on brute strength.... Telley till you're smelly? I beg to differ...Teley, no need to be smelly.
 

Yo Momma

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The beauty of Tele is that styles wildly vary. Free your heel, free your mind. You can do kinda whatever you like that works and nobody is going to critique you. drop the knee, don't drop the knee... depends on who you ask. Beards, duct tape and body odor are the rule of the day!!! I'm joking but most are just happy you are out there on Tele gear. Read the Allen and Mike's book and you're there! If you didn't already have gear I'd suggest you get an old set of Hammerhead bindings from 22 Designs. You can adjust the up and down heel movement and set it to very little to start out and it's almost like alpine skiing. That is their "hardpack or ice" setting as it keeps your heel closer to the ski. I mostly use the middle setting and rarely go all the way down other than for occasional "Style Points". (Actually up here in farm country we kinda chuckle when we see people go all the way down on one knee in anything less than boot deep pow.... if it gets deep... that's when you need to really engage that movement) Mostly we use the "John Wayne" or "Bow-legged" gait and mix in a James Brown "Hop" between turns! Gradually increase the heel play setting as you get accustomed to the movements. One tele turn, 3 alpine turns...... work your way to a 1:1 ratio then work towards 1 alpine to 3 tele turns. That combo of the Hammerhead bindings and mixing in Alpine serves to turbocharge your learning curve.
 
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Wendy

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The beauty of Tele is that styles wildly vary. Free your heel, free your mind. You can do kinda whatever you like that works and nobody is going to critique you. drop the knee, don't drop the knee... depends on who you ask. Beards, duct tape and body odor are the rule of the day!!! I'm joking but most are just happy you are out there on Tele gear. Read the Allen and Mike's book and you're there! If you didn't already have gear I'd suggest you get an old set of Hammerhead bindings from 22 Designs. You can adjust the up and down heel movement and set it to very little to start out and it's almost like alpine skiing. That is their "hardpack or ice" setting as it keeps your heel closer to the ski. I mostly use the middle setting and rarely go all the way down other than for occasional "Style Points". (Actually up here in farm country we kinda chuckle when we see people go all the way down on one knee in anything less than boot deep pow.... if it gets deep... that's when you need to really engage that movement) Mostly we use the "John Wayne" or "Bow-legged" gait and mix in a James Brown "Hop" between turns! Gradually increase the heel play setting as you get accustomed to the movements. One tele turn, 3 alpine turns...... work your way to a 1:1 ratio then work towards 1 alpine to 3 tele turns. That combo of the Hammerhead bindings and mixing in Alpine serves to turbocharge your learning curve.
Hey, Yo Momma!
Thanks for the recs!
I learned on Hammerheads awhile back. Unfortunately didn’t stick with it though I did love it. (I had the wrong skis for learning).
I now have Meidjo NTN-tech bindings and Scarpa TXPros. (See my pic above). A big investment, I know! :geek:

I love your suggestion of doing 1 tele turn for every 3 alpine turns and then reversing that ratio.

I’m really looking forward to this season, in a way I haven’t before. ogsmile
 
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FINALLY…my first day out today. On tele gear.
I went to the bunny hill (School Hill) at Blue Mtn. It’s not a great spot; it’s relatively narrow for a learning hill, and there’s a dip + rise in the middle that impedes momentum. But I didn’t want to start on the green run because it was fairly crowded. I’ll be happy when they open up more terrain.

I got the hang of turns to the left, but to the right…still awkward. Getting enough weight on my trailing foot is hard. Can anyone think of a cue or some mental trick or physical trick to help get that weight distributed better?

Glad my skis are a bit shorter; easier to maneuver. I LOVED being able to skate with my heel free…at one point I was skiing a big arc, then when I turned uphill and stopped, and skated back uphill to do it again, rather than take the magic carpet.

I have a lesson scheduled Dec 13 up at Killington. I plan on taking lessons regularly this season to help get the hang of this and have a set of eyes on me.
 

Yo Momma

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FINALLY…my first day out today. On tele gear.
I went to the bunny hill (School Hill) at Blue Mtn. It’s not a great spot; it’s relatively narrow for a learning hill, and there’s a dip + rise in the middle that impedes momentum. But I didn’t want to start on the green run because it was fairly crowded. I’ll be happy when they open up more terrain.

I got the hang of turns to the left, but to the right…still awkward. Getting enough weight on my trailing foot is hard. Can anyone think of a cue or some mental trick or physical trick to help get that weight distributed better?

Glad my skis are a bit shorter; easier to maneuver. I LOVED being able to skate with my heel free…at one point I was skiing a big arc, then when I turned uphill and stopped, and skated back uphill to do it again, rather than take the magic carpet.

I have a lesson scheduled Dec 13 up at Killington. I plan on taking lessons regularly this season to help get the hang of this and have a set of eyes on me.
Try this....Think in terms of going across the hill rather than down it. I always practice going across on a wide easy or intermed slope in my various Tele stances (up down, etc....). That gives your body a chance to break the focus down into individual structural components and build muscle memory and familiarity w/ the positioning w/o having to deal w/ the other factors at the same time.

To focus on turns simply shorten the distance across making tighter S patterns rather than C's. Be sure to check out Allen & Mike's Telemark Tips book for some fun reading and really good breakdown drills. I especially like the "James Brown" drill I learned but not sure it that came from the book or from one of the Tele Festivals....... :beercheer:
 
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Try this....Think in terms of going across the hill rather than down it. I always practice going across on a wide easy or intermed slope in my various Tele stances (up down, etc....). That gives your body a chance to break the focus down into individual structural components and build muscle memory and familiarity w/ the positioning w/o having to deal w/ the other factors at the same time.

