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
___________________________________
(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 . . . "

(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.

I would think this depends on your physique. For the cyclist with a wimpy upper
body, this makes sense. However, if you canoe race all summer and have the
shoulders and back like Paul Bunyan, by golly you're going to use them !

jw
milwaukee

(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.

The point Bryan Fish made on this went something like this. The upper
body doesn't twist very much nor bend at the waist so much. But, it is not
quiet in terms of application of force. He teaches a very explosive curl
at the upper abdomen which proceeds the arms movement. So, if you picture
a head bobbing (slightly), the hands would stay with the head until that
curl was complete, and then the arms/triceps kick in to follow through. In
this way, a large muscle group is employed to initate the forward
movement, and the smaller arm muscles are gravy at the end. He showed me
many examples of world cup skiers, past and present who seem to use this
style, but Dahlie, classic skiing, was the most clear example.

I have definately not mastered this.

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you can use the heck out of those big manly traps & lats & everything else, but still have a "quiet upper body". If you watch WC videos, you will see a lot of powerful poling, but not a lot of upper body movement in terms of direction or level changing (weaving & bobbing).

Don't mistake "quiet" with a "passive" or "un-engaged".

CC

J999w wrote:

(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.

I would think this depends on your physique. For the cyclist with a wimpy upper
body, this makes sense. However, if you canoe race all summer and have the
shoulders and back like Paul Bunyan, by golly you're going to use them !

jw
milwaukee





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Do you Yahoo!?
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DIVyou can use the heck out of those big manly traps & lats & everything else, but still have a "quiet upper body".  If you watch WC videos, you will see a lot of powerful poling, but not a lot of upper body movement in terms of direction or level changing (weaving & bobbing)./DIV
DIV /DIV
DIVDon't mistake "quiet" with a "passive" or "un-engaged"./DIV
DIV /DIV
DIVCC/DIV
DIVBRBIJ999w >/I/B wrote:/DIV
BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">BR>(C) Quiet Upper BodyBR>I became a big convert to this concept -- preached it on this newsgroup -- BR>argued against anybody who tried to distract us from directing all movementsBR>into _forward_ motion.BRBRI would think this depends on your physique. For the cyclist with a wimpy upperBRbody, this makes sense. However, if you canoe race all summer and have theBRshoulders and back like Paul Bunyan, by golly you're going to use them !BRBRjwBRmilwaukeeBRBRBRBR/BLOCKQUOTEphr SIZE=1
Do you Yahoo!?br
a href="http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=21260/*http://photos.yahoo.com"New Yahoo! Photos - easier uploading and sharing/a
--0-497203983-1071595711=:16010--

So point me at one video of World Cup skier in an actual race doing V1 up a
hill who is not violating the "absolutely no shoulder rotation or shoulder
tilt" in the New Skate articles? (and preferably one that's less than 10 MB
download).

Chris Cline wrote
If you watch WC videos, you will see a lot of powerful
poling, but not a lot of upper body movement in terms of
direction or level changing (weaving & bobbing).

I mostly agree with you about V2, but I'm not seeing the evidence of quiet
upper body for V1 (offset, paddle dance) in World Cup races. Looks to me
like the World Cup racers these days tend to have bit less upper body motion
than in the mid-1990's, but the shoulder rotation and tilt are still clearly
there, notably in the Carl Swenson video clip on JanneG's website.

Ken

On Wed, 17 Dec 2003 19:41:06 +0000, Ken Roberts wrote:

So point me at one video of World Cup skier in an actual race doing V1 up a
hill who is not violating the "absolutely no shoulder rotation or shoulder
tilt" in the New Skate articles? (and preferably one that's less than 10 MB
download).

There is no such thing. In the ski progressions video, they don't even do
that. It's *quiet*, not dead. They have a drill where you hold your poles
first horizontally, and then vertically to get an idea of how much motion
there is on both planes. None of the example skiers had no motion, either
rotationally, or on the vertical axis (shoulder tilt).

