new skis require a different skiing style?

On 21 Jan 2004 21:46:48 EST, "Jiyang Chen" wrote:

So with the new carving skis, do you apply pressure to the downhill boot
only as described in Lito's book, or is it equal pressure?

You're trying to start another thread!! (Cool.)
IMHO, if you actually want both skis to "carve", you need to have a
fair amount of weight on the inside ("uphill") ski (not necessarily
"equal" pressure, but a fair amount), and a fairly wide stance. But
you can turn very effectively with most or all of the weight on the
outside ("downhill") ski, in which case the uphill ski is just "along
for the ride" as they say (although what they mean is it's "along for
the next turn").

So now I'm picturing a rig with pressure sensors under the toes and
heels of the boots and an inclinometer on the back of each boot,
capturing data several times per second, to allow a detailed (and
expensive, say $100/hour?) analysis of a skier's technique, and
fueling many more contentious threads on RSA.

bw

On Thu, 22 Jan 2004 09:12:02 -0700 (MST), "Karl with a K"
wrote:


As an aside, several of Harb's ideas show up in mogul camps as
it is more efficient and easier to use in zipper line activities.


That's part of the appeal for me of the ideas, if they work. He
basically teaches one style of skiing, from a very solid base, which,
with minor adaptations, you can use across the board. If you see him
on video, he's doing much the same stuff in the steep bumps as on
gentle groomed slopes, no radically different technique. If his
technique teaches you to ski like him, that's fine by me (and
interestingly, he's used as a 'model' skier in Lito Tejada-Flores'
latest video). However, with any ski instructor, there is always the
question of whether what they are teaching is the way they learnt
themselves.

John with a J

Alan Baker wrote:

In article ,
lal_truckee wrote:


Von Gruenigen's skis are about as close together as they can get
(relative to force vector) here
http://www.ski-and-ski.com/work/Gallery/MVG-PC03gs.htm


Check out this:

http://www.rmmskiracing.org/video/20...S-MVG-final.mp
g

Particularly, check out the sequence of turns from about the half-way
point of the video onward (coincidentally, the announcer says something
right about then about recording Von Gruenigen if you want a perfect
example of how it's done).

In particular, check out 1:30.4 and 1:46.0 - sighting down the pressure
vector.
IMO almost nowhere in this video does Von Gruenigen weight skis more
than 15 inches apart from weighted edge to weighted edge, relative to
his dynamic pressure vector; usually more like 10 inches.

Possibly some of this discussion derives from an inconsistent definition
of "distance between skis?" I consistantly define distance between skis
as the distance from the weighted edge to the weighted edge as projected
on a plane perpendicular to the dynamic pressure vector extending from
the skier's CG to the snow in the skier CG centered moving coordinate
system, not as some static yardstick measure. A skier centered moving
cordinate system oriented by the pressure vector and the momentum vector
is the only coordinate system that makes sense for such a dynamic system.

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.

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.

Walt wrote:

BoftheW wrote:

Walt wrote:

You don't have to twist or pivot them to get them to turn, and any
twisting or
pivoting means that you're working against the ski, not with it.
Modern skis
work best when the tail follows the same path as the tip in a smooth
carve.

Comment: This one I found the most hilarious. The fallacy that shaped
skis
result in perfect carved turns on every turn is widespread.


Is it? I've never heard anybody say that the newer shaped skis carve a
perfect turn every time. I certainly don't think that.

The skier has plenty of chances to screw it up, but I will admit that
shaplier skis make it possible for almost any intermediate doofus to
carve a turn occasionally, whereas the straighter skis required a
certain skill level. Secondly, for an accomplished skier the shapes do
basically carve a turn every time, at least on decent cordoroy.

Besides, what-the-hell else you gonna do but lay some trenches if you're
forced to spend time on the groomed due to unfortunate circumstance, say
while waiting for someone to show or something.

And, as an aside you are absolutely correct, except it's not just modern
but ALL "skis work best when the tail follows the same path as the tip
in a smooth carve." A lot of manufacturing effort goes into that
statement all the way back to the 1860s and earlier. Notice the phrase
"edge followed the shape of the turn" below:

( from http://skiinghistory.org/skishistory.html )
"1868: Sondre Norheim demonstrated the Telemark ski, the first with a
sidecut that narrowed the ski underfoot while the tip and tail remained
wider. In the same way as the camber, the sidecut produced a ski that
flexed more easily when tipped on edge, so that in a turn its edge
followed the shape of the turn instead of skidding sideways. Norheim and
his friends formed a small pioneer group of early skiers who improved
the ski as they developed the first dynamic turns in downhill running,
from 1850 to 1900."

