new skis require a different skiing style?

Jon Bond wrote:
He's also skiing on nice snow. Put him on solid ice and he's screwed.

That's not skiing. That's ice skating. Whole different sport.

-klaus

In article , "Jon Bond"
wrote:


"MoonMan" wrote in message
...
John Moore wrote:
On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:01:42 -0800, lal_truckee
wrote:


Finally, for Der Kaiser fans, here's a little independent leg action
at Wengen
http://www.ski-and-ski.com/work/Gallery/KlammerWen.htm


Now I'm confused. So, you should keep all your weight on your inside
ski and waggle the outside one around in the air? g

Ah, well, If you can do that and make the next gate, or even stay on
your feet for that matter, then you can ski

--
Chris *:-)

Downhill Good, Uphill BAD!

www.suffolkvikings.org.uk
Its a damn good exercise, too.
Take off a ski, leave it at the bottom of the hill. Go skiing. Switch
skis. Wash. Rinse. Repeat. Feel the burn. Does wonders for technique
and balance too, as long as you're doing it right. When you can carve
on one ski, you've got it made for difficult conditions skiing.
SNIP

When I was taking lessons on carving skis, one of our exercises was
called Royal Turns - it involves lifting the downhill ski off the snow
before the turn, and then turning your upper body and leaping onto it so
that you're already some way through the turn before you have to finish
it off on what is now the uphill ski. Very similar, but a bit friendlier
than having no ski on one foot. The balance involved in the early part of
a turn from one downhill ski as it becomes the uphill ski after the turn
is ... scary!

Rich

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 19:55:28 GMT, "Jon Bond"
wrote:


This is another one of those "teaching" styles - something that looks nice
and graceful, but that racers would never dream of doing.

He used to race himself, then he taught racers. Now he teaches
instructors.

John

In article ,
lal_truckee wrote:
-
-Check out Bode at 1:11.6 in
-http://www.rmmskiracing.org/video/2003-01-04-KranjskaGora-GS-Miller.mpg
-where the image is looking directly down the pressure vector. That's as
-tight as skis can get - nothing "shoulder width" about it, or for any of
-these guys.
-

Well, yeah, but look at 1:51.2, in transition. I suspect a good instructor
could use films of Miller to support any possible statement in any possible
universe of discourse; positive, negative, indifferent, totally surreal.

-IMO, it's a complete mis-statement derived from a mis-understanding of
-the dynamics of skiing to argue "shoulder width" as a desirable, as
-easily demonstrated by looking at the video evidence in those frames
-where the view is along the pressure vector.
-

I think 'dynamics of skiing' is an extremely important point, that a lot of
us lose track of when we start obsessing about where our hands are or how far
apart our feet are, or are our skis perfectly parallel at all times.

It's important to build good muscle memory, I think, and lots of the drills and
the books can be helpful in speeding up that process, but when it comes down
to it it's all about manipulating force vectors when they are constantly being
modified in our own reference frame by the terrain.

I'd guess most of us will consider ourselves successful when we can do that
reasonably efficiently.


Steve

Steve wrote:

In article ,
lal_truckee wrote:
-
-Check out Bode at 1:11.6 in
-http://www.rmmskiracing.org/video/2003-01-04-KranjskaGora-GS-Miller.mpg
-where the image is looking directly down the pressure vector. That's as
-tight as skis can get - nothing "shoulder width" about it, or for any of
-these guys.
-

Well, yeah, but look at 1:51.2, in transition. I suspect a good instructor
could use films of Miller to support any possible statement in any possible
universe of discourse; positive, negative, indifferent, totally surreal.


Interesting sequence - I'll argue that this sequence where his legs
spread shoulder width actually proves my point.

Miller got himself into this trouble because his skis separated
dynamically. In the previous turn a terrain feature AKA rut hooked his
inside ski while the outside ski lost pressure, forcing it to separate
from the outside ski; he starts this turn sequence with skis very close
(dynamically - ruler distance means nothing) but at the end his skis are
separated by a fair distance dynamically and he's in big trouble, making
another surreal recovery. You'll notice he slams the skis right back
together (dynamically, of course) in the next turn - can't ski strongly
with your legs apart, after all.

(BTW, I think Bode has some Franz Klammer in him - he's got the same
balls to the wall skiing style. Der Kaiser II.)

