learning V1: my videos + story from last week

I've tried a big make-over of my V1 skate technique since last Monday.
Yesterday Sharon took some video clips of how it looks so far. Two of them
are on this web page:
http://roberts-1.com/t/xc034/a/p1

I'd be glad for some comments and suggestions about my visible body
motions -- and especially for a helpful mental image or two.
(as a baseline for comparison, I also show my "quiet upper body" V1, like I
worked on all last winter, even though I almost never use QUB any more for
V1, now only for V2.)

Last Monday I compared my previous videos of my on-snow skating with the
World Cup -- and found out that the timing of my upper body motions and
"head loop" was off in each of four phases in the stroke cycle, and shape of
some of the motions themselves looked much less effective than the elite
racers (see details in my posts about the "Head Loop" and "Air-Crunch"). So
of course I decided to change it all.

There was no good local snow remaining, so Tuesday I got out on some smooth
flat pavement on my Jenex 6400 rollerskis. I felt intimidated by all the
new things I would have to learn -- five or six new timings or motions --
and on both sides. Like learning to ski all over again.

I started as simple as I could. Left my poles in the car, went back to just
feeling the stability of no-poles skating with quiet upper body. Then I
focused on each of the four phases separately, trying to simulate the new
motion and new timing, making the poling motions with no poles.
Uncomfortable and strange.

In each stroke phase I tried to _feel_ the physics of the motion. Like if
there was reactive side-force, then I tried to be sensitive to the extra
force going thru my leg-push -- and feel the _lesser_ force if I omitted the
new upper-body move. Or if one phase was supposed to feed vertical momentum
into the next, I was sensitive to how the lifting in the next phase felt
easier from that.

Then some of the phases started to flow together in a way that felt new.
Finally I added poles, and the new flow carried over to using those. More
than hour of trying new moves, that was enough for one day, so I switched to
muscular training.

I tried pure double-poling with focus on forward fall, curling crunch, hands
starting back near my head, explosive down-push. With peak race season so
close, and the new motion feeling so powerful, I somehow fell into doing 8 x
1 minute very-intense intervals. Then I did some longer no-poles "cruiser"
intervals for my legs.

Next day my chest muscles that connect to my shoulders felt very sore. I
massaged them, and then found tiny connection points of tendons in to my
sternum that felt very very sore. Thursday Christmas Day I went out for
some more rollerskiing. Chest felt a little better so I took my poles and
did some easy poling motions and V1 simulation. Felt OK, so I made some
stronger poling motions with V2. And then the chest muscles felt worse. So
I took another day of rest and family visits on Friday, and more naproxen
and more rubbing.

On snow again at last at Mt Van Hoevenberg on Saturday. Muscles still felt
sore in the morning, so I waxed skis while Sharon took a skate lesson from
Kevin. After lunch I sensibly told myself to make it an easy distance day
as I headed out on Flatlander Loop. My chest muscles felt OK once I was out
skiing, and Surprise -- my skis turned off onto the Porter Mountain loop --
1980 Olympics 50K course, and the most interesting (and gnarliest) sequence
of hill climbs around. Then I still had some energy left to climb East
Mountain. Good thing for my chest muscles that the main Ladies 5K loop was
closed, so instead I went faster than ever before on gentler Perimeter.

Learning of the day: Every time a hill climb started feeling harder, I
noticed that I had gotten lazy about using some phase of upper body rotating
or tilting to one side or the other. And as soon as I added that missing
sideways motion back in again, my climbing immediately felt easier and
stronger.

Then on Sunday, Sharon took the latest video clips on that web page. After
that I went out on the Porter Mountain Loop and really hammered this time.
And came back to the lodge with another pain in one of my chest muscles.

Ken

[this is rewritten and reposted to reflect yours]
Ken,
A few months ago you posted rollerski videos of yourself and what I saw in
them was the most perfect example of athletic ski straddling on skates I've ever
seen (granted I haven't been able to observe myself in past years). In your new
V1 videos on snow there is some change, while in the V2 ones it's similar to the
earlier shots. I admire your joy and courage in putting up these videos. Your
request is presumably for specific suggestions, but I don't think a newsgroup or
written words are the best place to get the level of attention and quality of
guidance you merit. I suggest a series of lessons during the season and
off-season from a good instructor or as part of a masters' group, as well as
hours and hours of practice no-pole skating. Along the way, I think that given
your more experienced level, you would benefit enormously from going
step-by-step through the new Lee Borowski video.

