learning V1: my videos + story from last week

Gene Goldenfeld wrote in message ...
[this is rewritten and reposted to reflect yours]
Ken,
A few months ago you posted rollerski videos of yourself and what I saw in
them was the most perfect example of athletic ski straddling on skates I've

Ken,

I hope you like a non-coach perspective. When I look at your
technique, it looks "inexperienced." It takes a long time to get
comfortable on skis, and after years of skiing, some people never
really get it. Someone very coordinated might ski pretty well in 5
years, but it'll be better in 10 years. It's kind of like playing
guitar. You always get better if you keep practicing.

So what should you work on? Balance!! You should strive to always be
in perfect balance because from good balance comes coordination and in
turn power. You should be able to maintain a consistent rhythm or
change your rhythm at will. You should not be cranking your foot
around trying to maintain your balance. When you have this type of
balance, you will transfer weight completely ski-to-ski, and you will
stand up. If you can't stand up straight on _a_ gliding ski, you'll
never be able to put power into the ground. (Your video shows a lot of
hunching over the skis.) Also, if you have this balance, you will be
resting muscles that aren't used, so you will run lower HRs and can be
more explosive with the mucsles that are used. So, work on balance.
Just in case you missed it, balance is important.

The other thing I'd suggest is imitating the ski videos. Get a mental
picture of the whole technique and try to duplicate. Don't look at the
angle of the pole plant, the angle of the femer in relation to the
spine, the flexing of the seragious anterior muscles...screw that.
You'll never "ski" if you're thinking of that detail. Just imitate and
work on balance. This goes for both classic and skate. As you get
better balance you can start to stand up more.

As an analogy...my Dad has a very nice golf swing. He has worked on
the technical aspects of his swing for years, but he has a hard time
consistently hitting the ball. A very nice looking 3 iron will go 150
years, but a friend's ugly looking swing will hit a 6 iron 150 yards
(with a 30 yard bend). Even though he looks good on a video tape, the
timing or the "swing" in is swing isn't there. I think it's similar in
skiing that you can somewhat techically master the motion without
having the balance. I think the first thing is to get the balance, and
then tweak the angles of certain things to achieve the technical
mastery. I race against some guys who are damn fast but don't look to
sweet doing it. They have good balance but an odd style. I hope they
never get great balance and good style.

Another thing that struck me odd was that you had a lot of head
movement....in circles on the v1 and up and down on the v2. If you're
trying to move your head, quit. The head goes where the shoulders pull
it.

I have to say you have guts putting up a video of your technique. Even
good technque will have some flaws. I ordered a new camera with video
ability. Maybe I can get some videos of myself up so the group can
riddle it with a tommy gun. I've always ignored technique. I suppose I
could use a pointer or two.

Jay Wenner

hand is attached to a shoulder that just isn't getting over there,
which is
attached to a hip that just isn't getting over there.

That's right. It's the hip that needs to drive forward and side to
side.

I'm
turning my hips and shoulders away toward the other side much too
early --
and too weakly. I'm thinking that instead I need to delay that turn
until
later, so it doesn't rob my pole-push of its full force. And then

I disagree. I like the timing of your non-pole skate movement. You
want to start it before you are done poling. The important part of the
pole is the first part, not the finish. Working on getting a big push
at the end of the poling is just going to pull your hips backward.

Look at Alsgaard1 on Janne's page.

Rob Bradlee

"Sly D. Skeez" wrote:

So what should you work on? Balance!! You should strive to always be
in perfect balance because from good balance comes coordination and in

.... I race against some guys who are damn fast but don't look to
sweet doing it. They have good balance but an odd style. I hope they
never get great balance and good style.

