Skating Elitism.

Over the last year there have been many interesting comments about
classic style skiing here at RSN. One writer stated it was a joke about
all the discussion over learning good classical technique when clearly
there is more to skating. Another writer suggested there are more
classical entrants currently in the Keskinada because they are less
fit. This fall several writers stated classical skiing was a fringe
thing and basically just required double poling hmmm... After seeing a
video posted on this newsgroup of one writer skating, I get a feeling
these folks cannot ski classical proficiently, but I digress. It is
interesting to understand where they get this sense of elitism versus
classical technique. Perhaps, because they ski faster than the
tourists, or because they have bigger ones. Yeah... were talking about
poles here. To think classic skiing requires less skill, or stamina is
a clear disregard for the history of the sport. Can you picture the two
birkebeiner's carrying the future king of Norway through the mountains
on skate skis. They asked all the peasants to roll logs over the
mountain passes to pack the deep snow. Now with peasant grooming they
could ski skate the child king to safety. If you think classic skiing
requires less skill, fitness, or has no appeal try telling this to over
12,000 entrants who race in the Norwegian Birkebeiner every year. If
you don't know, this is a World Loppet Classic event.

The main reason that skating is so emphasized in this group is the strong
focus on the relatively minor world of gung-ho racing among most posters,
and skating is a race-oriented sport and the faster of the two (given
certain caveats, see below). It almost seems its the only reason most
r.s.n'ers ski. RSN'ers tend to be more interested in racing results than
the recreational aspects of groomed trail skiing, let alone touring or any
other cross country endeavor. Absolutely nothing wrong with this. It's a
terrific sport which I love although I'm a very slow racer. But it's just a
small part of nordic XC, but you wouldn't know that by the emphasis of this
group. Really, a better group name would be rec.skiing,nordic-racing.

To me there's no doubt that classical skiing requires more skill and
technique as well is a far more versitile sport (from racing to trail
breaking, to on and off track touring, and everything in between). There's
so much beyond fitness and racing involved, and that may be why real
athletic skiers, new to the sport, tend to focus on skating and ignore
striding. Fitness requirements vs. skating is probably not an issue - elite
skiers in both need to be fit.

Skating (here I'm referring to those who skate only, and there are a bunch)
more likely attracts those who don't want to mess with the nuances of
technique and the waxing skill that is needed just to become effective in
classical and/or have no interest in touring or off-track skiing. People
can just get on skating gear and power their way around the groomed courses
without having much technique or having to get out of the comforts of
civilization. I think there's a steeper learning curve and more messing
around with classical skiing. Atheletic people new to the sport just don't
want to or can't mess with it because the skill they have in classic sking
at that stage just won't take full advantage of their athletic ability (at
least as far as race results go).

Of course, there's a lot of technique in skating, and I enjoy it a lot.
There's no doubt that given warm winter temps (above 0F) an expensively
maintained, wide cleared, highly developed and machine groomed track, it is
the faster of the two. But it requires a very well developed trail to do,
compared to every type of classic skiing you can name. It's really not a
sport you can do on trails that are at all natural. Sort of like hiking on
a road vs. a low impact, nearly-natural trail.

Classical cross country skiing is the most natural and utilitarian snow
sport and has the most history, a history I personally love. Having started
skiing as a back country tourer, when striding was the only nordic cross
country technique, if anything, I tend to view excellent classic skiers as
the more elite skiers - I tend to be elitist in that way. I'll admit that
my personal bias is that skater-only skiers are incomplete. I respect an
excellent classical skier more than an excellent skater. Just my bias.
Classic skiing, in all it's variations from racing to mountain touring is
just so much more fun. If I had to give up one, I'd give up skating in a
heartbeat. People who don't classic ski are missing the true essence of snow
sport, but don't know it.

Just one guys personal opinion of course,

Cam

Good trolling..

JT

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"John Forrest Tomlinson" skrev i melding
...
Good trolling..

Due to very little snow, the grooming machine have not been used here were I
live, until now. The only way to ski has been to make the tracks ourself on
a few cm of snow. Skating has been almost impossible. It means that people
that do not ski classic, have had a bad month.

My humble opinion is that disciplines like biathlon and nordic combined
would have been much more fun to watch if classic skiing also had been
included, in addition to skating.

--
Terje Henriksen
Kirkenes

Personally, I had more fun racing the Birkie when it was all classic than after
skating took over. It was a blast hopping from track to track catching people,
passing them, having them pass you back.

john wilke
milwaukee

On Fri, 24 Dec 2004 16:11:12 -0900, "Camilo"
wrote:

To me there's no doubt that classical skiing requires more skill and
technique as well is a far more versitile sport (from racing to trail
breaking, to on and off track touring, and everything in between). There's
so much beyond fitness and racing involved, and that may be why real
athletic skiers, new to the sport, tend to focus on skating and ignore
striding.

I'm starting my 6th season x-c skiing coming from an alpine background
(being a PSIA alpine instructor for close to 20 years). I took up
x-c because many of my cycling cohorts did it as a fun as well as
effective winter cross-training, and alpine only keeps the quads in
shape.

Interestingly, the majority of my group skis classical only, followed
by a fair number who both stride and skate, followed by a tiny few who
skate only.

It never occurred to me taking up the sport that I wouldn't do both.
We are lucky to have two private resorts within an hour drive which
groom for both, and a huge variety of trail systems all over the place
for touring. I rarely if ever go to a resort with grooming without
all my equipment, and it is a flip of the coin whether I skate or
stride first. But I will do both unless the snow is too warm or too
icy for classical.

My experience over the past seasons echoes what Nordic PSIA
instructors advise: Classical is easier to learn but harder to
master; skating is harder to learn, but easier to master.