Gene Goldenfeld


Ken Roberts wrote:

I've tried a big make-over of my V1 skate technique since last Monday.
Yesterday Sharon took some video clips of how it looks so far. Two of them
are on this web page:
http://roberts-1.com/t/xc034/a/p1

I'd be glad for some comments and suggestions about my visible body
motions -- and especially for a helpful mental image or two.
(as a baseline for comparison, I also show my "quiet upper body" V1, like I
worked on all last winter, even though I almost never use QUB any more for
V1, now only for V2.)

Last Monday I compared my previous videos of my on-snow skating with the
World Cup -- and found out that the timing of my upper body motions and
"head loop" was off in each of four phases in the stroke cycle, and shape of
some of the motions themselves looked much less effective than the elite
racers (see details in my posts about the "Head Loop" and "Air-Crunch"). So
of course I decided to change it all.

There was no good local snow remaining, so Tuesday I got out on some smooth
flat pavement on my Jenex 6400 rollerskis. I felt intimidated by all the
new things I would have to learn -- five or six new timings or motions --
and on both sides. Like learning to ski all over again.

I started as simple as I could. Left my poles in the car, went back to just
feeling the stability of no-poles skating with quiet upper body. Then I
focused on each of the four phases separately, trying to simulate the new
motion and new timing, making the poling motions with no poles.
Uncomfortable and strange.

In each stroke phase I tried to _feel_ the physics of the motion. Like if
there was reactive side-force, then I tried to be sensitive to the extra
force going thru my leg-push -- and feel the _lesser_ force if I omitted the
new upper-body move. Or if one phase was supposed to feed vertical momentum
into the next, I was sensitive to how the lifting in the next phase felt
easier from that.

Then some of the phases started to flow together in a way that felt new.
Finally I added poles, and the new flow carried over to using those. More
than hour of trying new moves, that was enough for one day, so I switched to
muscular training.

I tried pure double-poling with focus on forward fall, curling crunch, hands
starting back near my head, explosive down-push. With peak race season so
close, and the new motion feeling so powerful, I somehow fell into doing 8 x
1 minute very-intense intervals. Then I did some longer no-poles "cruiser"
intervals for my legs.

Next day my chest muscles that connect to my shoulders felt very sore. I
massaged them, and then found tiny connection points of tendons in to my
sternum that felt very very sore. Thursday Christmas Day I went out for
some more rollerskiing. Chest felt a little better so I took my poles and
did some easy poling motions and V1 simulation. Felt OK, so I made some
stronger poling motions with V2. And then the chest muscles felt worse. So
I took another day of rest and family visits on Friday, and more naproxen
and more rubbing.

On snow again at last at Mt Van Hoevenberg on Saturday. Muscles still felt
sore in the morning, so I waxed skis while Sharon took a skate lesson from
Kevin. After lunch I sensibly told myself to make it an easy distance day
as I headed out on Flatlander Loop. My chest muscles felt OK once I was out
skiing, and Surprise -- my skis turned off onto the Porter Mountain loop --
1980 Olympics 50K course, and the most interesting (and gnarliest) sequence
of hill climbs around. Then I still had some energy left to climb East
Mountain. Good thing for my chest muscles that the main Ladies 5K loop was
closed, so instead I went faster than ever before on gentler Perimeter.

Learning of the day: Every time a hill climb started feeling harder, I
noticed that I had gotten lazy about using some phase of upper body rotating
or tilting to one side or the other. And as soon as I added that missing
sideways motion back in again, my climbing immediately felt easier and
stronger.

Then on Sunday, Sharon took the latest video clips on that web page. After
that I went out on the Porter Mountain Loop and really hammered this time.
And came back to the lodge with another pain in one of my chest muscles.

Ken

I like Gene's point that there's too much "straddling" in my V1 skate. I'm
not seeing enough side-to-side motion, compared with the elite racer videos
I've looked at.

Gene Goldenfeld wrote
the most perfect example of athletic ski
straddling on skates I've ever seen

Oddly, the way it _felt_ to me while doing it was that my side-to-side
motion was _big_ -- not like "straddling" at all.