Jay Wenner

I think these are some really good observations. While I agree that the specific skills you've
suggested are necessary for good skating, I disagree -- at least at this point in my learning process --
with the priority you've placed on developing good balance for a learner. I know that an emphasis on
balance is a fairly common perspective among some experienced coaches and newer instructors, I think
especially those who are not (or no longer) well attuned to the learning process that most people go
through. The example of other racers you cite suggests why: one can go fast with an engine and balance
without mastering good style. Most learning skiers aren't so lucky. They don't have the genetics, the
experiences in other sports that require balance, or the early learning experiences that you and others
have. Their chances of hanging like a bird on one gliding ski in the short run are dim -- and really not
that relevant to learning the basics and having a good time. Instead, for them the biggest gains toward
developing a "balance response" and mental confidence on snow will come through developing good style.

I don't mean to suggest by this that technique and balance are one and the same, or that specific
exercises are not invaluable. Rather, my point is that balance-oriented instruction puts those whose
balance learning is slower at an inherent disadvantgage. And your point about the years of learning it
takes to be good underlines the point. At the same time, a good skills-based approach allows those who
already have good balance to advance more quickly on a solid foundation. My guess is that with Ken's
downhill skills and experience, some good instruction will turn him into one of the latter group in
relatively short order.

Gene

[hopefully reformatted]

"Sly D. Skeez" wrote:

So what should you work on? Balance!! You should strive to always be
in perfect balance because from good balance comes coordination and in

.... I race against some guys who are damn fast but don't look to
sweet doing it. They have good balance but an odd style. I hope they
never get great balance and good style.

Jay Wenner


I think these are really good observations. While I agree that the
specific skills you've suggested are necessary for good skating, I disagree
-- at least at this point in my learning process -- with the emphasis
you've placed on developing good balance for a learner. The example of
other racers you cite suggests why: one can go fast with an engine and
balance without mastering good style. Most learning skiers aren't so
lucky. They don't have the genetics, the experiences in other sports that
require balance, or the early learning experiences that you and others
have. Their chances of hanging like a bird on one gliding ski in the short
run are dim -- and really not that relevant to learning the basics and
having a good time. Instead, for them the biggest gains toward developing a
"balance response" and mental confidence on snow will come through
developing good style.

I don't mean to suggest by this that technique and balance are one and
the same, or that specific exercises are not invaluable. Rather, my point
is that balance-oriented instruction puts those whose balance learning is
slower in a no-win situation. And your point about the years of learning
it takes to have good form underlines the point. At the same time, a good
skills-based approach allows those who already have good balance to advance
more quickly on a solid foundation. My guess is that with Ken's downhill
skills and experience, some good instruction will turn him into one of the
latter group in relatively short order.

Gene

I worked on getting my V1 skate beyond the "straddle" yesterday on
rollerskis. Like in my dryland experiment the previous Tuesday, I did a lot
of with no poles. By the end I had gotten to motion sequence that felt very
different from a week ago -- hopefully it will also be better on snow and on
video.

I tried using Rodney's idea:
So your shoulders should be squared to the push ski
through the pole push phase. The above process should
help get your weight over the push ski.

A big problem I had before was that I just didn't _know_ how far I was
rotating or shifting sideways. So looking down and using the ski itself as
an alignment mark was the key helpful tip for aiming and verifying my
sideways rotation. Then I would look straight down and see if the ski was
directly under my eyes, as verification that I had really shifted all the
way sideways, rather than still straddling in the middle somewhere.

Felt like it was working. I don't know if using that trick gives the most
optimal sideways move in the biomechanical physics -- but at least now I'm
in the ballpark (and know where to look for the two foul lines).

So thanks Rodney, that's just the sort of helpful tip I was hoping for.

Ken

Rob Bradlee wrote
I like the timing of your non-pole skate movement.

Thanks, nice to know I'm doing something right.

Let me clarify: I agree the problem is not with my _skate_ movement. I am
starting to push out to the side already during the main phase of my
pole-push.

The real obvious problem I'm seeing is in the timing of start of the
sideways shift of my shoulders.

Look at Alsgaard1 on Janne's page.