"lal_truckee" wrote in message
...
Possibly some of this discussion derives from an inconsistent definition
of "distance between skis?" I consistantly define distance between skis
as the distance from the weighted edge to the weighted edge as projected
on a plane perpendicular to the dynamic pressure vector extending from
the skier's CG to the snow in the skier CG centered moving coordinate
system, not as some static yardstick measure. A skier centered moving
cordinate system oriented by the pressure vector and the momentum vector
is the only coordinate system that makes sense for such a dynamic system.

That is way too complicated an explantion for anybody to keep their
attention. You'll lose a skier after the first use of the word
"perpendicular". To keep it simple, the point is, the boots/skis have some
distance between them. It varies, but they are not as close as Harb would
suggest they be.
--
Marty

foot2foot wrote:

"BoftheW" wrote in message
...

The subject of skiing technique always brings out interesting comments

from

people, given their various backgrounds and how/where they learned to ski.

Some

sample comments from this thread and my own personal comments to them:




foot2foot:

.You can't get much closer because the skis will hit each
other. As well as: It basically locks you into doing nothing much
more than repetitive, boring "S" turns down the hill.


Comment: not that I advocate this 'style' but I'm sure Stein (and

Stenmark)

would argue that it is not 'boring' or 'repetitve'.



Ach. I can't argue, but what I'm really talking about is that
old European style where the hips wag back and forth over
the skis and the body moves laterally in a sort of serpentine
motion. Close skis were a hallmark of this style, but really,
all *this style* is good for is linked turns fairly close to the
fall line. It's more of a "recreationally taught" style than a
race technique. If you have seen it, you know what I mean,
once you do, you will recognize it from just my description
most likely.

How about http://real.ksl.com/tv/news/steinhigh.ram for a Stein demo
(RealPlayer link). (It does my sloppy skiing heart good to see even Der
Stein make a bobble at 1:45.5 in the video.)


It's no good for making turns of various radii as demanded
by the slope, or as desired by the skier. The style itself
locks you into a limited realm.

I think you're wrong - Stein's style is "stylized" for public
consumtion, but check out his "shoulder width" (see elsewhere for
commentary) race style in the video and his clear adaptation of style to
conditions throughout.

"John Moore" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:22:56 GMT, Alan Baker
wrote:


Except that the whole idea of modern skiing is that there is *no* "free
foot". Harb appears to be advocating edging with only the outside leg
and that's just not what the best in the world are doing.

He's probably no more bothered by fashion in these matters than I
would be. You should see his video, where edging with only the outside
leg seems to work just fine. It may not be what the best in the world
are doing, but he skis that way and he skis better than 99.9% of
people I've seen at resorts.

John

He's also skiing on nice snow. Put him on solid ice and he's screwed.
Plus, check out that animation - he's got SO much flat, dead time in those
skis its just ugly. Yes, the style is very pretty, and yes, there are
circumstances where you want to have your feet close (moguls, for example),
but why make one edge of the two skis do all the work when you've got two to
work with? He also seems to have no "pop" out of the turn... the skis
aren't giving much back to him. Kinda like the old lockleg skiing, where
you put far too much effort in to make the skis turn to make up for your
pretty technique.

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

Jon Bond

In article , "BoftheW"
wrote:

Walt:
You don't have to twist or pivot them to get them to turn, and any
twisting or pivoting means that you're working against the ski, not with
it. Modern skis work best when the tail follows the same path as the tip
in a smooth carve.

Comment: This one I found the most hilarious. The
fallacy that shaped skis result in perfect carved turns on every turn is
widespread. Look at intermediate skiers. They rarely make carved turns,
even though they are on 'carving' skis. Perfect carved turns (where the
tail follows that exact line of the tip) only occur on a modest slope
that does not require active braking. Otherwise, one would build speed
up every turn. Even the "best in the world" skid their turns to peel off
speed when needed. Look at a steep (smooth or bumped) slope and see if
anyone perfectly carves their turns. The only ones that do have a death
wish (11s straight down or slightly bent turns that pick up speed). The
only exception is when a steep slope is deserted and one can make wide
turns with an uphill portion that allows gravity to slow you down. I
would be willing to bet however, that the majority of most skiers turns
on any given day are skidded, even though they have 'carving' skis.

Hi all,

I've been lurking for a while, but couldn't resist putting my 0.02 into
this thread :-) All of the below only applies to my observations of carvers.

