I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

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I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby geoffda » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:19 pm

This is an attempt to clean up the thread drift over in the ma forum, so zd can get some MA. The original thread is here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=4573&start=15

cheesehead wrote:I really don't want to continue this but, for me at least, this is what I take away from this, that if you feel out of balance there is probably something wrong but that doesn't tell you what it is that is wrong.

I find the statements that some never feel like they are out of balance to be difficult to comprehend. Maybe the "down the mountain" part of the phrase is too loaded (I wasn't aware of such a history to the phrase): if it was changed to, "I never feel like I am falling," is that really true? Those are your words--are you really always perfectly in balance??


I have no idea what you mean by feeling in or out of balance. I have some idea of what it feels like to me. I do know what it means to *be* in or out of balance and I can tell you that the only time I'm out of balance in my skiing is if I've made a mistake or gotten surprised by terrain or snow conditions. This does not happen very often. By definition good skiing is being in balance at all times.

Does that mean that if you feel out of balance, something is wrong? Not necessarily. Without knowing how your feelings around balance correlate to your actual state of balance, I can't comment. You may well be in balance even though you feel that you aren't. Probably this isn't the case, but it certainly could be. But we don't have to rely on your feelings. Watching you ski, we can watch things like whether your feet get behind your hips at the right part of the turn, whether you are leaning onto your inside ski, whether you are making unnatural movements, etc. These are objective criteria with which your skiing can be evaluated and we can definitively say whether you are in balance.

I have no idea what you mean by feeling like you are falling. I know what falling feels like to me and I never have that sensation in my skiing. That you have this feeling does not necessarily mean you are doing something wrong. If I could somehow get in your head and experience what you associate with the "feeling of falling", I might be able to tell you definitively, but I can't. What I can do is watch your skiing and tell you if you are managing fore-aft properly. If you are managing fore-aft correctly, then there is nothing wrong with thinking that it feels like falling and using that sensation to help you produce good skiing.

Just don't assume that what you think you feel will make any sense to anyone else. That is the lesson from this thread. The idea that we can use feelings to establish any common ground for communicating is completely false. Nobody can understand what things feel like to you, we only know what they feel like to us. And as you've discovered, there is considerable room for disagreement. This is why threads on other ski forums often end up getting so ridiculous. People either spend all of their time trying to define things so they can communicate or they just argue past each other. This problem is easily avoided with PMTS by describing skiing in terms that are objective and verifiable.

High level skiing is difficult to describe and there are things that you must figure out for yourself. PMTS lays out the groundwork for this self discovery, but there are no shortcuts. I can tell you from experience that knowing what something you are trying to get feels like to somebody else isn't helpful. I've even asked the "what does this feel like" question to Diana, and while she answered, she was absolutely correct in adding that it wouldn't likely help me.

As you have seen, when you try to tell people that they should feel like they are falling, it results in confusion. None of us know whether the feeling you are trying to describe is the same feeling that we associate with falling. That is why we try to avoid talking about what skiing feels like.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby theorist » Tue Jan 20, 2015 2:49 pm

I hope this doesn't get me in too much hot water....

I hear what you're saying, and I think it's generally true (and very nicely explained). However, I think Matt raised a fair point in the last thread. Consider, for instance, the following interchange from 2013:

Max_501 wrote:What would you feel if you held the arc until the point that the boot was perpendicular to the fall line?

HighAngles wrote:Increasing pressure, correct?

Max_501 wrote:Like a big arse linebacker is trying to rip the ski out from under you! :D


My take-away, which I think addresses Matt's point, is that there appear to be two categories of feelings: those which aren't generalizable (this is by far the largest category, and it's what you are discussing above), and those few that are (or at least generally are), such as what Max was referring to.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby Matt » Tue Jan 20, 2015 3:34 pm

So what is the definition of "being in balance" anyway? It is not an easy question to answer.
In a dynamic turn the forces from the outside ski almost never coincide with the location of the center of mass, so in that sense we are never in balance if the often used definition of forces passing through CoM is used as a definition.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby geoffda » Tue Jan 20, 2015 5:10 pm

When you spend enough time doing the movements slowly and deliberately, you will develop an understanding of what it means to be in balance.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby h.harb » Tue Jan 20, 2015 6:24 pm

In balance is when the ski is made to function and do what you intended it to do. Out of balance is when you have to exert external or muscular effort to twist, wrench or push the ski to save your arse.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby Max_501 » Tue Jan 20, 2015 7:38 pm

theorist wrote:My take-away, which I think addresses Matt's point, is that there appear to be two categories of feelings: those which aren't generalizable (this is by far the largest category, and it's what you are discussing above), and those few that are (or at least generally are), such as what Max was referring to.