Yes I am right now. After lots of V2, Alsgaard switches to V1 offset
technique, and there's a nice front video at 9 seconds. In his V1 stroke,
he drives his hand down to his waist before he starts shifting his hang-side
shoulder sideways toward his off-side. He keeps his shoulder _stable_
through the entire main initial pole-push push. When his hang-side hand is
next to his waist, his shoulder is clearly still holding its vertical
position over his ski boot. Then after he drives his hand below his waist,
he starts a big sideways move of his shoulders. (I can only see all this by
using single-frame advance in my viewer. I see this shoulder sequence even
more crisply defined in the middle front-view section of the Carl Swenson
video on JanneG's website.)

In the front view _my_ own V1, I see my shoulder already starting to turn
toward the off-side _before_ my hand gets to my waist. By the time my hand
is at my waist, my hang-side shoulder is midway in between my two ski boots.
I'm starting it too early and therefore too slow.

Snap.

Physics says that the key to exploiting reactive side-force is quick
acceleration (or quick deceleration). The key formula is:
Reactive Force = Mass * Acceleration
There's nothing in there about how far I move my shoulders and chest and
head once I get them started. The visible sideways distance from position
to position is the most obvious sign, and that's the one that the "full
weight commitment" religion wants to look at. But physics says that isn't
what really matters for forward motion power.

Power = Force * Speed, and with reactive side-force, quicker acceleration
delivers more of _both_ Force and Speed.

The "full weight commitment" religion says that as long as I make the full
weight commitment, that's good. But physics says that the real key is _how_
I make the weight transfer: quick and snappy versus smooth and slower. For
reactive side-force, the physics of power and forward speed says:
Good = aggressive, choppy, snap
Bad = comfortable, spread, smooth
Worst = pendulum from side-to-side letting gravity do the work

By counting frames, I see that my shoulders move sideways for 0.4 seconds (6
frames, at 15 frames per second of QuickTime). But Alsgaard delays his
shoulder move for 0.12 second, then _snaps_ them across sideways in only
0.24 seconds (6 frames, at 25 per second of MPEG). That's the "free
gasoline" that I've been missing out on in my hill-climbing: the extra
power of Alsgaard's _snap_ in his upper body side move.

Ken

P.S. Notice also:

-- how Alsgaard exploits the _deceleration_ reactive force to add force to
the initial phase of his _next_ skate-push on the off-side. He _stops_ the
shoulder move as soon as gets his off-side ski edged to be able to transmit
the resulting reactive force to the snow -- and then _immediately_ starts
his shoulder again rotating back toward the hang-side, to add even more
reactive side-force to his initial off-side skate-push.

-- How the strange path of the forward recovery of Alsgaard's off-side arm
also adds a little more reactive side-force to his skate-push. This is most
dramatically seen in the two V1 strokes of Carl Swenson in the last 4
seconds viewed from behind, where both the start and the finish of the
recovery of his off-side arm _exactly_ oppose the push of each ski in
sequence.

The American supercomputer in the other American "future skate" project is
outputting the results of its optimization calculations, now made available
to us thanks to that public-spirited Swedish spy.

"Inexperienced" is surely an accurate description of my current V1 skate
technique.

Jay Wenner wrote:
When I look at your technique, it looks "inexperienced."

While it could be logical to infer that the root problem is lack of balance,
I doubt that's the explanation for my symptoms -- because I've had good
balance in every other aspect of my skiing for years. And I have no trouble
standing up straight on a gliding ski when I want to.

So I think it's rather that I just don't know how to _use_ my balance for a
more effective V1 stroke. And yesterday I think I made some good progress
on learning that thru some no-poles V1 practice. (I also was getting better
at no-poles V2 with full up-and-down hip motion on rollerskis).

Another thing that struck me odd was that you had
a lot of head movement....in circles on the v1
and up and down on the v2.