To focus on turns simply shorten the distance across making tighter S patterns rather than C's. Be sure to check out Allen & Mike's Telemark Tips book for some fun reading and really good breakdown drills. I especially like the "James Brown" drill I learned but not sure it that came from the book or from one of the Tele Festivals....... :beercheer:
Hey, thanks!
The trouble I had yesterday was the learning slope that was open was narrow, so traverses across were very short. But I did do them. The easy slopes that are wider were crowded with skiers enjoying their first day on the snow…not a great time for me to do traverses since many were bombing down, LOL.

I have Allen & Mike’s book; it’s excellent and very fun to read! I don’t recall the James Brown drill and can’t find it in the book. I’d love to know what it is! ;)
 

Yo Momma

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Think of the yell from James Brown's "I Feel Good" every time you pop your butt up to transition from turn to turn At every transition yell "WOW"! Now think of 30 pple going down the hill at the same time at a Telefest yelling WOW at the start of every turn! Talk about FUN!!!!!! :yahoo:
 
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Think of the yell from James Brown's "I Feel Good" every time you pop your butt up to transition from turn to turn At every transition yell "WOW"! Now think of 30 pple going down the hill at the same time at a Telefest yelling WOW at the start of every turn! Talk about FUN!!!!!! :yahoo:
That’s cool! Thanks! I love it!

I found an exercise in Allen & Mike’s where you do a traverse, and pop the leading foot off the ground as if kicking a hanky sack ball. It seems like that might help focus the brain on the trailing foot to help in weighting it.

Coming from alpine skiing, “equal weight” on both feet feels very different. I suspect if I feel I’m weighting both feet equally right now, I’m really not.
 

Scruffy

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... Can anyone think of a cue or some mental trick or physical trick to help get that weight distributed better?
...
Okay, this may sound corny, but it worked for me at the time.

When I first picked up Telemark turns on free heel gear back in the early 90's, after having spent some time on alpine gear, I attended a weekend Tele workshop at Bromley Mt, VT.
A lot of us alpine converts had that "weak back foot" issue.

The instructor had given us a tip for weighting the back foot. He instructed us to imagine we had a heavy bowling ball in our hand and we wanted to set it down gently just in front and to the outside of our rear foot while lunging ( say just in front of the pinky toe ). So for a right turn your lead foot is your left foot ( unless you're doing a mono-mark) and your rear foot is the right. The bowling ball would be in your right hand. In order to set it down gently and gracefully while lunging, you would lower your center of mass using your right leg while holding the heavy ball along the side of your right leg. Now this is just for imagery of course, but you can try it off snow anywhere, in your living room for example, with or without ski boots on, and also no need for a bowling ball, just use your imagination. If you imagine this correctly you will drop into the lung with most of your weight on your back foot to steady your weight, and that of the imaginary bowling ball, on that rear foot as you descend into the lung to set the ball down. This gives you the feel of dropping your weight onto the rear foot to initiate the turn.

In a parallel turn, we are so conditioned to get most/all of our weight on the outside ski. It's hard to get off that drug. And of course you can still parallel on your free heel gear, and then you'd want most of that weight on the outside ski for icy conditions, same as alpine gear.

Anyway, I digress. Try the imaginary bowling ball drill in your house. Carry that feeling with you the next time you're on snow. Try dropping into the turn with your rear leg while you point your rear knee toward the direction you want to go. Your front lead leg will follow suit, and it'll know what to do based on your parallel skiing experience. i.e. tipping and edging. So your rear leg is the boss. It times and orchestrates the tele turn.
 

Paul Lutes

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Once you've broken the habit of over-weighting the front foot, then you can work on doing the same for your rear footogwink
And I find it best not to use the term "lunge" - it tends to promote mis-weighting and poodling. Better to think if it as a feather drop in the heel to toe position, straight down, combined with a reverse feather drop straight up.
Yeah, unnecessarily verbose. Just dance lightly on the hill.
 

Scruffy

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Once you've broken the habit of over-weighting the front foot, then you can work on doing the same for your rear footogwink
And I find it best not to use the term "lunge" - it tends to promote mis-weighting and poodling. Better to think if it as a feather drop in the heel to toe position, straight down, combined with a reverse feather drop straight up.
Yeah, unnecessarily verbose. Just dance lightly on the hill.
"dance lightly" I like that. Yeah, you don't want to promote poodling, or over weighting for sure, but sometimes drills are useful to introduce new movements or adjustments to old movements. It's up to the student to know how much spice to add to the stew; recipes are to get you in the ball park-it's up to the batter to hit the homerun.
 
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Once you've broken the habit of over-weighting the front foot, then you can work on doing the same for your rear footogwink
And I find it best not to use the term "lunge" - it tends to promote mis-weighting and poodling. Better to think if it as a feather drop in the heel to toe position, straight down, combined with a reverse feather drop straight up.
Yeah, unnecessarily verbose. Just dance lightly on the hill.
You’re absolutely right. My problem right now, aside from not weighting that rear foot properly, is that I am not thinking of “leaf spring” and I’m getting stuck in one position rather than making a fluid motion from one foot forward to transition to the other foot forward. At least I’m recognizing it so I can work on it.
 

Yo Momma

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rather than making a fluid motion from one foot forward to transition to the other foot forward.
This is where the James Brown "Wow!" comes in handy! Imagine your butt touching a hot stove at the bottom of the turn.... That will make ya transition from foot to foot QUICK but the idea is to eventually make it nice an fluid, like you said. When going "Low" it's actually easier to transition on steeper technical terrain, in moguls, and in deeper conditions. When conditions are mellow going Low makes the transitions more laborious for novices.
Once you get that down, then it's on to "John Wayne" turns!!! Those will take your transitions to the next level! :beercheer:
 
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