I too will have to time myself on a longe climb, but on my first 10 hours
on snow this year, I feel as fast and as comfortable as I ever have
climbing hills. But then, I'm still a weinee and may not be trying very
hard.

I'm not talking about cases of skiers _trying_ to be quiet, but not
completely succeeding. What I'm seeing in the videos of the World Cup
racers doing uphill V1 is: blatant obvious vigorous violation of the Quiet
Upper Body rule of the New Skate -- like for example the Carl Swenson video
on Janne G's website.

So I'll settle for one video clip of a World Cup skier _trying_ to be pretty
quiet doing uphill V1 in a race. Someone who is only a _little_ bit
violating the New Skate rule of "absolutely no shoulder rotation or twist or
shoulder tilt or dip ever".

Ken
__________________________________________________ _
doing V1 up a hill who is not violating the
"absolutely no shoulder rotation or shoulder tilt"
in the New Skate articles

Philip Nelson wrote
There is no such thing. In the ski progressions video, they don't even do
that. It's *quiet*, not dead. They have a drill where you hold your poles
first horizontally, and then vertically to get an idea of how much motion
there is on both planes. None of the example skiers had no motion, either
rotationally, or on the vertical axis (shoulder tilt).

(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.

How is having an active upper body not forward motion? you say it is
really good to be strong and dynamic with legs and quiet in the upper
body. imagine how much faster you could go if you used your upperbody
effectively, utilizing your abs, and not just your
triceps/arm/shoulder muscles.

(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 . . . "

Ooooo Vordenberg came up with a "notorious slogan" refrencing how a
gliding ski is continually slowing down. that would probably be the
reason that all of the elite skiers have been skiing at a high tempo
for a fairly long time. just cause he repakaged it doesnt make it
special. the "physics of the NKT" wasn't really anything special as
far as i have been able to tell. it was just a way of trying to get
people to fully comit their weight. In essance it was a visual clue.
the reason you want full weight committment is that it is free energy.
just try stepping from one ski fully onto the other; you get some
ammout of glide without having done anything really. free energy.
-laxer

The question about Quiet Upper Body is not about using the abdominal
muscles. Everybody involved on any side of the discussion about the New
Skate ideas agrees that using the abdominal muscles to apply direct force
down and back to propel the skier forward is very important. The QUB
question was about sideways tilting or rotating of the hips and shoulders.

laxer wrote
. . . imagine how much faster you could go . . . utilizing your
abs, and not just your triceps/arm/shoulder muscles.

In the physics, committing weight fully from side to side to each skating
ski is _not_ truly "free".

The true "free gasoline" in skating is from clever use of new muscles.

the reason you want full weight committment is that it is free energy.

It takes real extra muscular work to move your body weight to be so fully
centered over the other ski that you can sustain a flat glide on it without
soon starting to tip back toward the center. And it costs extra _time_ to
move your body weight that far sideways. Other things being equal, if you
expend more muscular work and take more time doing it, your rate of
effective power is _lower_ and so your speed is lower -- unless you're
getting something really valuable in return for those two things.

That was a key point of the New Skate: that "full" weight commitment is
_not_ a free lunch from a serious racer's perspective, so maybe it's better
to set aside most of the concerns with achieving it (whether by the concept
of NKT or whatever). It takes _less_ muscular work and less time to put all
your weight on the new ski, but _not_ centered over it for sustained flat
gliding.

The true "free lunch" in skating is not "gravitational falling" from
side-to-side into fully centered weight commitment.

The true "free gasoline" in skating is from using new muscles that are not
even on the normal list of forward-motion muscles. New muscles that can add
forward-motion power _without_ adding much lactate burden on the "normal"
skating and poling muscles that are alreadly pushed to near their
"threshold" limit during a race. (For some ideas, see my recent post about
"Exploiting the head loop".)

Ken

I assume that this discussion is entirely about V1, aka offset, though
that hasn't been made explicit. Then I would mostly agree with Ken R.,
but not in reference to V2 and V2alt, aka 1-skate and 2-skate. Does
anyone disagree with the proposition that weight shift should be
far closer to complete ("full committment") in V2 than in V1?

Best, Peter