by geoffda » Fri Nov 09, 2018 12:55 pm
Thanks for the compliments Vailsteve & Ski Moose. Thanks for jumping in Max_501 and Heluva. To add to the discussion on why I'm coming up, consider that despite the deep angles, those are actually cruising turns. Since I'm on the wrong side of the half-century mark in age, I don't have the physique of Harald or Diana, and I don't spend all of my spare time in the gym like Heluva, I don't have the strength to spend all day tearing it up. I could have somewhat (see Heluva's post above) limited my hips from rising in transition, but doing so would have required *very* aggressive retraction of the old stance leg. I wasn't in the mood to expend that kind of energy, plus I was focused on a task (relaxing the free leg down to the snow), so dialing up the pace would have required me to put more focus elsewhere. I was also backing off on the CA slightly to detune the forces that I was going to get at release. I wish I had some video from the last few days at Loveland; you could see the same movements and angles cranked up for some slalom turns. On that video, you would definitely have seen more aggressive retraction of the old stance leg and lower hips. The same turn finish would have been there too, but with the quicker rhythm and stronger CA, the skis would rocket through transition.
To answer ErikCO's question about analyzing my skiing, here is what I would say: First, my five minutes of liking this skiing are over and I'm moving forward. However, this skiing represented a fairly significant milestone for me, which is being able to make fully carved turns on a Western Blue run with speed control and turn finish. Very few skiers will ever be able to accomplish that. Of the group of skiers that can actually achieve speed control, most of them get it by driving the outside knee in to briefly and heavily load the ski tip; like a hit on the brakes. So being able to do this with foot tipping represents some pretty rarefied skiing air. Adding to my excitement, I've believed for a few years now that I should have been able to ski at this level based on my movements and it was really discouraging me that I couldn't quite get there. It turned out to be a boot issue, that once solved, allowed me to immediately start doing what I felt like I should have been able to do all along. Seeing it actually happen on video was a tremendous morale boost given how hard I work on my skiing.
But as I said, my five minutes are over. In those videos, the weakest thing is foot tipping in left turns. In turns to the right, just relaxing the free leg down is enough to start my right foot rolling over. In turns to the left, this doesn't happen with the left foot. My right boot is still not quite right alignment-wise, so it may be contributing, but in any case, left turns are somewhat park and ride. However, I can tell from the past few days of working on this that as long as I am proactive with tipping the left foot, it will roll over. If I can't make this easier with an alignment change, then the solution is just to pay more attention to that foot. On turns to the right, I would like more counterbalance. I don't have strong feet, and right now what counterbalance I'm able to get on that side doesn't leave me much margin for error. Additionally, I need to develop more CB at the end of the turn so that my torso is leaning out over my downhill ski and I'm reaching down the hill for my next pole plant. Finally, my left pole keeps dropping back and I don't like the way my arms look. I need to spend some time skiing with the first knuckle of each hand pointed upwards.
Anyway, onward and upward. The journey never ends and no matter how good we get, we can always get better. This April will mark 10 years of me skiing with PMTS (and apparently my 5th season of coaching, which I find really hard to believe). I try to put out some videos of my own skiing every once in a while so that progress in my own skiing will hopefully encourage others in their own journeys (particularly when comparing my later skiing to my earlier skiing). Whatever your skiing goals are, PMTS will get you there if you are willing to put in the work.
Last edited by
geoffda on Fri Nov 09, 2018 6:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.