by AnI » Sun Dec 09, 2018 5:04 pm
Mikhail, seems you were adjusting cuffs in a wider stance than you need to. HSS recommends ski stance (which is narrower than hip width) stance for cuff alignment. Stance width is important when it comes to cuff alignment assessment because, obviously, the wider your feet are, the more your shins are tilted inwards, while cuffs would remain close to vertical. "Natural stance" which you used, I assume, is your street stance which is about hip width wide.
Cuff alignment has been around for a long time. HSS did not invent it, but they incorporated it into their overall alignment process flow. What is important for PMTS-ers is in which sequence footbeds, cuff alignment, and boot plating are done - and all of these steps are parts of the standard process flow. If your boots have already been plated, do not touch your cuffs unless a PMTS coach or a person with training and experience in alignment decides that an adjustment is needed and until the current settings of the eccentrics are marked. This is because cuff adjustment and under-boot plates have overlapping effects. They do not do the same thing, but they influence each other. If you find that your cuffs were set wrong and change their settings in a significant manner, your alignment could also shift and you might need to get under-boot angles re-assessed and adjusted. You may open a whole can of worms by messing up with your cuffs on plated boots. On the other hand, this overlap in effects enables one to accurately tune the balance using under-boot plates, without worrying too much about achieving perfection in setting up the cuff (as long as cuffs are in a reasonably correct position).
You did not describe your background and equipment which you have. If you do not have proper footbeds, or your alignment is off, you might feel that correctly set cuffs do not feel right while skiing on the snow. If you do not have footbeds and your boots are not plated and will not be plated because you are not anywhere close to a shop which can do it, maybe what you suggested, adjusting cuffs while balancing on one leg, could work better for you - hard to say. You should not feel a strong pressure from your cuffs on either side of your leg - unless you are trying to substitute under-sole alignment with action of the cuffs, as it was suggested in some non-PMTS books published some 10-15 years ago. That, of course, is considered wrong by HSS.