And my sideways commitment is at least "bigger" now -- compared with how I
used to ski last year (like in my third video clip of "quiet upper body" V1
on that web page). Is it possible that I gulped down a much larger dose of
the "quiet upper body" religion than the originators of the New Skate ever
intended?

I guess this shows how objective video can be better than qualititative
descriptions of technique.

I suggest a series of lessons during the season
and off-season from a good instructor

Actually I did take some off-season lessons this autumn, and I don't
remember either instructor expressing the slightest concern with anything
like "straddling". And at least one instructor recommended exactly the
_opposite_ of what I'd expect to find in a video from Borowski (based on
Gene's recent posts, and my reading of several of Borowski's books and
articles).

That's one reason why I post my technique explorations to this newsgroup:
So I can hear a wider range of ideas -- to help me decide _which_ instructor
to follow.

Ken

At 18:36 29 12 03 Monday, Ken Roberts wrote:

I like Gene's point that there's too much "straddling" in my V1 skate. I'm
not seeing enough side-to-side motion, compared with the elite racer videos
I've looked at.

Side to side--Smide to smide. I suggest that one doesn't want side to
side. Instead of moving the body, bring the new leg/ski under the body
before stepping onto it.

Ken,

I've watched through the video collection of yourself skiing.
I've watched them several times each. Video is good in that it tells
it like it is, but it doesn't always have the angle/perspective for
a particular motion. But putting the collection together helps
overcome this angle/perspective problem.

There are problems that appear consistent throughout, regardless of
which technique you are doing. The difficulty is pulling them out
to a clear description because they overlap/blend. The best thing to
do in such situations is focus on one area at a time. This helps
keep you focused on what you should be concerned about (yes, for
that whole 5 or 10 km ski). The positive side-effects of focusing
on one problem are that (usually) time to improvement is good and
other problems can be corrected/improved indirectly (because it all
connects together).

[I'm glad to read that you were working on your double-poling.
Your description about how you were doing double-poling doesn't
sound right and the chest injury seems to confirm it.]

In all of the video clips, as Gene pointed out, you are not
committing your weight to the glide ski (the "straddling"). This
is happening with your 1-skate/V2 and your offset. The result is
that other actions suffer. This makes it difficult to pick out
where to start giving suggestions/corrections. Gene has suggested
more no-pole skating and that's valid. I'll try a different angle
(different strokes for different folks approach).

Now, there's no video of you doing no-pole skating, but I'm going
to guess that without poles you are getting a better weight
commitment on the glide ski. For your offset in particular it
looks like your poling is keeping you in large part from doing
the weight commit. So let's try addressing your poling action.
In your video you are doing a left offset. So your push ski is
your left ski and your glide ski is your right ski; your lead
hand is your left hand and your right hand is your lag hand.
When you plant your ski poles you want the pole shafts to be
parallel to the push ski. Focus first with the lead hand planting
the pole approx. where you do now but move your hand out. During
the entire push phase of the pole, maintain the parallel to the ski.
The push phase ends as your hand nears your hip. In order to do
this you will find that you need to turn your shoulder out. This
will pull the rest of your body over. Your lag pole too needs to
be parallel to the push ski. Your lag pole plant location looks
fine on the video, so work on the parallel. So your shoulders
should be squared to the push ski through the pole push phase.
The above process should help get your weight over the push ski.

The same needs to be done for your 1-skate/V2. It's more difficult
to see in the video because of the more acute angle between the
skis, but it's there. Focus on getting both poles parallel to the
push ski. Again, your shoulders should be squared to the ski.
Don't turn into your glide ski until you've finished the pole push
phase; this is a over-emphasis suggestion for practice.

With your lead arm you are losing a lot of power when it collapses.
I can see in the one V2 video near the end where you plant with
a close to 90 deg angle and it collapses down to about 60 deg then
opens to about 120 deg as you complete the poling. Try to have your
elbow around 120-130 deg at pole plant. For practice try and hold
that angle through the entire pole push. This should help tame the
collapsing elbow over time/practice. Remember that your lat's
should be doing more of the work than your tri's.

