Weekend Woodsy "Water Ski" Report

We drove to Tawas Michigan and skied our sleds in 2 miles to a cabin,
thru 24" deep snow.

I have to say that I'm still so impressed with XC skiing! We got ski
stuff for family of 4 into ONE SMALL ski bag. All said equipment
probably cost $400 total. Then our luggage for the long weekend was
only 4 20-lb messenger bags---plus 50 lbs of food. The whole trip only
cost $200 max (gave a bunch to cabin pal for fuel bill). XC is so
light, compact and cheap!

But hilarious disasters every which way on the snowy haul into the
cabin. ---Never pack a sled over 12" high---it will tip over. (But the
rest of the family abandoned skis in child-induced malaise I had the
bag on top of my sled, tipping it.) I ended up leaving all sled
contents along trail and skiing in to cabin with 4-yr-old girl laying
out exhausted (from tantrums) in sled. 7-yr-old boy was a trooper. I
then skied back for bags. Lesson: little kids who aren't good skiers
yet need to be sledded into deep-snow wilderness cabins from the
get-go. They ain't going to walk or teeter on tall sleds very happily.

Note: A couple inner tubes between sled and skier allow for easy
classicking.

15 friends then party for several days at cabin. One guy swims in
creek.

We skied 3 days at Silver Creek Corsair trails. Perfect! Groomed double
classic tracks for miles and miles. But...icy in morning then slushy.
The trick was to catch it before too slushy or too icy.

It was my first real classic hills of the year and I just dug em. All
told I went for 5 3-hour skis!

*SKI LESSON SECTION*

Most friends asked for skiing tips. They ALL had the 'scootching'
touring style. I told them this was fine but if they wanted more
efficiency and relaxation and speed potential to first ski behind and
imitate a better skier, then to take off poles and swing arms fore/aft
and to *stand up* on the ski and that it was OK for learning purposes
to twist body over onto gliding foot---that 100% weight transfer was
key to both kick and glide. --To kick and swing yourself right over to
that other foot and then to stand there relaxed for a moment. I also
mentioned that the pole plant should be compact and that they should
focus on follow-thru: they all had Frankenstein poling---arm straight
out, poling finished at leg. Many had quite a lot of up'n'down
herky-jerky. I told them to slump the shoulder and to keep head
neutrally tipped somewhat down, look up with eyes, and that it's not
the best way to sightsee, but that if they got a feel for it they could
use the efficient style whenever they liked.

They were all using 50% weight transfer technique---like feeling their
way along the trail---which is what they were doing because they were
sightseeing with their eyes.

Touring style is fine, of course, but some of them clearly stated that
they could never seem to go faster, so they wanted to know the sporty
way to ski.

Some of them caught right on and looked great, others couldn't seem to
change. I couldn't think of an easier way to show them the essentials.
These are folks who have skied a lot, who are superfit, who are
yoga-experts.

***

On the way home I pulled a double train of sleds loaded low and that
worked fine. Then I skied back and got a last sled-load and towed our
7-yr-old boy skiing behind the sled.

Oh, and it was raining cats and dogs. So I ended up skiing for hours in
the 40F rain.

A wonderful thing was that my Swix VF60 silver hardwax worked great in
the deep water on the icy trails!

--Until it got dirty, then no kick, but I reapplied and it worked great
again. I could get rocketing kick and glide even with 100-lb sled load.
And heavy backpack.

I was sometimes skiing with boots under water.

Boy finally gave up towing and rode in sled thru deep water, like a
boat.

All those hours of sled-action made me wonder if a folding bike could
be carried in a sled then the sled converted to bike trailer.

Then we drove out on river-like 2-tracks for a couple miles then
river-like small dirt roads for a couple miles. We had the 1985 Park
Avenue OYB-mobile. The others had 4WD trucks. I needed SPEED to make it
thru the 12" deep stretches of flowing water and mud over ice. The darn
trucks were rolling moderately and this almost caused us disaster. I
needed to keep rolling FAST then hit the water FASTEST, but I had to
slow down to avoid ramming the truck in front (I'd get right up to
their bumper) and would then start sinking in the mud. They didn't ever
understand my situation but we made it. One of the trucks got stuck.
Once the process started there was no slowing or turning back. So some
trucks went back with comealong to rescue the non-Buick victim.

Regarding teaching technique, I had the occasion this past weekend to
ski with 3 first timers, 2 of whom were very young kids. The no-pole
suggestion and the flinging a glass of water idea (a glass of beer for
the mom) seemed to work wonders for their striding technique. In just
15-20 minutes they were all skiing with better form than 90% of the
people I see out there. Going down hill was another story though --
lots and lots of falls, but they kept smiling.

Jim

--- Jim Grau wrote:

people I see out there. Going down hill was another story though --
lots and lots of falls, but they kept smiling.

Put their hands on an imaginary steering wheel. With hands forward
they will fall much less. Turn wheel (right hand goes to the left when
turning left) and they will turn. Just have to get them in basic
bent-knee snowplow position first. It works!

Rob Bradlee

I'm sure it worked fabulously for your purposes, but fyi "flinging a
glass of water" is no longer taught as good poling technique. It's
really more now, bring the arm forward to where the elbow is flexed in
its mid-range and then push down and extend back (speaking of arms
only). The cup of water trick goes with a strong forward lean style,
which is less and less in use among top skiers for not being as
biomechanically efficient, esp. on uphills.

