Well it's not just _me_ that's talking about the need to have muscles
actively pushing for skating up hills.

Philip Nelson wrote
you seem to suffer from the idea that unless muscles
are actively pushing, nothing is happening.

Pete Vordenberg wrote:
The idea in V1 skating is to apply constant power
throughout the technique-cycle . . . continuous and
even power application by the legs.

Philip Nelson wrote:
Pete talks about for a very quick application of power . . .

Huh? Except of that one Hot Feet drill, all the talk about "quick" in
Vordenberg's post was about _poling_. And even the Hot Feet drill continues
on to a variation that starts like this: "To achieve a good forward driving
position with the leg, slow down the tempo . . . "

There was this guy named Thomas Alsgaard who was known for skating with a
_smooth_ style, notably not "quick". But Alsgaard did not seem to suffer
the deleterious results that Philip claims must follow from the "drawn out"
approach. By strange coincidence, Alsgaard using this style achieved better
World Cup race results than anybody on the US National Team, now or ever.

So I'm not feeling embarrassed about my choice of styles -- though I
sometimes am surprised by how poorly I _execute_ some of them in my videos
so far.

Ken