I notice with your 1-skate/V2 at pole plant your hands are quite
high in the air. Could it also be possible that your poles are too
long for you? Just a suggestion for something to check out.

regards
Rodney


Ken Roberts wrote:

I've tried a big make-over of my V1 skate technique since last Monday.
Yesterday Sharon took some video clips of how it looks so far. Two of them
are on this web page:
http://roberts-1.com/t/xc034/a/p1

I'd be glad for some comments and suggestions about my visible body
motions -- and especially for a helpful mental image or two.
(as a baseline for comparison, I also show my "quiet upper body" V1, like I
worked on all last winter, even though I almost never use QUB any more for
V1, now only for V2.)

Last Monday I compared my previous videos of my on-snow skating with the
World Cup -- and found out that the timing of my upper body motions and
"head loop" was off in each of four phases in the stroke cycle, and shape of
some of the motions themselves looked much less effective than the elite
racers (see details in my posts about the "Head Loop" and "Air-Crunch"). So
of course I decided to change it all.

There was no good local snow remaining, so Tuesday I got out on some smooth
flat pavement on my Jenex 6400 rollerskis. I felt intimidated by all the
new things I would have to learn -- five or six new timings or motions --
and on both sides. Like learning to ski all over again.

I started as simple as I could. Left my poles in the car, went back to just
feeling the stability of no-poles skating with quiet upper body. Then I
focused on each of the four phases separately, trying to simulate the new
motion and new timing, making the poling motions with no poles.
Uncomfortable and strange.

In each stroke phase I tried to _feel_ the physics of the motion. Like if
there was reactive side-force, then I tried to be sensitive to the extra
force going thru my leg-push -- and feel the _lesser_ force if I omitted the
new upper-body move. Or if one phase was supposed to feed vertical momentum
into the next, I was sensitive to how the lifting in the next phase felt
easier from that.

Then some of the phases started to flow together in a way that felt new.
Finally I added poles, and the new flow carried over to using those. More
than hour of trying new moves, that was enough for one day, so I switched to
muscular training.

I tried pure double-poling with focus on forward fall, curling crunch, hands
starting back near my head, explosive down-push. With peak race season so
close, and the new motion feeling so powerful, I somehow fell into doing 8 x
1 minute very-intense intervals. Then I did some longer no-poles "cruiser"
intervals for my legs.

Next day my chest muscles that connect to my shoulders felt very sore. I
massaged them, and then found tiny connection points of tendons in to my
sternum that felt very very sore. Thursday Christmas Day I went out for
some more rollerskiing. Chest felt a little better so I took my poles and
did some easy poling motions and V1 simulation. Felt OK, so I made some
stronger poling motions with V2. And then the chest muscles felt worse. So
I took another day of rest and family visits on Friday, and more naproxen
and more rubbing.

On snow again at last at Mt Van Hoevenberg on Saturday. Muscles still felt
sore in the morning, so I waxed skis while Sharon took a skate lesson from
Kevin. After lunch I sensibly told myself to make it an easy distance day
as I headed out on Flatlander Loop. My chest muscles felt OK once I was out
skiing, and Surprise -- my skis turned off onto the Porter Mountain loop --
1980 Olympics 50K course, and the most interesting (and gnarliest) sequence
of hill climbs around. Then I still had some energy left to climb East
Mountain. Good thing for my chest muscles that the main Ladies 5K loop was
closed, so instead I went faster than ever before on gentler Perimeter.

Learning of the day: Every time a hill climb started feeling harder, I
noticed that I had gotten lazy about using some phase of upper body rotating
or tilting to one side or the other. And as soon as I added that missing
sideways motion back in again, my climbing immediately felt easier and
stronger.

Then on Sunday, Sharon took the latest video clips on that web page. After
that I went out on the Porter Mountain Loop and really hammered this time.
And came back to the lodge with another pain in one of my chest muscles.

