Messages posted by : Trencher
The lift is certainly an intresting place. Body languauge speaks volumes and you can often tell who wants to talk and who does not, befor a word is spoken. Skiing is very much like British society, people are often judged by thier appearance (and thier gear). The lift is the great equaliser where people from different walks of life, find thier common intrest. When you are a regular at a ski hill/resort, you get to know the other regulars on the lift. Anything from a few comments on the weather or snow conditions to details of life and families. I would say politics is the great taboo. It is quite disconcerting to find someone who you realy enjoy riding the lift with, has the opposite politcal persuasion to you. I had to take the "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing it's idiot" sticker off my snowboard (though it would not offend as many people this season as last). Trencher |
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The lift is certainly an intresting place. Body languauge speaks volumes and you can often tell who wants to talk and who does not, befor a word is spoken. Skiing is very much like British society, people are often judged by thier appearance (and thier gear). The lift is the great equaliser where people from different walks of life, find thier common intrest. When you are a regular at a ski hill/resort, you get to know the other regulars on the lift. Anything from a few comments on the weather or snow conditions to details of life and families. I would say politics is the great taboo. It is quite disconcerting to find someone who you realy enjoy riding the lift with, has the opposite politcal persuasion to you. I had to take the "Somewhere in Texas, a village is missing it's idiot" sticker off my snowboard. Trencher |
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Reflecting further, and thinking intermediate level, concentrating on the inside ski does make sense. As I mentioned above, I didn't have to make much of a conscious effort to weight the inside ski because that is good Inline skate technique. Another good reason for skiers to inline skate maybe.
When I carve turns, I initially put about 70% weight on my outside ski. At apex of the turn I"m about 50/50, so the skis share the load as the forces start to peak. In a cross under (retraction) transition, I lighten up the outside ski a little earlier than the inside ski during unweighting. Then as I extend and begin the new turn, there is more pressure on the outside ski again. At least, thats what I think I'm doing. Trencher |
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Looking at the mamyrin article, and based on my own experience, I would have to agree with the general concept. However loading the inside ski does not I think, come naturally to most people, that is getting on to the outside edge of the inside ski.
I learned to inline skate a few years ago. This was befor I started skiing. It took a lot of drill time to start putting weight on my inside skate (one those drills I've since seen race coaches using with novice racers). So I don't think going straight to weighting the inside ski would easy, but trying to keep the weight even on both skis might. If new skiers start out with the concept skis should always be parallel on corresponding edges (an inline skating term ?) and flat skis are to be avoided at first, they would be in the same mode as snowboarders. A beginner snowboarder learns the hard way to always be on edge by catching downhill edges and getting slammed. I could see taking beginner skiers through exactly the same progression that snowboarder are taught. In other words treating the two skis in parallel as a single board. Snowboarders (especially that take lessons) soon learn the importance of weight shifts along the board and I think this is a concept beginning skiers are slow to learn traditionally. and affects thier ability to carve later. But here's the big problem I see with such an approach. Snowboarding has a very steep initial learning curve. It takes several hours of work to even start linking skidded turns down the hill. So many concepts must be aquired at once, edging, weight shifts. angulation and balance. A beginning skier can be linking wedge turns down the hill in an hour, with no concept of weight shift (fore/aft), balance edging or angulation (in fact, the only concept they would have is that you pressure the outside ski to turn). It would be the easy way but harder later, or the hard way easier later. I make these comments as someone who has no experience of formal ski instruction. I was an instructer trainer of white water kayaking, and have a pretty good eye for breaking skills down and descerning the concepts involved. I love to watch ski and snowboard instructors, but would hate to be bound by the governing body's progressions, models and outlines. When I learned to ski, I wanted it to be an exercise in guided discovery, with my guide being what I saw as good or not so good on the hill. Intrestingly white water kayaking like skiing went through a fundemental change in equipment several years ago. Kayaks went from nearly 4m long to less than 2m long in a few short years. The techniques required changed drastically. It was hard for many people to adapt to the new skills and style. This was especially true for instructors. Who with ingrained models and out of date techniques really struggled. The govering body in the US was very slow to admit thier precious content no longer met the needs of students. Two aspects of this have great parallels in skiing. When the techniques taught finally change, the racers turn round and say "that's not new, we've been doing that for years". The other similarity is that the less instuction you had in the old school, the easy it is to adapt your concepts to the new school. Trencher |
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This topic came back to the top and as it is something that has intrested me since befor I started skiing (I'm really a snowboarder). I wanted to put up my observations for comment. In fact, and I really don't mean to sound conceited, I started skiing because I couldn't believe it was as hard to carve on skis as so many people made it look.
I bought a short pair of skis (130 but adult) with about a 12 m radius and set off to the top of a green run. I made sure I could hockey stop both sides and set off down the rest of the run. By the time I got to the bottom, I was making cross over medium railroad track turns with no skids. It took me the rest of the season to figure out cross under/through turns. Now snowboarders learn to turn with a skidded turn at first but anyone who boards a lot ends up carving thier turns. So what was different about skiing. It seems to me that people who learned to ski on the old straight(ish) skis made a huge change of direction (pivot) while the ski was flat during the transition. Snowboarders have always had sidecuts and even beginners skidded turns had a more consistant change of direction. So my observation was that many skiers have a tendency to flatten thier skis too early and even try to change direction during transition; a hang up from straight ski days (I understand that this maybe ok for racers having to make a gate, but not for free carving) . Skiers who start out on shaped skis may not have that problem. The other difficulty I see for experienced skiers learning to carve is that the only model they see and I see being taught is the cross under (retraction) turn. Snowboarders usually start to carve with a cross over turn. I think it is much easier to understand and get the feel of edge pressure and up/down weighting with cross over turns. This better feel makes it easier to learn to hold some weighting movement in reserve to finish the turn w/o skidding. The cross over unweighting for the transition is easier as well. Hope that makes sense Trencher |
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"pavelski is correct - the question is about slalom skis, not hybrids like the SC (though it's an incredible ski).
Note that the 9S sacrifices a bit of stability as a result - I find that medium turns at high speeds results in alot of chatter. " Skifast Yes, I understood the question, but as pavelski already noted I didn't address it directly. I was trying to suggest the Fischer race sc might be more versitile than a competion sl and as requested, fun, ie high speed medium turns w/o chatter. If hc is into hard carving small radius turns. then unless you have race plugs and 50mm risers, a Metron M11 or B5 will out inclinate a skinny waisted sl ski. Trencher |
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I almost forgot the wobble board (balance board, is that also a pivot baord ?). The type I use is circular with a half ball underneath. You can stand on it while watching TV. you can rock it around while still maintaining control. I often do squats on it. Here's a good link to show what it looks like.
http://www.fitter1.com/exercises_wb.html Trencher |
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The biggest myth for me; is that you need poles to ski. :wink:
Trencher |
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