Running Gates

Booker C. Bense wrote:
The basis of ski racing is finding the fastest line through
the course, not hitting gates seems kind of artificial.

But didn't seem /that/ artificial when people were dislocating their
shoulders hitting more substantial markers like trees... ;-/

For me, especially in the backcountry, the point of being able to turn
on a dime is to miss things I want to miss. All of me, not just my skis!

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 16:39:14 +0000, Peter Clinch
wrote:

Booker C. Bense wrote:
The basis of ski racing is finding the fastest line through
the course, not hitting gates seems kind of artificial.

But didn't seem /that/ artificial when people were dislocating their
shoulders hitting more substantial markers like trees... ;-/

For me, especially in the backcountry, the point of being able to turn
on a dime is to miss things I want to miss. All of me, not just my skis!

Pete.

Many individual sports are stylized versions of some aspect of a real
world activity.

indoor climbing vs mountaineering
boxing vs a street brawl
fencing vs a sword fight
skiing gates vs avoiding trees
etc

Happy trails,
Gary (net.yogi.bear)
------------------------------------------------
at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence

Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA
Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom

P Clinch (clearly an alias) wrote:

But didn't seem /that/ artificial when people were dislocating their
shoulders hitting more substantial markers like trees... ;-/

If you want to learn to ski well, there's no better way than running gates.
Yes, trees show you where to turn . . . but the penalties for missing are
very high, so you learn avoidance strategies. In running gates, especally
now they've replaced the old bamboo with breakaway gates, the gates tell you
when to turn, and you try for the fastest line through them. The fastest
line is the straightest line. To get the straightest line you often have to
turn high and cut through the pole, hitting it with your ankles or knees.

No, you wouldn't do this with a tree, we hope. But running gates teaches
you to turn when you don't really think you can, and a well-set course makes
you go faster than you think you ought to, and by doing so teaches you how
to be quick, how to adapt, how to recover, how to ski fast and take chances.
As Booker pointed out oin his original post, gates--especially in the
wide-open GS that Nastar runs--make you ski differently than you might
otherwise.

Since the gates in kayak courses are suspended on wires, there's no actual
penalty for hitting one, whereas there would be for hitting a rock in the
river, or a hole. They perhaps represent different things than the gates in
slalom courses, which are imperatives to turn. If you've ever worked out on
a bouldering wall, with a friend telling you which hold you can use next,
it's a similar kind of thing. In both boating and rock climbing I don't
understand the desire to compete, but it seems human nature to do so
regardless.

And as Booker points out, in the days of bamboo, hitting the gate hurt like
hell sometimes. In New England, where I was exiled at the time, we would
use a 6' steel bar to poke a hole in the ice deep enough to set the gate.

And then there's learning to ski ruts, another top[ic altogether. Instead
of acting incredulous without any actual experience, try running a few
courses and understand the process before you critique it. It got Aristotle
in trouble, though, when he started subjecting tenets of physics to actual
experiments and deriving results that didn't include crystal spheres and
primum mobilae. But of course Zeno was a good one for udnderstanding the
question yet destroying the answer as well. Still, you can learn things
running gates that are worth knowing . . .

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

In article , wrote:
P Clinch (clearly an alias) wrote:

But didn't seem /that/ artificial when people were dislocating their
shoulders hitting more substantial markers like trees... ;-/

If you want to learn to ski well, there's no better way than running gates.
Yes, trees show you where to turn . . . but the penalties for missing are
very high, so you learn avoidance strategies.

_ It's scary, I just spend a day at Sugar Bowl[1] tree skiing and
instead of just focusing on the spaces between the trees I
started thinking about how close I could ski to the trees... %-)

_ Anyway, thanks for a great post. Anybody that can put Zeno
and Aristole in the same page as trivial an activity as running
a 20 second NASTAR[2] course deserves a tip of the hat...

_ Booker C. Bense

[1]- I saw the Placer County Search and Rescue at Sugar Bowl as I
was leaving, someone got killed in between Sugar Bowl and
Squaw. I hope it wasn't the people I saw jumping the rope. I was
tempted to tell them that skiing OB was a bad idea[3], but they
LOOKED like they knew what they were doing. From the news reports
it kind of sounds like it was a larger group heading to Benson
hut, but I don't know for sure.

[2]_ The other real funny thing about NASTAR telemarking is that
if you show up for nationals you win, last year the most number
of telemarkers in any age group was 2. ( what you win is a simple
trophy and a pair of ski poles ).

[3]- Wind slab and a wet top layer over a hard layer of
ice. Small sluff avalanches all over the place.

