Diagonal Question

On Jul 20, 1:19 pm, "Scott Elliot" wrote:
Ski slap almost always results from an incomplete weight transfer to the
glide ski. The recovering ski comes down hard and early in order to retain
balance. If weight is transferred to the glide ski there is no need to
bring the free ski down before its time.

Scott

"JJ" wrote in message

...

After the kick, it seems like the only way I can avoid the dreaded "ski
slap" is to purposely slow down the return of the kicking leg (on its way
back to the starting, or neutral position, or whatever you call it). This
seems dreadfully inefficient. I would guess that proper technique would
be to just let the leg return without any conscious effort - but I can't
seem to make that work. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,

-JJ

Scott is right - you're sitting back and the center of gravity is
behind you.

After you kick, you should be able to balance completely on the other
ski and leave the kicking ski out behind you (in fact, it's a great
dryland drill to do in running shoes or rollerski, or on snow). My
guess is you can't hold that position. Instead, you fall back and have
to catch yourself on the trailing foot - because your center of
gravity is behind you.

Practice standing on one foot in a diagonal stride position, hips
forward, and swing the other (kicking) leg back and forward. You
should be able to balance on one leg.

On rollerskis and on snow, practice ending your kick by gliding as
long as you can on the other foot before driving the rear leg forward.
If you can't do it, you're sitting back on your skis. Think about
getting your hips more forward.

A good tip that I learned many years ago is to put your hips in a
forward position at the point where you'd fall on your face if you
didn't kick the trailing leg forward in time. You can practice this in
running shoes.

Mike

"NordicSkiRacer" wrote in message
ps.com...
On Jul 20, 1:19 pm, "Scott Elliot" wrote:
Ski slap almost always results from an incomplete weight transfer to the
glide ski. The recovering ski comes down hard and early in order to
retain
balance. If weight is transferred to the glide ski there is no need to
bring the free ski down before its time.

Scott

(snip)

Scott is right - you're sitting back and the center of gravity is
behind you.

After you kick, you should be able to balance completely on the other
ski and leave the kicking ski out behind you (in fact, it's a great
dryland drill to do in running shoes or rollerski, or on snow). My
guess is you can't hold that position. Instead, you fall back and have
to catch yourself on the trailing foot - because your center of
gravity is behind you.

Practice standing on one foot in a diagonal stride position, hips
forward, and swing the other (kicking) leg back and forward. You
should be able to balance on one leg.

On rollerskis and on snow, practice ending your kick by gliding as
long as you can on the other foot before driving the rear leg forward.
If you can't do it, you're sitting back on your skis. Think about
getting your hips more forward.

A good tip that I learned many years ago is to put your hips in a
forward position at the point where you'd fall on your face if you
didn't kick the trailing leg forward in time. You can practice this in
running shoes.

Mike


Thanks, Mike and Scott. I'll play around with this on my next rollerski
session. I've been working on getting my hips forward, but must still be
messing something up. When I do the dry-land drill (one foot, diagonal
stride position, then kick off and land on the other foot, and hold for a
while), I don't seem to do all that bad with balance. Very puzzling, but
I'll keep all your comments in mind while troubleshooting this issue.

On a short video I recorded last winter, at the Frisco Gold Rush (Colorado),
the 10k men's classic winner, Scott Oberbreckling, seemingly floats down the
track (on an uphill, to boot). He makes it look effortless, while most of
those who follow him are basically running on skis. I've been working on
getting the footage uploaded to YouTube, but need to edit it (shorten it,
basically, due to a dial-up connection). Anyway, long story short: I want
to ski like Scott!