For me, the comment above cuts to the heart of this discussion: Speed.

How much is optimal, how much you want, *how the ski behaves at different
speeds*. I've been skiing since I was 9, I'm now 35, but that doesn't really
say much, I've only been on carvers for 3 seasons. The 1st season I took
lessons, and I think I was very fortunate in the teacher I had (cheers
John :-) ), and in that I was comfortable sliding down snow so could
concentrate on the technique I was being taught. When you carve without
skidding at all you can adjust your position on the skis so that you
accelerate out of the turns. Obviously a very good technique for racing.
Not so good for crowded slopes where your next turn is determined by
other people as well as your choice of the next natural turning point
based on the turning rhythm you have settled into.

Even without this acceleration, which you can manage (but not eliminate,
if you do really carve the whole way through the turn) by not leaning quite
so far forward, there is a minimum speed needed to "drive" the skis in
carves. It's not so fast, but fast enough that it requires commitment to
technique (modulo width apart of skis). It doesn't take much of a slope
before you absolutely have to scrub some speed in many of your turns, or
make tightly packed turns. Not so easy for people whose leg muscles only
ski 1/2 weeks out of 52. I was taught that to manage speed you let the turn
carry on for a little bit before initiating the next turn. At low speeds
this is OK, but when you already have modest speed, the ski's rate of
turn increases through the turn, so your window of opportunity to start
the weight transfer and initiate the next turn gets smaller and smaller
the more speed you are trying to get rid of and the end of the turn gets
quite hairy, balance-wise!

Add to this the fact that the skis have a rhythm of their own. You can
find this rhythm by skiing on snow with constant slope and no ... er,
lateral angle? Basically, something that looks like the long side of a
door wedge. Tilt your feet and the edges bite and begin to curve / carve
in that direction. But without the necessary upper body movement, they
roll onto the opposite edges and begin to carve the other way. The net
effect is your upper body stays pretty still while your lower body
pendulums underneath. It feels like you're in a teeny-tiny half-pipe. All
other things being equal, this is the frequency at which your skis will
like turning best. The frequency varies with slope and speed, but
basically it means there is an optimum distance between your turns if you
don't want to have to fight some of the forces. Once you slip into this
rhythm it feels like you're really "riding the edge". It's quite
sublimely entrancing. I've found that in letting your skis do this (in
fact, on even slopes, they "want" to do this, and are more stable when
they do), they naturally ride a certain distance apart on the snow.
Funnily enough, it's about pelvis width apart :-) Trying to mess with my
skis' dynamic while I'm doing this almost always ends up in massive loss
of balance and either an instinctive recovery (not often) or a cold, wet
mistake (the usual outcome).

It's perfectly possible, and definitely desirable at times, to drive your
skis outside this rhythm, but then you have to deal with the forces, get
your weight positioned right and lead them with your upper body. If
you're crossing a slope to the right, then all you have to do is turn at
the waist and lean forward and to the left and the skis will turn
underneath you and "catch your fall" and suddenly you're skiing across
the slope to the left. Let the turn sort your side-to-side balance, and
your forward-backward balance decides how much you accelerate out of the
turn. Pushing the downhill ski forward a bit (I haven't read anything
in this thread about the relative position of feet front-to-back yet)
will have an effect on the turn, but I'm not sure what ;-) IIRC, it
contributes to the acceleration coming out of the turn. Once your skis
are back under your body, you can leap forward and to the right to
initiate the next turn. "Winding up the spring" my instructor called it,
and it means that there's never a point at which you're not in a turn -
they join up seamlessly. At this point terrain becomes less important,
the rhythm of it has a momentum all it's own, which has no respect for
little variations in the snow. (Up to a point! Doesn't work well in mogul
fields ;-) )

I should say that I've only hit this sweet spot a very few times, but the
feeling was amazing. I felt like a little kid again. I just felt so
grateful that I had been led to the experience and it changed forever
what I try to get out of a day's skiing. For me, it's all connected with
the inherent rhythm for a given combination of skis, speed and slope.

Just an amateur's take on the joy of carving. Go for the BOING! Ride the
edge! :-)

Rich

"lal_truckee" wrote in message
...
Alan Baker wrote:

In article ,
lal_truckee wrote:


Von Gruenigen's skis are about as close together as they can get
(relative to force vector) here
http://www.ski-and-ski.com/work/Gallery/MVG-PC03gs.htm


Check out this:


http://www.rmmskiracing.org/video/20...S-MVG-final.mp
g

Particularly, check out the sequence of turns from about the half-way
point of the video onward (coincidentally, the announcer says something
right about then about recording Von Gruenigen if you want a perfect
example of how it's done).

