10 seasons back : quick introduction to skate skiing

Ken Roberts wrote:

It is not complete in the sense that the _concepts_ or theory of what the
elite racers are doing in their skating is agreed on. Just look at the
archives of this r.s.n newgroup for the past six years and you'll see that
almost any conceivable point about skating technique has been disagreed
about. You can find Nose-Knees-Toes rejected as hopelessly outmoded on this
newsgroup and in North American magazine articles, and then find NKT
recommended by a recent European CD-ROM that's being promoted by some North
American experts.

I think this is probably just semantics - but I think "hopelessly
outmoded" doesn't really represent the true nature and degree of
disagreements in technique. Frankly, the disagreements I've read as
well as the differences in the way pro. coaches and instructors
actually teach (my personal experience being coached in technique for
the past 10+ years) is very much on the margins - if there are in fact
true differences in the theory and mechanics of skiing, they are very,
very minor. More likely, it is differences in mental imagry and mental
concepts that one may use to try to explain technique or teach it - or
that a person use to get their own body to accomplish what is
essentially the same technique.

I think that most, if not all, differences in technique you see among
elite skiers, whether they be elite racers or just technically
proficient skiers, is based on personal preference or slight
adjustments based on different body mechanics - not absolute
differences as in "proper" vs. "improper" technique. There's more than
one way to skin a cat, as grandpa used to say.

I think what hinders further debate over the _concepts_ of skating on this
newsgroup is not agreement, but exhaustion.

Again, I think people interpret very minor differences as major and
people just like to debate.

I think the only fair comparison between skating and classic can be
made only statistically, for a given course, for a given weather. Have
2 groups of 100 randomized skiers ski the same course at the same time
and see the distribution of times. Do it like this: organize a ski
marathon, and have a lottery on who gets to ski which style (actually,
it's not a bad idea... has anyone done that?). Because one can argue
that the strongest skiers usually choose to skate.

My understanding is that skating appeared naturally in races where
skiers were struggling with poor kick conditions: you always have a
perfect "kick" with skating skis.

Ken Roberts wrote:

Measuring it could get tricky because it's not even true that
skating is always faster. There's lots of different steepnesses of
hills and lots of different snow conditions. Actually for most of the
hills and snow I ski on the majority of my skiing days (which are on
ungroomed snow), skating is not very effective. So more important
than measuring is to work out for yourself what's appropriate for you
in each situation.
For me the really convincing part was an unofficial uphill
rollerskiing "fun" race held some years in October to the top of a
mountain which has lots of sustained steep-ish climbing. Back then I
figured the advantage of skating was in the long glide, and there
wasn't much glide up steep hills. So I tried to be really clever by
using Combi rollerskis, so I could do Classic up the steep sections
and then skate this one flat section in the middle. The result that
my time was completely inferior to this guy who skated the whole
thing. And he did not even carry any poles, just swung his arms from
side to side.
Later I read an article in a scientific book about cross-country
skiing which said that for skating up hills, over 50% of the power
must come from poling. Too bad the author wasn't at the race that day.

If over 50% of the power comes from poling, you either have a technique
malfunction or a disability problem.


--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes