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Skier of the Impossible
Ace wrote:
wrote: "David Off" wrote in message To ski at angles of more than 50 degrees Sylvain realised that normal parallel jump turns were not practical. In the period of 'free fall' the skier picks up too much speed to control his descent and at altitude they are too tiring. Instead Sylvain developed the 'windscreen wiper' turn where the skier turns on the ends of the skis. Do you have any further amplification or description of this technique? I guess he's referring to a partial jump turn, where the tips of the skis stay pretty much in the same place (still on the snow) while the tails swing round in the air behind. V. useful in steep narrow couloirs. This sounds right. I let the skis do all the work and have never asked them what they do, but watching others 'go off' into a couloir before me, I remember thinking the action of the tails of the skis did remind me of "windshield wipers". |
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Skier of the Impossible
Jeremy Mortimer wrote:
"pigo" wrote in "David Off" wrote in message To ski at angles of more than 50 degrees Sylvain realised that normal parallel jump turns were not practical. In the period of 'free fall' the skier picks up too much speed to control his descent and at altitude they are too tiring. Instead Sylvain developed the 'windscreen wiper' turn where the skier turns on the ends of the skis. Do you have any further amplification or description of this technique? He turned of the tail (end) of his skis. Scott Schmidt had a steep technique that worked pretty well for me. I don't know how much different it makes one ski but it changes the point of concentration, or at least provides a point for some concentration. On the real steep the downhill leg is extended, hard to get any lift off of it when it's already straight. So you turn off of the uphill leg. Who knows how it works now on all the shortie ****. Same for Sylvain's technique. You wouldn't want to lower anyones self esteem by having terrain that they couldn't ski. A few years ago I in Zermatt I saw Saudan introduce a couple of his films - first descents of a face on Denali and the ordinary route on the Grands Jorasses (if I remember correctly). In a lot of footage of him skiing I only recall seeing turns on the tails of the skis on moderate slopes in deep powder; they looked a bit like jet turns from the old technique books, but it might actually have been more like what anyone does in powder when it works - sit on the tails and just point the tips the way you want to go; good fun but hard on the thigh muscles. Speaking of quadriceps: Sking for long descents without stopping for ten minutes (and steep enough to have to wedel, opposed to standing in the bindings) in an emergency or when in pursuit or being chased requires a strange technique with knees-almost-locked and most of the movement coming from what seems to be a hips and lower back. Should yourself (or any of our other contributors) try this at any time I would be most interested in your reflections. On steep stuff he seemed to be doing normal jump turns, pushing off the uphill ski if it's sufficiently steep, as you say. He was also shown training by skiing down moraine in the summer (no snow). Again, standard jump turns as far as I could see. (I also saw him skiing at Grands Montets a little later, still using his trademark enormous poles and looking distinctly wobbly on a red piste. An acquaintance who knows him slightly said he thought he had been ill). Most charitable. Some skiers have a "power band" where they work well and look good, and may be indifferent in other areas, or sometimes just go to pieces on other terrain. I have seen powder skiers who were poetry in motion one minute, a complete india rubber ball, then atrophied, jerky and hesitant with a change of terrain and circumstance. Extensive practice in one area can lead to occasional surprises in other areas, particularly when joining a party of skiers who ski at a different speed to oneself (especially slower rather than faster). clears throat I have, errr, on occasion, 'made bodily contact with the snow' while not paying attention to what I was meant to be doing, or (through boredom) giving the skis an instruction they clearly did not want to take, just to see what they would do. Fortunately, my companions very politely found some interesting and distant piece of terrain to focus their attention upon while the funkraum made good the extensive injuries to his dignity. |
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