Ken

The first part of lesson one in skating -- and in Borowski's video -- is to rock
back and forth from ski to ski, with the nongliding leg falling naturally
underneath the torso and close to the gliding ski. Straddlers lift the
nongliding ski but it stays pretty much where it is, and they are unable to
shift their center of gravity from ski to ski. Their rocking is a lifting of
one ski then the other, while pretty much looking straight ahead, or cutting
short the rock for fear of losing balance. This is (as a matter of habit) an
either/or proposition: either one fully rocks ski to ski, or they don't. Some
typical indicators of weight shift not taking place are bogging down on hills;
feet (skis) involuntarily moving apart; legs don't typically come together
unless the off leg is consciously carried in and even this is inconsistently
achieved; hips ride back behind the heels through most if not all of the cycle;
and one's eyes (and head) don't turn from ski to ski or side to side with some
consistency, but often get stuck either in the center or on one side. These
symptoms are particularly acute under the pressure of skating up hills w/o poles
-- and are frustrating.

In looking for help, if I were in your area I would first look among the
following: a)the masters' programs to see if there is a coach that is a good
instructor *for you,* b)Olympic development coaches in your area that work
mostly with kids but take on or might take on a master, and c)PSIA Level 3
instructors preferably with some background in serious racing or coaching
racers. This may take some traveling and trial and error, but you'll know
immediately when you've found the right help. I've suggested the Borowski video
as a supplement because it does go through the elements of skating more
thoroughly than any other that I've seen, and because the emphasis is on images
that you can return to again and again. That said, the process of learning is
very individual and definitely not linear.

Gene


Ken Roberts wrote:

I like Gene's point that there's too much "straddling" in my V1 skate. I'm
not seeing enough side-to-side motion, compared with the elite racer videos
I've looked at.

Gene Goldenfeld wrote
the most perfect example of athletic ski
straddling on skates I've ever seen

Oddly, the way it _felt_ to me while doing it was that my side-to-side
motion was _big_ -- not like "straddling" at all.

And my sideways commitment is at least "bigger" now -- compared with how I
used to ski last year (like in my third video clip of "quiet upper body" V1
on that web page). Is it possible that I gulped down a much larger dose of
the "quiet upper body" religion than the originators of the New Skate ever
intended?

I guess this shows how objective video can be better than qualititative
descriptions of technique.

I suggest a series of lessons during the season
and off-season from a good instructor

Actually I did take some off-season lessons this autumn, and I don't
remember either instructor expressing the slightest concern with anything
like "straddling". And at least one instructor recommended exactly the
_opposite_ of what I'd expect to find in a video from Borowski (based on
Gene's recent posts, and my reading of several of Borowski's books and
articles).

That's one reason why I post my technique explorations to this newsgroup:
So I can hear a wider range of ideas -- to help me decide _which_ instructor
to follow.

Ken

I agree that usually I do not _need_ much deliberate side-to-side movement
of my upper body in order to skate.

But the World Cup racers do make big side-to-side upper-body moves in their
V1 up hills, and I _want_ it for my V1.

Not for "weight transfer", but for the reactive side-forces that can help
push me forward faster and easier.

Hank Garretson wrote
I suggest that one doesn't want side to side.

I agree that if the goal is just to get my body over my ski, then it would
be less work to instead bring my ski under my body.

But my goal in skating is not to do less work -- otherwise I'd just sit home
and watch videos of skiing in prettier places. And my goal in skating is
not to move on snow at a slow steady pace to identify trees and look for
animal tracks in the snow -- otherwise I'd just put kick wax (or climbing
skis) all over the bottom of my classic skis, and shuffle.

When I'm skating my goal is enjoy going fast, and I'm happy to do muscular
work that makes me go fast. The only work moves that I want to eliminate
are moves that are wasted because they do not generate any forward-motion
power, and muscular moves that interfere other with muscular moves that
could generate even more forward motion power.

A quick decisive sideways move of my shoulders toward the next ski generates
a reactive sideways force back toward the other side, pushing into the snow
thru the edge of my current ski (which I am also pushing out to the side
with my leg). Then the magical physics of the skating ski converts that
side-push force into forward-motion power. The difference with my decisive
sideways move is that there's _more_ force to be magically converted into
forward motion. More force - - more forward power - - more forward
speed.

That's why the pros do it. That's why I _want_ it.

Another option: Or I can use upper-body side-force a different way: Push
_less_ intensely with my leg muscles, but use my upper body side-force to
bring the _total_ force to the same magnitude that I _could_ generate with
my leg muscles. So I can get the _same_ forward speed, but _easier_ on my
legs.

Why would _anyone_ not want "easier"?

Ken

P.S. Note that this is different from classic striding, where the work in
the upper body sideways move does _not_ get converted into forward-motion
power, because there's no magic in classical physics. In classic that work
_is_ wasted, but also necessary in order to achieve weight transfer.

Thanks so much for such a detailed analysis of my technique, Rodney.

Rodney wrote:
it looks like your poling is keeping you in
large part from doing the weight commit.

Yes it does look like my hang-side hand is almost directly over my boot most
of the time. Which might be the biomechanically optimal way to use my arm
muscles -- but not for much else. And I need much "else" to keep me moving
up the hill.

And looking at the pro videos again now, I see they have their hang-side
hand clearly _outside_ the boot, and its the shoulder that's over the
boot -- or maybe their hang-side shoulder gets a bit outside too. And I
think their hip gets over there too, at least temporarily.

I think my shoulder is staying _inside_ my boot. And so is my hip.
Relative to my shoulder, maybe my hand start outside a hair further to match
with some pros, but like to me like the bigger underlying problem is that my
hand is attached to a shoulder that just isn't getting over there, which is
attached to a hip that just isn't getting over there.

So your shoulders should be squared to the push ski
through the pole push phase. The above process should
help get your weight over the push ski.

And also help it _stay_ there longer over my ski. Now that you've got me
looking at my pole-push for V1 offset, the other thing I see is that I'm
turning my hips and shoulders away toward the other side much too early --
and too weakly. I'm thinking that instead I need to delay that turn until
later, so it doesn't rob my pole-push of its full force. And then make it
snappier and stronger and bigger, so it will add more force to the finish of
my hang-side leg-push.

Try to have your elbow around 120-130 deg at pole plant.

This idea opens my eyes some more new things: Maybe the pros are using less
elbow bend most of the time than I thought -- even if their poling sometimes
goes thru a phase with a sharper bend. And maybe their maximum elbow-bend
in V1 offset poling is less than in their V2 "square" poling. I do know
that in my videos a week before (which you didn't get to see) I had way too
_little_ elbow bend. (What makes all this more complicated is that the pros
do a lot of "winging" of their elbows outward -- and I think my attempt to
copy that too much too soon has led to my side chest muscle pains.)

I can see in the one V2 video near the end where you
plant with a close to 90 deg angle and it collapses down
to about 60 deg then opens to about 120 deg as you complete the poling.

I now see the same thing, and I share your concern about "collapsing"
(instead of stably transmitting force). But I'm not sure what to make of
it, because I see something similar in the Technique videos of V2 technique
of Elofsson and Zorsi on JanneG's website. Perhaps Mathias Fredriksen does
better at avoiding any sign of mid-push collapse. But maybe I'm getting
confused by the camera angles or the combination with "winging". (? or
could the arm muscles possibly have some way of storing the energy they
absorb, and releasing some of it later -- like a spring ?)

Ken
___________________________________
"Rodney/SkiWax.ca" wrote in message
...
Ken,

I've watched through the video collection of yourself skiing.
I've watched them several times each. Video is good in that it tells
it like it is, but it doesn't always have the angle/perspective for
a particular motion. But putting the collection together helps
overcome this angle/perspective problem.

There are problems that appear consistent throughout, regardless of
which technique you are doing. The difficulty is pulling them out
to a clear description because they overlap/blend. The best thing to
do in such situations is focus on one area at a time. This helps
keep you focused on what you should be concerned about (yes, for
that whole 5 or 10 km ski). The positive side-effects of focusing
on one problem are that (usually) time to improvement is good and
other problems can be corrected/improved indirectly (because it all
connects together).

[I'm glad to read that you were working on your double-poling.
Your description about how you were doing double-poling doesn't
sound right and the chest injury seems to confirm it.]

In all of the video clips, as Gene pointed out, you are not
committing your weight to the glide ski (the "straddling"). This
is happening with your 1-skate/V2 and your offset. The result is
that other actions suffer. This makes it difficult to pick out
where to start giving suggestions/corrections. Gene has suggested
more no-pole skating and that's valid. I'll try a different angle
(different strokes for different folks approach).