In particular, check out 1:30.4 and 1:46.0 - sighting down the pressure
vector.
IMO almost nowhere in this video does Von Gruenigen weight skis more
than 15 inches apart from weighted edge to weighted edge, relative to
his dynamic pressure vector; usually more like 10 inches.

Possibly some of this discussion derives from an inconsistent definition
of "distance between skis?" I consistantly define distance between skis
as the distance from the weighted edge to the weighted edge as projected
on a plane perpendicular to the dynamic pressure vector extending from
the skier's CG to the snow in the skier CG centered moving coordinate
system, not as some static yardstick measure. A skier centered moving
cordinate system oriented by the pressure vector and the momentum vector
is the only coordinate system that makes sense for such a dynamic system.

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.

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.

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. There's
a reason why he either wins races or misses gates/crashes. Watch his arms
as compared to somebody like Hermann Meier or Rhalves. Watch how
inconsistent his turns are between runs in terms of ski positioning. Sure,
there are a couple turns with his feet together - but there are plenty with
his feet in the transition MUCH wider than shoulder width apart, too. I can
find you a picture of any major racer with his feet closer than shoulder
width; I can do the same for feet at shoulder width, too.

Skiing is not static. Things change, conditions change, things happen that
you're not expecting. And forget just stance for a second, lets talk about
weighting. Even with Bode, both his skis have tons of weight on them.
Don't believe me? Watch how stuck to the snow his inside ski is. Sure,
that knee pounds up and down, but if he didn't have much weight it wouldn't
stay on the snow with that kind of abuse.

What you'll see in racers, essentially, is this : (Focusing on GS/Super G)
1) Their outside leg is long, their inside leg is short.
2) Their hips are driving forwards and down the hill
3) The unweighting action comes mainly from the skis themselves - you'll
notice a lot of the time the skis will actually be in the air. This is the
stiffness of the skis pushing up out of the highly arched turning state back
to their normal camber.
4) Their hips are low, almost scraping the ground, and well to the inside of
the skis. This keeps their CG low and moving down the hill instead of across
it, which keeps their momentum moving down the hill.
5) Their feet are fare enough apart that they can get maximum edge angle and
pressure on BOTH skis. But NOT so far that they can't put enough pressure
on the inside ski. You move that ski too far inside the turn, and you're in
a very weak position. Too close to the outside ski, and you're in a very
weak position balance wise, and you'll also have a lot of trouble putting
pressure on that ski without detracting from pressure on the outside ski.

No, they're not even weighted. No, they're not always shoulder width apart.
Turns change because of snow conditions, hill conditions, radius of turn,
shape of turn, speed, and so on and so forth. Its dynamic. Racers are just
like the rest of us - they're not perfect. A lot of the time, they're just
along for the ride.

But I doubt you'll ever hear a race coach say "Ok now, in that transition,
pick up that inside ski and chunk it right in next to that outside ski
there, as close as you can get. Thats it!

One more point: Still photos, unless in a sequence shot, are fairly useless
unless you know exactly what part of the turn the racer is in. Usually they
take stills at gates because, well, its dramatic. But by that point, on
most turns, the transition to the next turn has actually already started.
Edge angles are changing, balance is changing, weight is changing - its a
dynamic situation.

Jon Bond

"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.

Some hints:
1) Start on an easy slope. And not from the top of the mountain unless
you've got a small mountain, or a buddy carrying your ski. It ain't easy!
2) Keep the other boot essentially where it would be if you had a ski on it.
Its position will be slightly different because you don't have the torque
and weight of the ski, but don't pull it way up into your body or put it on
top of the other boot or anything. Just pretend it has a ski on it.
3) Don't put your free boot on the snow, even to stop. You're just gonna
twist yourself up and get hurt... even if you're going super slow. Trust
me on this one!
4) Focus on being smoooooth. Inside turns are hard, you're going to have to
use a bit more body english on them without the other ski to help. You
really have to exaggerate it until you get the hang of it.
5) Carving is much less tiring than skidding, so do it. Its also a lot
easier to keep your balance!
6) You might want to try it with BOTH skis on and just will yourself to pick
up one ski for the whole run. Its more awkward, but it helps. You can keep
the tip on the snow if you want a bit of a safety net.
7) Have fun

Jon Bond