In article ,
lal_truckee wrote:
-Steve wrote:
-
- In article ,
- lal_truckee wrote:
- -
- -Check out Bode at 1:11.6 in
- -http://www.rmmskiracing.org/video/2003-01-04-KranjskaGora-GS-Miller.mpg
- -where the image is looking directly down the pressure vector. That's as
- -tight as skis can get - nothing "shoulder width" about it, or for any of
- -these guys.
- -
-
- Well, yeah, but look at 1:51.2, in transition. I suspect a good instructor
- could use films of Miller to support any possible statement in any possible
- universe of discourse; positive, negative, indifferent, totally surreal.
-
-
-Interesting sequence - I'll argue that this sequence where his legs
-spread shoulder width actually proves my point.
-
-Miller got himself into this trouble because his skis separated
-dynamically. In the previous turn a terrain feature AKA rut hooked his
-inside ski while the outside ski lost pressure, forcing it to separate
-from the outside ski; he starts this turn sequence with skis very close
-(dynamically - ruler distance means nothing) but at the end his skis are
-separated by a fair distance dynamically and he's in big trouble, making
-another surreal recovery. You'll notice he slams the skis right back
-together (dynamically, of course) in the next turn - can't ski strongly
-with your legs apart, after all.
-

Yes, I actually agree with you (as far as I understand your points). I just
wanted to be contrary and figured any sequence of Miller's would be bound
to have some counterexamples.

I think the big problem with too wide is that it puts your CM too far away
from both your support points, and makes it both difficult and slow to hike
it over in order to make an edge change. As you've been pointing out,
shoulder width projected onto the ground doesn't really describe the situation
appropriately for a turn on a steep pitch where one leg may be straight, and the other may
have the knee up in the chest.

But you still have to have enough room between your feet to make edge changes
and get some angles to the ground.


-(BTW, I think Bode has some Franz Klammer in him - he's got the same
-balls to the wall skiing style. Der Kaiser II.)
-
Absolutely. It's never possible to accurately say "He's about to go down", and if
he does, you can't necessarily say "Well, he's out of it now".

I wasn't even a skier in '76 but I can still remember Klammer coming around the corner
towards the camera half ass over teakettle at about a thousand miles an hour.

I don't think ABC has ever gotten enough credit for their brand new technology at
the '76 winter Olympics. Their big-ass folded lens cameras added a lot to
the skiing events.


Steve

"Jon Bond" writes:

[big fat snip]
Oh god, don't use Bode Miller for a technique discussion. There's a reason
he's fun to watch - he's not on the edge of control, he's over it.

Well, no, he isn't. But to use Bode Miller's technique, you've got
to have Bode Miller's physique -- and almost no one does. I truly
believe the whole reason that theorists look at Bode and say "that
can't work" is because you need that combination of height,
strength, balance and flexibility to make it work, and you just
don't come up with that combination very often.

--
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::
Mary Malmros
Some days you're the windshield,
Other days you're the bug.

In article ,
Mary Malmros wrote:
believe the whole reason that theorists look at Bode and say "that
can't work" is because you need that combination of height,
strength, balance and flexibility to make it work, and you just
don't come up with that combination very often.

I don't want to ski like Bode. I want to ski like me. And I have the
perfect combination of height, strength, balance and flexibility to ski
like me. Every athelete learns to maximize their strengths and minimize
their weaknesses. Ski coaches are starting to wise up. Where racing is
concerned, the proper technique is getting to the bottom of the mountain
fastest.
--
According to John Perry Barlow, "Jeff Davis is a truly gifted trouble-maker."

The Real Bev wrote in
:

Richard Walsh wrote:

In short, The snow has changed over
the past 75 years...

Do you mean "manufactured and/or groomed" or something completely
different like global warming?

In the beginning, it was all nature-made.
Then more and more people skied over the same patch of
snow compressing it more, making it harder to hold an
edge. Then steel edges were invented. This same
nature-made snow was asked to do its task of providing
its sliprier (sp?) surface for even more skiers and
it wasn't up to the task and became something like ice.
Even the steel edges couldn't cut it and so groomers
were invented. Again more and more skiers and even the
groomers couldn't keep snow on the trails and so
snowmakers were invented. The snowmakers were asked to
make snow even in the most marginal temperatures and
even more ice-like surfaces were made and more and
more sophisticated groomers. and so on and so on.
One thing after another.

It ain't the same as it was 50 years ago when I started.
Occasionally the snow is good on some of the non-
snomaking trails and the difference is extremely
significant. Loose snow, soft bumps, just a delight.

RW

John Moore wrote:
He used to race himself, ...

Was it always a tie?

-klaus