Now, there's no video of you doing no-pole skating, but I'm going
to guess that without poles you are getting a better weight
commitment on the glide ski. For your offset in particular it
looks like your poling is keeping you in large part from doing
the weight commit. So let's try addressing your poling action.
In your video you are doing a left offset. So your push ski is
your left ski and your glide ski is your right ski; your lead
hand is your left hand and your right hand is your lag hand.
When you plant your ski poles you want the pole shafts to be
parallel to the push ski. Focus first with the lead hand planting
the pole approx. where you do now but move your hand out. During
the entire push phase of the pole, maintain the parallel to the ski.
The push phase ends as your hand nears your hip. In order to do
this you will find that you need to turn your shoulder out. This
will pull the rest of your body over. Your lag pole too needs to
be parallel to the push ski. Your lag pole plant location looks
fine on the video, so work on the parallel. So your shoulders
should be squared to the push ski through the pole push phase.
The above process should help get your weight over the push ski.

The same needs to be done for your 1-skate/V2. It's more difficult
to see in the video because of the more acute angle between the
skis, but it's there. Focus on getting both poles parallel to the
push ski. Again, your shoulders should be squared to the ski.
Don't turn into your glide ski until you've finished the pole push
phase; this is a over-emphasis suggestion for practice.

With your lead arm you are losing a lot of power when it collapses.
I can see in the one V2 video near the end where you plant with
a close to 90 deg angle and it collapses down to about 60 deg then
opens to about 120 deg as you complete the poling. Try to have your
elbow around 120-130 deg at pole plant. For practice try and hold
that angle through the entire pole push. This should help tame the
collapsing elbow over time/practice. Remember that your lat's
should be doing more of the work than your tri's.

I notice with your 1-skate/V2 at pole plant your hands are quite
high in the air. Could it also be possible that your poles are too
long for you? Just a suggestion for something to check out.

regards
Rodney

Rodney's carefully detailed advice is an example of why I suggested a newsgroup
is not the place for you to get the kind of help you need. It begs the basic
problem, feeds your addiction to detailed analysis and words, and runs up
against your already conceived ideas. I think you would be better served by
giving up all that for now and going back to the simple fundamentals and
starting again.

Gene


Ken Roberts wrote:

Thanks so much for such a detailed analysis of my technique, Rodney.

Rodney wrote:
it looks like your poling is keeping you in
large part from doing the weight commit.

Yes it does look like my hang-side hand is almost directly over my boot most
of the time. Which might be the biomechanically optimal way to use my arm
muscles -- but not for much else. And I need much "else" to keep me moving
up the hill.

And looking at the pro videos again now, I see they have their hang-side
hand clearly _outside_ the boot, and its the shoulder that's over the
boot -- or maybe their hang-side shoulder gets a bit outside too. And I
think their hip gets over there too, at least temporarily.

I think my shoulder is staying _inside_ my boot. And so is my hip.
Relative to my shoulder, maybe my hand start outside a hair further to match
with some pros, but like to me like the bigger underlying problem is that my
hand is attached to a shoulder that just isn't getting over there, which is
attached to a hip that just isn't getting over there.

So your shoulders should be squared to the push ski
through the pole push phase. The above process should
help get your weight over the push ski.

And also help it _stay_ there longer over my ski. Now that you've got me
looking at my pole-push for V1 offset, the other thing I see is that I'm
turning my hips and shoulders away toward the other side much too early --
and too weakly. I'm thinking that instead I need to delay that turn until
later, so it doesn't rob my pole-push of its full force. And then make it
snappier and stronger and bigger, so it will add more force to the finish of
my hang-side leg-push.

Try to have your elbow around 120-130 deg at pole plant.

This idea opens my eyes some more new things: Maybe the pros are using less
elbow bend most of the time than I thought -- even if their poling sometimes
goes thru a phase with a sharper bend. And maybe their maximum elbow-bend
in V1 offset poling is less than in their V2 "square" poling. I do know
that in my videos a week before (which you didn't get to see) I had way too
_little_ elbow bend. (What makes all this more complicated is that the pros
do a lot of "winging" of their elbows outward -- and I think my attempt to
copy that too much too soon has led to my side chest muscle pains.)

I can see in the one V2 video near the end where you
plant with a close to 90 deg angle and it collapses down
to about 60 deg then opens to about 120 deg as you complete the poling.

