That's a touchy subject, rarely discussed in polite company. ;-)
I agree with you about the self-promotion aspect of it - read the
coach's biography - and it's been commented upon by others with a lot
more experience and authority in U.S. x-c ski race circles. See, for
instance, Dick Taylor's commentaries at fasterskier.com.

As for the technique itself, at best it was an indirect attempt (via
the Norwegians) to pick up what the Italians were doing with V1 in the
1990s, and a direct attempt to counter what was claimed to be
over-rotation in American technique teaching. As fitness and
competition increased, the idea of a quick turnover skate that could be
used in some circumstances gained acceptance in international
competition. That comes with the caveat that I think it depends very
much on the individual's style, aerobic capacity and snow conditions.
For example, Marit Bjoergen and one of the German women used something
like years ago on uphills in some races, but where conditions were slow
they looked like everyone else. The idea hit the fan in the U.S. when a
coach of one of the commerically-sponsored elite teams tried to
generalize it to *all* of skate technique. That merged the promotional
with a dilletantish approach to biomechanics - and a lot of cliquism.
Voila the fishbowl of x-c skiing in North America.

As for the video of OEB that JFT linked, I don't see anything 'new
skate' about his technique; his rotation is proportional to speed and
terrain. I couldn't find the video on YouTube, but there was one, I
think from the nationals in the last year or two, that shows Elizabeth
Stephen and/or Dong doing it.

Gene


wrote:


This looks like "new skate" to me (minimal rotation, short crisp
movemens), and this guy got some resultshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duA2q2s2-38

Thanks--that's a great video (and shows me I've been holding my poles
way too far out).

So, to rephrase my question--have "new skate" concepts just been
incorporated into more or less standard thinking on the correct way to
skate by everyone?