Yes, that looked strange to me too (and made me a little dizzy sometimes).
When staring at those elite racer videos, it was easy for me get drawn into
looking at the head, because it's the easiest part of the upper body to see.
And there was a little debate between Borowski and Vordenberg about the size
of the head loop in elite V1, so I got thinking about head motion. Probably
not a good idea, based on the results you're seeing in my video. So now
I've switched to thinking about shoulders.

Ken

At 07:42 31 12 03 Wednesday, Ken Roberts wrote:

The "full weight commitment" religion says that as long as I make the full
weight commitment, that's good. But physics says that the real key is _how_
I make the weight transfer: quick and snappy versus smooth and slower. For
reactive side-force, the physics of power and forward speed says:
Good = aggressive, choppy, snap
Bad = comfortable, spread, smooth
Worst = pendulum from side-to-side letting gravity do the work

Physics--Smysics (Actually I'm an engineer and love physics--physics
doesn't lie.)

Another perspective.

For classic, I suggest that the kick should be a quick impulse down which
launches you forward onto the new glide ski. Classic is impulse, not
duration of kick. This is because your kick ski either stops or comes
close to stopping.

For skating, I suggest the kick is a power movement. You want to apply
force over as long a time as is effective. I am not saying that you don't
want to ski with snap and gusto, only that you want to apply power over the
whole duration of the kick. You can do this because in skating your kick
ski keeps gliding. Might as well take advantage of that extra available
kick time.

Hank makes two very astute observations. Yet, I have to point out (once
again) that the difficulty you face getting beyond being an "inexperienced"
skater, straddling, is not primarily about physics. It's obvious
theoretically and practically that if your weight is over the ski you'll be
in a much more powerful position to push off quickly and forcefully than if
it's not over the ski. That's the first lesson of any cross country ski
instruction, be it for skating or traditional. The fact that a smart,
athletic guy considers such an idea "religion," i.e., a goal not worth
attaining, is beyond what a newsgroup can help with.

Gene

P.S. What I noticed in the list of ideas from the 'new skate' approach you
posted a couple of weeks ago was how some -- as *you* interpreted them --
made perfect sense from the perspective of someone who straddles. The
experience and understanding of skating (and skiing generally) really does
look different to a straddler than it does to someone who is able to shift
their weight comfortably from ski to ski. Go to it!


Hank Garretson wrote:

At 07:42 31 12 03 Wednesday, Ken Roberts wrote:

The "full weight commitment" religion says that as long as I make the full
weight commitment, that's good. But physics says that the real key is _how_
I make the weight transfer: quick and snappy versus smooth and slower. For
reactive side-force, the physics of power and forward speed says:
Good = aggressive, choppy, snap
Bad = comfortable, spread, smooth
Worst = pendulum from side-to-side letting gravity do the work

Physics--Smysics (Actually I'm an engineer and love physics--physics
doesn't lie.)

Another perspective.

For classic, I suggest that the kick should be a quick impulse down which
launches you forward onto the new glide ski. Classic is impulse, not
duration of kick. This is because your kick ski either stops or comes
close to stopping.

For skating, I suggest the kick is a power movement. You want to apply
force over as long a time as is effective. I am not saying that you don't
want to ski with snap and gusto, only that you want to apply power over the
whole duration of the kick. You can do this because in skating your kick
ski keeps gliding. Might as well take advantage of that extra available
kick time.

I think the biomechanical physics of skating is in harmony with the
_leg-push_ being smooth and with as long a duration as makes sense in the
overall stroke cycle and its desired turnover frequency. That's because the
leg-push is a direct push force by the leg into the ski and the snow.

But for the "Snap", I was talking about something different -- the
side-to-side move of the upper body, especially the shoulders. That is not
a direct force, it's a "reactive" force -- generated by accelerating some
body part _other_ than the leg, in a different direction from the push of
the leg. It's only because that we're exploiting the "reactive" force from
the shoulder motion that makes it work better as aggressive with "snap".

The overall skating stroke can still be smooth. That's a key reason I like
skating so much better than classic.

Ken