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: 2.6.2

iQCVAwUBQhl+B2TWTAjn5N/lAQGAUAQAppvx2uNbCYYNGgBwTHTeZbf/qEQaopD9
BpO88RJ2Sb4W3J94EqOafAPM7rApQNZEIVClv5Nx4O0v+YgPQH uy/dTCs0kuJsfN
GLylAfQ0HFtwUFxlqsdDEgny5TYM5i3Zxs19DWyQoIbO8dNdON tD+jBMV/L8MkmG
wiSvYJgQpzA=
=nPWN
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

wrote:
P Clinch (clearly an alias) wrote:

An alias for what? It's my name...

If you want to learn to ski well, there's no better way than running gates.
Yes, trees show you where to turn . . . but the penalties for missing are
very high, so you learn avoidance strategies. In running gates, especally
now they've replaced the old bamboo with breakaway gates, the gates tell you
when to turn, and you try for the fastest line through them. The fastest
line is the straightest line. To get the straightest line you often have to
turn high and cut through the pole, hitting it with your ankles or knees.

No argument, though if the rules were you had to miss the gates then the
fastest line would no longer be taken by the same method. It would be a
method you'd use for "real" avoidance.

No, you wouldn't do this with a tree, we hope. But running gates teaches
you to turn when you don't really think you can, and a well-set course makes
you go faster than you think you ought to, and by doing so teaches you how
to be quick, how to adapt, how to recover, how to ski fast and take chances.

All this would sill apply if you got a time penalty from hitting a gate
though, and it would still be safe, and it would still improve your
skiing running the gates.

And then there's learning to ski ruts, another top[ic altogether. Instead
of acting incredulous without any actual experience,

You seem to be taking my "critique" rather more seriously than I'm
intending it to be taken. I'm simply saying that it strikes me as a bit
odd to be allowed to whack things with one part of your body that you're
meant to be going around with another.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

On Mon, 21 Feb 2005 10:03:24 +0000, Peter Clinch
wrote:

You seem to be taking my "critique" rather more seriously than I'm
intending it to be taken. I'm simply saying that it strikes me as a bit
odd to be allowed to whack things with one part of your body that you're
meant to be going around with another.

Many sports have such oddities in the rules.

Look at basketball, and the difference between goaltending (not
allowed) and a block (perfectly fine defensive move).

Look at football (American) and the rules on tackling (who can be
tackled, exactly when).

Look at baseball, and the rules on tagging out a player.

As in my earlier comment, many sports are stylized versions of
reality.

Happy trails,
Gary (net.yogi.bear)
------------------------------------------------
at the 51st percentile of ursine intelligence

Gary D. Schwartz, Needham, MA, USA
Please reply to: garyDOTschwartzATpoboxDOTcom

You seem to be taking my "critique" rather more seriously than I'm
intending it to be taken.

Well, it was a slow day . . .

I'm simply saying that it strikes me as a bit
odd

Actually, you said it seemed 'silly'; otherwise I probably wouldn't
have replied.

The goal of ski racing is to get to the bottom as fast as possible.
The rules say your feet must pass between the gates. The fastest line
often takes the rest of your body right through the gates. Modern
poles are designed to snap out of the way. Races are lost by hundreths
of seconds. People taking a more logica, sensiblel line lose.

If you don't want to try running gates, hang out next to a course
sometime: I think you'll be impressed with the athleticism and skill of
the racers, and you'll perhaps see why hitting the gates is a part of
the game, without which the game would be far less interesting . .. .

wrote:

Actually, you said it seemed 'silly'; otherwise I probably wouldn't
have replied.

"divided by a common language", I think...

If you don't want to try running gates, hang out next to a course
sometime: I think you'll be impressed with the athleticism and skill of
the racers, and you'll perhaps see why hitting the gates is a part of
the game, without which the game would be far less interesting . .. .

Difficult to call that: it would be different.
If you weren't allowed to hit a gate you could have a course requiring
the same line for an optimum score simply by putting the gates a bit
closer in than they are if you can whack them.

FWIW I did do some gates at a recent week on a piste, which the ski
school had put out for their race day and I "borrowed" before things got
underway. It was fun and I had to exercise good control. I chose a
line to miss the gates with my body, it was still a game of skill.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

"divided by a common language", I think...

No, different words mean different things.

Difficult to call that: it would be different.
If you weren't allowed to hit a gate you could have a course requiring
the same line for an optimum score simply by putting the gates a bit
closer in than they are if you can whack them

Sure. And hockey players could avoid running into each other, too, and
perhaps curtsy to each other as they go by. But then they'd have to
wear tutus, and things might get cold..

What you describe could also be accomplished by setting up a league of
geezers with knee braces stem-christying through a course of poles with
wet paint on them to mark all offenses. Just be sure to wake people up
when it's over . . .