Skiing Technique / Photo Critique Thread

[JimG.]

for some reason when I ski,(I never noticed until pointed out by an instructor(required lessons)) but I usually move around my upper body when I'm skiing turns like I will twist my shoulders and stuff. It doesn't happen always but I can catch myself doing it. Seems like I can't stop it

Twisting your upper body is a common error. Try this:

Holding your poles straight up and down with your hands in the MIDDLE of the poles, keep your hands up and in front of you, about shoulder width apart.

The poles will now make a "frame" for the terrain ahead. Look down the slope and pick an object like a tree that is a good distance from you. Now frame that tree with your poles and keep that tree in the middle of the frame. Now ski.

Don't let that tree move out of the middle of your frame. This drill will effectively immobilize your upper body and force you to move your legs underneath you as you turn creating a sense of upper/lower body separation. Practice.

 

[JimG.]

Here's me letting my hand drop back and down..
Click
Only a dozen or so days on tele and leathers..

Can't view the vid, but I would imagine that keeping hands up and in front of you must be alot tougher on tele gear.

 

[JimG.]

Here's me letting my hand drop back and down..
Click
Only a dozen or so days on tele and leathers..

Can't view the vid, but I would imagine that keeping hands up and in front of you must be alot tougher on tele gear.

OK, just saw the pic...I think you're being pretty hard on yourself, it doesn't look like your hand is behind you; the inside hand is a little low, something I'm always aware of and correcting in my own skiing.

So, match the pitch of the slope and move that inside hand up a little and you're gold.

 

[NYDrew]

JD,
I just started tele, so take my comments with a grain of salt. I think you are supposed to square your upper body more with the fall line. That will help you get that back arm more foward.

I dont know if this is right, its just from my observation of more advanced free heelers and what I have found feels more technical for myself.

 

[redalienx11]

I think you are supposed to square your upper body more with the fall line. That will help you get that back arm more foward.

Thats exactly right.

Telemarking requires a more dramatic "twist" in the upperbody than alpine.

Allen & Mike Telemark Tips has some great tips for this. The one that I connected with was sayig to visualize keeping both your hands on a control panel down the hill.

 

[JD]

Yup. I KNOW this. I don't always DO this.

 

[NYDrew]

Well, as a beginner telemarker (its real funny how by being an alpine instructor, i can kinda interpret things to teach teli but not do it) its good to know I'm not creating any bad habits which would need to be killed at a higher level.


The video instructor at telemark tips makes me laugh. He needs to work on that. He is also teaching wedge-edge-tele which I find kinda useless being I skipped that part by being an expert alpine. I wish he had drills for alpine skiier to discover tele turns.

 

[ckofer]

Take a look at the shots of a good extreme skiers. Note his or her hand and upper body position. Commit that to memory.

Now watch someone who seems to be struggling down the hill. Sometimes you will catch them with hand which corresponds to the down hill ski (left turn, right hand) actually crossing over the skis and on the uphill side of things while the legs are traversing.

Now lets say this is how the person skis. To make the right-hand turn and continue with this style, the upper body must rotate about 270 degrees. Alternately, the expert skier seems to have two rails under his or her armpits that go straight down the hill and all the turning takes place near the belly button.

A good practice is to find a run near a lift and keep your hands pointed to the base station (not unlike navigating a boat toward a point on the shore). You will quickly become aware how often you let your hands fall to a bad place. This may not perfect your approach but quickly you should much less thrashing in your turns.

 

[NYDrew]

Wow, chris , that is exactly what I did when I first had trouble keeping my hands downhill. I wish we had better snow for tele. I find Ice very difficult to learn on...i don't even bother strapping them on.

How do you get both feet flexed without loosing your balance...I find myself with a stiff downhill leg very often.

 

[awf170]

First: I know the quality is terrible, but you must be able to see something.
Second: Cut me some slack. I'm on skis with a 89mm waist...
http://media.putfile.com/P101000617

Austin, that looks pretty smooth and fluid. Like most folks, watch out for the lazy hands dropping down around your waist.

Keep your hands up and in front and your elbows away from your torso.

thanks jimG! Anyone else got something to say.

 

[kbroderick]

Lots of comments about hands; I'll chip in a couple of suggestions on that regard:

1. If your elbows and/or arms are in too much of a closed position, sometimes thinking about opening your hands can help; try standing still with your arms open and hands open like you're holding a giant beachball in front of you. Or, to put it another way, try opening the palms of your hands should be open in your direction of travel.

2. Although upper-lower body separation is important, modern alpine technique suggests that the torso should generally be facing the direction of travel; as such, drills that involve keeping the body in the same direction for an entire run need to be done with care (your body may end up pointing down the hill all the time if you're making short-swing turns and that's the general direction of travel, but you don't want to be getting all twisted up in medium or large-radius turns). It's certainly a worthwhile drill to accentuate that upper/lower body separation during larger turns, but you'll spend much of your time in a rather countered position that is not a modern skiing stance.

The drill I've found most useful since I stopped racing (and, as such, stopped getting coached) is ye olde one-ski run. The key aspects of the drill are (a) ski on one ski, (b) leave the other ski on but hold it off the snow, and (c) remember to stay forward while doing so. It's virtually impossible to lean in when turning the "wrong" direction, and it's physically impossible to develop too much knee angulation (which is a generally deprecated technique anyhow); when you can ski arc-to-arc on an entire, moderate-pitch run comfortably on one ski, try it without your poles. If that seems too easy, try with your boots unbuckled. Using only one ski tends to bring out any latent issues, and developing the ability to ski well on one foot can help you find your balance on two feet (including stance adjustments and the like).

 

[awf170]

Bump...

Here is a vid of me at Wawa a few days ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3BdFCTRX_g

The one problem I see right now is my upper body moves too much, but I bet there are more.

 

[Zand]

I don't have any of me... but Austin's video kind of looks like my turns... I just don't lean forward enough though.

 

[2knees]

Dont have any advice but you do look real smooth. Nicely done.

 

[riverc0il]

whoa! whole lot of cussing in that vid austin, lol! :lol: maybe it is visual deception since you are so damn skinny and tall, but one thing i have noticed while skiing with you is it seems like you could have slightly more knee bend in your posture which may help with any upper body movement. in that video, your body seems near vertical in your transition between your turns with only slight knee bend during the turn, just enough to initiate the edge. knee bend gives you shock absorbers and helps keep the movement below the waist. one tip that always stuck with me is toe, knee, and nose alignment on a vertical plane, which was one of three technique changes that completely changed my skill level when i first started taking my skiing seriously.

 

[kbroderick]

Austin: it looks like your body is never coming forward--it's always behind the plane Steve talked about (well, except that your nose isn't part of the plane--it's more like the plane described by a perpendicular line that intersects the skis at the toes). It's tough to tell from that video (not the world's highest quality), but I don't see any real loading of the ski, and I think that's at least part of the reason you bobbled on the first turn in the video. If you can manage to be more dynamic with your center of mass through the turn and progressively load the ski into the turn, you'll probably get a better response out of your skis (and if the bobble is caused by what I think it is--not enough progressive loading of the front of the ski during turn initiation--you'll take care of that, too).

Of course, trying to judge technique from a few seconds of nighttime video as compressed by YouTube probably isn't the most effective way to do things.

 

[awf170]

whoa! whole lot of cussing in that vid austin, lol! :lol: maybe it is visual deception since you are so damn skinny and tall, but one thing i have noticed while skiing with you is it seems like you could have slightly more knee bend in your posture which may help with any upper body movement. in that video, your body seems near vertical in your transition between your turns with only slight knee bend during the turn, just enough to initiate the edge. knee bend gives you shock absorbers and helps keep the movement below the waist. one tip that always stuck with me is toe, knee, and nose alignment on a vertical plane, which was one of three technique changes that completely changed my skill level when i first started taking my skiing seriously.

Yeah, I agree about the knee bend. Basically since my last three days skiing I have never leaned forward skiing before. Seriously until sunapee last week I have never even flexed my boot forward. I am improving a lot but it still feels very wierd. After looking at some frame grabs it does look like my toes, knees, and nose is in line perfectly right when I initiate the turn. The problem is that I don't evern stay like that for more than a milli-second. Basically my turns aren't connected in anyway, at all.

On a side note: Even though it feels wierd right now I really think I need to use the more forward flex notch on my boots.


Edit: Hah, I didn't even notice the cursing before. Freakin' snowboarders!

 

[JD]

Use your pole plants. Reach for your next turn. It will help you lean forward.
$.02

 

[mattchuck2]

You're a body bobber and a tail slider . . . . plus you keep your skis too close together.
This kind of thing probably works well in the bumps for you, but it looks weird on groomed stuff.

kbroderick is right, you need a more progressive edge throughout the turn, instead of a hard edge jab at the bottom of the turn. Open your stance a little and focus on clearing the inside ski first, either by moving your center of mass and freeing that leg to turn, or by using rotary skills to steer the thing around.

The good news is that a TON of people on the mountain have this problem, so you're not alone. I used to ski like this too, and a little bit of it still creeps back if I'm not careful.

 

[Skier75]

So how about this PIC of me from 1989...?? :lol:

I ski a LOT differently now...
Those were wham, bam, slam days

Okay, why can't I open this picture???