Classical starts out as the more intuitive because the movements are
natural, while the skating poling techniques are counter-intuitive and
take a while to become coordinated. But once the basics of both are
learned and the fine tuning and real mastery of the sports begin, it
is fairly clear that classical is the harder and more subtle
technique. Not to mention the art and science of grip waxing.

So it is no wonder that many skiers new to the sport will opt for
glide waxing only, and the speed and relative simplicity of skating
technique, even if skating up hills is the hardest physical activity
known to mankind :-)

But any skater who gets passed on the trail by a classic skier who
truly knows how to ski understands what the real deal is.

Doug Taylor wrote
skating is harder to learn, but easier to master . . .
classical is the harder and more subtle technique.

V1 skate technique by a Top-20 World Cup racer has more complex subtle moves
than any Classic technique -- once you take time to deeply analyze a video
of an elite racer and discover all the non-obvious, non-intuitive moves, and
start to understand the physics and biomechanics underlying them.

It's not "elitism", just physics (or mechanical engineering):
If you have a mechanical assembly with many parts and links, you get many
more degrees-of-freedom in the system if you allow 3-dimensional
coordination, than if you artificially limit the effective work it can do to
a mostly 2-dimensional coordination. Skating is fully 3-dimensional, Classic
is not. I think lots of people think Skating is easier to "master" because
they only understand some quasi-2-dimensional simplification of it -- so
they're not aware of the other creative possibilities.

the skating poling techniques are counter-intuitive
and take a while to become coordinated.

The poling coordination for skating is the obvious part of technique. The
tricky part is the coordination with hips and with shoulders, and the
two-phase leg-push.

The complexity in skating that typically gets overlooked is the creative
possibilities in the multiple-joint coordination and 3-dimensionality of the
leg-push from hip to ski. Because we think, "Just push on the ski with my
leg -- how hard could that be?"

Ken

"Ken Roberts" wrote in message
...
Doug Taylor wrote
skating is harder to learn, but easier to master . . .
classical is the harder and more subtle technique.

V1 skate technique by a Top-20 World Cup racer has more complex subtle
moves
than any Classic technique -- once you take time to deeply analyze a video
of an elite racer and discover all the non-obvious, non-intuitive moves,
and
start to understand the physics and biomechanics underlying them.

This is an interesting comment that I haven't heard before from any coach or
teacher that I've been associated with. But I'm interested to see what
other folks think. Although my personal opinion is that classic technique
has more subtle and difficult to master nuances, I don't claim to be an
expert.

Cam

wrote:
Over the last year there have been many interesting comments about
classic style skiing here at RSN. One writer stated it was a joke about
all the discussion over learning good classical technique when clearly
there is more to skating. Another writer suggested there are more
classical entrants currently in the Keskinada because they are less
fit. This fall several writers stated classical skiing was a fringe
thing and basically just required double poling hmmm... After seeing a
video posted on this newsgroup of one writer skating, I get a feeling
these folks cannot ski classical proficiently, but I digress. It is
interesting to understand where they get this sense of elitism versus
classical technique. Perhaps, because they ski faster than the
tourists, or because they have bigger ones. Yeah... were talking about
poles here. To think classic skiing requires less skill, or stamina is
a clear disregard for the history of the sport. Can you picture the two
birkebeiner's carrying the future king of Norway through the mountains
on skate skis. They asked all the peasants to roll logs over the
mountain passes to pack the deep snow. Now with peasant grooming they
could ski skate the child king to safety. If you think classic skiing
requires less skill, fitness, or has no appeal try telling this to over
12,000 entrants who race in the Norwegian Birkebeiner every year. If
you don't know, this is a World Loppet Classic event.

I don't skate for a couple of reasons:
1) the trails just across the street are all hiking trails and way too
narrow to skate.
2) all the places I ski have no grooming at all (although sometimes I am
glad the snowshoers have knocked snow down for me!), and skating seems
to only work on groomed surfaces.
Skating is just too limiting as to where I can ski.
gr

You're very sensitive. Classical tempo is different than skating in a
way that makes it easier to do when one isn't in peak shape. Consider
that one can go up a steep hill or a long incline at a variety of paces
in classical, but skating doesn't allow as much flexibility. Beyond
that, in the midwest and other areas where snowfall isn't measured in
feet, or temps go through a melt/freeze cycle frequently, skating
naturally predominates. Beyond that, Americans just love speed. Still,
many of the midwest races, for instance, are classical or have an
official classical components. I also refer you to Ralph Thornton's
summary of the late 80s Soviet training experiment, where the half of
the team that trained 2/3 classical did better on the WC circuit than
those who trained 2/3 skate.

Gene

wrote:

Over the last year there have been many interesting comments about
classic style skiing here at RSN. One writer stated it was a joke about
all the discussion over learning good classical technique when clearly
there is more to skating. Another writer suggested there are more
classical entrants currently in the Keskinada because they are less
fit. This fall several writers stated classical skiing was a fringe
thing and basically just required double poling hmmm... After seeing a
video posted on this newsgroup of one writer skating, I get a feeling
these folks cannot ski classical proficiently, but I digress. It is
interesting to understand where they get this sense of elitism versus
classical technique. Perhaps, because they ski faster than the
tourists, or because they have bigger ones. Yeah... were talking about
poles here. To think classic skiing requires less skill, or stamina is
a clear disregard for the history of the sport. Can you picture the two
birkebeiner's carrying the future king of Norway through the mountains
on skate skis. They asked all the peasants to roll logs over the
mountain passes to pack the deep snow. Now with peasant grooming they
could ski skate the child king to safety. If you think classic skiing
requires less skill, fitness, or has no appeal try telling this to over
12,000 entrants who race in the Norwegian Birkebeiner every year. If
you don't know, this is a World Loppet Classic event.