what I got from the New Skate

The New Skate ideas had a big impact on my early skating, and stayed with me
since.

My ski skating started on rollerskis in late 2000, so all the images I tried
to emulate and exercises I practiced came from the Team Birkie dryland
training video. Then Vordenberg's "New Skate" articles in the 2000-2001
Master Skier magazine hit me, along with some New Skate ideas I heard at
summer rollerski camp.

Below is my reaction -- how did the New Skate impact your skiing?

Ken
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(A) Legs -- use both of them equally
Measured in hours, this was the biggest impact of the New Skate on my life.
I did lots and lots of no-poles dryland skating to learn this (more than
with poles). And I loved it, and on snow I felt it definitely helped my
skating with poles. And on dryland I now do even more of it.

(B) Body position -- "gunslinger"
I find I keep re-discovering strong forward ankle flex every few months, and
each time it hits me how doing it makes my leg-push more powerful -- and
then I wonder why I ever lost track of it. For me this focus on strong
ankle bend is the biggest improvement over Audun Endestad and John Teaford's
ski-skating book, and the New Skate emphasis on forward hips is useful as a
complement to Endestad's focus on knee bend.

(C) Quiet Upper Body
I became a big convert to this concept -- preached it on this newsgroup --
argued against anybody who tried to distract us from directing all movements
into _forward_ motion. Practiced it for hours, felt how cool it was to be
so strong and dynamic with my legs and so quiet and stable above, at the
same time. And I still think those quiet upper body hours were an excellent
training and learning phase for me.

(D) Continuous application of force with good turnover
More points where I became a big preacher as well as practitioner. Lately
I've been backing off on turnover -- to get more joyfully immersed in the
amazing possibilities for continuous force offered by inline skates.

(E) the Old skate -- what was wrong
I had lots of doubts about things in the old dryland training video, so when
I read Vordenberg's criticisms, by immediate reaction was, "Yes, that's what
I was thinking too!" I never could see the physics of NKT and "complete"
weight commitment for _skating_. And I always thought "length of glide" was
a false clue for speed (though fun when not racing), so I loved Vordenberg's
notorious slogan about "a gliding ski . . . "