Gene

Jim Grau wrote:

Regarding teaching technique, I had the occasion this past weekend to
ski with 3 first timers, 2 of whom were very young kids. The no-pole
suggestion and the flinging a glass of water idea (a glass of beer for
the mom) seemed to work wonders for their striding technique. In just
15-20 minutes they were all skiing with better form than 90% of the
people I see out there. Going down hill was another story though --
lots and lots of falls, but they kept smiling.

Jim

The water glass idea sounds good. (But hard to remember all the tips
when only used every other year! No-poles seems best and easiest to
remember.)

I had a hilarious crash on a downhill. It was sunny and the hills were
stop and go. I got into a tele pose and went for it on the biggest hill
then was thrown back and shot forward several times until almost at the
bottom, at max speed, I was finally flung way forward into the air and
onto the slush on my chest. Soft slush landing thank goodness but now
my ribs hurt.

---The solution was to descend with skis in ungroomed slush between
tracks: all suck then and no fast parts, but better than the yo-yo!

Actually, what really hurt my ribs on one side was throwing snowballs
when I got back to cabin that day after the crash---I felt the worst
rib-tear just from throwing a snowball! I can't hardly do anything on
that side now. Man, this specialty sports stuff sucks---fit for one
thing and weak for another. Or maybe that crash had that rib ready to
give way.

I hope they don't lean as much as I do going around corners.

Rob Bradlee wrote:

--- Jim Grau wrote:

people I see out there. Going down hill was another story though --
lots and lots of falls, but they kept smiling.

Put their hands on an imaginary steering wheel. With hands forward
they will fall much less. Turn wheel (right hand goes to the left when
turning left) and they will turn. Just have to get them in basic
bent-knee snowplow position first. It works!

Rob Bradlee

Well, I'm not going to argue that I have state-of-the-art, world-class
technique, but the glass of water idea definitely works for me. Seems
like it accomplishes two things: the crisp upward motion gives a
stronger kick by counteracting the downward leg motion, and the abrupt
stop plants the pole quickly to assist in the glide. I guess I don't
understand why this is an unaccepted idea now. Anyway, it got my
first-timers to actively use their arms in harmony with their legs.

Jim

I was trying to get them into this position in general. Good idea? It
didn't seem to work. No one seemed to 'get it' when I told them to have
a dynamic forward position---I'd drop a bit, slump shoulders and flex
forward and put my hands in a kind of low wrestler pose. I thought that
might be a good way to get them oriented for cruising down the trail,
but that didn't work.

For downhill advice do you mean to have them stick the hands out
further in a real obvious 'steering wheel'?

My skiers were good tourers and had no troubles with the
downhills---they just didn't have a forward position for skiing in
general. No-poles helped with most of them.

First of all, I don't wish to suggest right and wrong here, just to call
your attention to the shift that has occurred recently. As I said, if
the 'glass of water' worked to get your kid going, fabulous. The point
is to have fun and fine points of technique are not appropriate at that
age. It can be relearned down the road, as needed.

Excuse me if I've misunderstood your point, but I'm not sure why you
would want to counteract the downward leg motion. Half the point of
poling is to increase the kick's downward force, i.e., its propulsive
effect. In this respect, the pole is sort of a crutch for doing so.
This actually feeds into why the shift away from the cup of water (which
I also used up until 2 seasons ago). The problem is that even with the
hand thrown forward, the pole is actually planted farther back from a
flexed elbow position, where we are strongest. Thus, why not start
there and avoid wasting the time and energy pulling the arm/hand back?
This is part of a shift toward a more upright position in striding as
biomechanically more efficient and powerful. If you have any photos of
top U.S. skiers around from the past couple of years, you'll see this
change from the older "big ski" style that we all learned (check Master
Skier, Cross Country Skier). In fact, if you watch the Germans and some
of the others this year they are even more upright in both body position
and poling. Former Norwegian team coach and sometimes Eurosport color
commentator, Inger Bratten (sp?), talked about this in one of the races
as being more effective for uphills. You can find that discussion and
examples he http://avari181.mt.luth.se/pub2/Kuusamo-04/ --
KuusamoMen15k.avi (esp. ~18:00-20:00). In my own skiing, I find that
since I shifted to a focus on skiing from my center of gravity ("core"),
the only thoughts about diagonal poling are how high my hand is during
steeper uphills (usually I lower them).

Gene




Jim Grau wrote:

Well, I'm not going to argue that I have state-of-the-art, world-class
technique, but the glass of water idea definitely works for me. Seems
like it accomplishes two things: the crisp upward motion gives a
stronger kick by counteracting the downward leg motion, and the abrupt
stop plants the pole quickly to assist in the glide. I guess I don't
understand why this is an unaccepted idea now. Anyway, it got my
first-timers to actively use their arms in harmony with their legs.

Jim

The motion I've always viewed with the glass of water thing was not
forward, but rather upward, and what I meant to say by "counteract the
leg push" was that the upward motion of the arm helps the downward
motion of the leg (Newton's third law). I'm confident that my
suggestion helped the kids -- what I'm concerned about now is whether
my own technique needs to be changed. I don't really throw my hand
forward, and neither did the kids, it's more a matter of timing the
upward motion of the hand with the downward motion of the leg. If
that's not the best way to ski I'd like to correct it, but I'm not sure
from what you've said if it's really incorrect (since it's not forward,
but rather upward).

I appreciate all your input and suggestions.
Jim