I now see the same thing, and I share your concern about "collapsing"
(instead of stably transmitting force). But I'm not sure what to make of
it, because I see something similar in the Technique videos of V2 technique
of Elofsson and Zorsi on JanneG's website. Perhaps Mathias Fredriksen does
better at avoiding any sign of mid-push collapse. But maybe I'm getting
confused by the camera angles or the combination with "winging". (? or
could the arm muscles possibly have some way of storing the energy they
absorb, and releasing some of it later -- like a spring ?)

Ken
___________________________________
"Rodney/SkiWax.ca" wrote in message
...
Ken,

I've watched through the video collection of yourself skiing.
I've watched them several times each. Video is good in that it tells
it like it is, but it doesn't always have the angle/perspective for
a particular motion. But putting the collection together helps
overcome this angle/perspective problem.

There are problems that appear consistent throughout, regardless of
which technique you are doing. The difficulty is pulling them out
to a clear description because they overlap/blend. The best thing to
do in such situations is focus on one area at a time. This helps
keep you focused on what you should be concerned about (yes, for
that whole 5 or 10 km ski). The positive side-effects of focusing
on one problem are that (usually) time to improvement is good and
other problems can be corrected/improved indirectly (because it all
connects together).

[I'm glad to read that you were working on your double-poling.
Your description about how you were doing double-poling doesn't
sound right and the chest injury seems to confirm it.]

In all of the video clips, as Gene pointed out, you are not
committing your weight to the glide ski (the "straddling"). This
is happening with your 1-skate/V2 and your offset. The result is
that other actions suffer. This makes it difficult to pick out
where to start giving suggestions/corrections. Gene has suggested
more no-pole skating and that's valid. I'll try a different angle
(different strokes for different folks approach).

Now, there's no video of you doing no-pole skating, but I'm going
to guess that without poles you are getting a better weight
commitment on the glide ski. For your offset in particular it
looks like your poling is keeping you in large part from doing
the weight commit. So let's try addressing your poling action.
In your video you are doing a left offset. So your push ski is
your left ski and your glide ski is your right ski; your lead
hand is your left hand and your right hand is your lag hand.
When you plant your ski poles you want the pole shafts to be
parallel to the push ski. Focus first with the lead hand planting
the pole approx. where you do now but move your hand out. During
the entire push phase of the pole, maintain the parallel to the ski.
The push phase ends as your hand nears your hip. In order to do
this you will find that you need to turn your shoulder out. This
will pull the rest of your body over. Your lag pole too needs to
be parallel to the push ski. Your lag pole plant location looks
fine on the video, so work on the parallel. So your shoulders
should be squared to the push ski through the pole push phase.
The above process should help get your weight over the push ski.

The same needs to be done for your 1-skate/V2. It's more difficult
to see in the video because of the more acute angle between the
skis, but it's there. Focus on getting both poles parallel to the
push ski. Again, your shoulders should be squared to the ski.
Don't turn into your glide ski until you've finished the pole push
phase; this is a over-emphasis suggestion for practice.

With your lead arm you are losing a lot of power when it collapses.
I can see in the one V2 video near the end where you plant with
a close to 90 deg angle and it collapses down to about 60 deg then
opens to about 120 deg as you complete the poling. Try to have your
elbow around 120-130 deg at pole plant. For practice try and hold
that angle through the entire pole push. This should help tame the
collapsing elbow over time/practice. Remember that your lat's
should be doing more of the work than your tri's.

I notice with your 1-skate/V2 at pole plant your hands are quite
high in the air. Could it also be possible that your poles are too
long for you? Just a suggestion for something to check out.

regards
Rodney

I would never ever tell someone they are not "committing" their weight, and think
that anyone who does use that term should not be coaching. From the standpoint
of the skier, it's an abstract, confusing *idea.* It's not even acceptable
shorthand. Learning is first of all about stringing together actions. In the
case of "committment," what the word is meant to speak to is better understood as
the result of a series of good actions, not their cause.

Gene

"Rodney/SkiWax.ca" wrote:

Ken,

In all of the video clips, as Gene pointed out, you are not
committing your weight to the glide ski (the "straddling"). This
is happening with your 1-skate/V2 and your offset. The result is
that other actions suffer. This makes it difficult to pick out
where to start giving suggestions/corrections. Gene has suggested
more no-pole skating and that's valid. I'll try a different angle
(different strokes for different folks approach).