It's all about context. I can certainly show you what a bent ski feels like. But its an outcome of proper inputs, so if you chase that feeling you'll be chasing a dead end without the proper movements in place. The reason we teach students what a heavily bent ski feels like is because many will back off the movements as soon as they feel that forebody pressure. Obviously that doesn't work if your goal is to carve steep icy slopes!

With regards to the other thread, keep in mind that we were addressing a specific point. If you read the full thread the context should be crystal clear. If you feel like you are falling down the mountain during the foot pull back movement then you are doing something wrong. PERIOD!

Now, enough of this nonsense. Anyone that thinks falling down the mountain is normal feeling should start with page 1 of book 1 and go from there. Get video and post it so we can identify the SMIM and then they can work on that. All the rest of this debating/questioning/whatever is a total waste of time.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby cheesehead » Tue Jan 20, 2015 10:27 pm

Yesterday I was trying to figure out what the big deal was about this falling down feeling. I ended up falling down about 10 times. So it definitely didn't help me!
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby theorist » Wed Jan 21, 2015 10:02 am

Max_501 wrote:If you feel like you are falling down the mountain during the foot pull back movement then you are doing something wrong. PERIOD!

...Now, enough of this nonsense....this debating/questioning/whatever is a total waste of time.

Yes, exactly, and that's precisely my point: While the general rule is that statements about feelings are purely individual to the skier, there are key exceptions, like the one you mention here. Given this, it's pedagogically less confusing to the the student to simply acknowledge this explicitly: "Remember the rule about feelings? This is one of the few exceptions." That way you won't get "wait, I'm confused, I thought the rule was...." This is a basic principle of teaching; it's hardly fair to call it nonsense, and I don't believe that reducing student confusion is a waste of time.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby h.harb » Wed Jan 21, 2015 2:20 pm

Your feelings about skiing never tell you what you are really doing.
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby Max_501 » Wed Jan 21, 2015 7:00 pm

This topic is getting over complicated because some are forgetting to consider the context of prior posts.

Context - Internal Cues: The rule is that you can't rely on feelings as an internal cue for success or failure (e.g. "It feels like I have huge angles so I must be tipping like crazy!).

Context - Student backing away from pressure: I can show a student what a bent ski feels like by lifting the tip while they are standing on the ski. Its not uncommon for their eyes to open wide as a light bulb turns on. In this case we aren't teaching the student to ski based on feeling or even looking for a feeling as an outcome. We are just saying we don't want them to back away from a bent ski.

The rule is simple - you can't rely on what you are feeling as an indication of proper movement patterns. If you want to know what you are doing get video.

And if you haven't read this classic thread in a while it's worth reading again -

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2840
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Re: I have no idea what your skiing feels like to you

Postby h.harb » Wed Jan 21, 2015 7:19 pm

This is what I would add, you are the worst self analyst of your own skiing. You are fooling yourself. If you want to fool yourself, instead of learning to ski better, keep analyzing without providing video. You sure aren't fooling anyone else except yourself. You aren't fooling us.


And the below comments are so prevalent, it's sickening.
HH wrote: If you read a TTS forum or Epic Ski forum, PSIA approaches to MA, they always begin with, "There are many good things going on in your skiing". And if you look one layer deeper, that statement doesn't hold water. So why begin with it? If there are good things, say what they are. If it's not there, you're not doing it, and you're not doing anyone any favors by saying it, unless it's true.

This is Soft feel good MA, does no one any good, it's a momentary "feel good" for the skier, but it's useless on the slopes when you have to go out and ski. Also, it's just a gimmick to set you up for what's coming next, which is what that instructor has been pre-programed to see, usually what he sees isn't what is happening.

Cheerleading is really false praise, you hear it so much in TTS lessons, it's sickening. Cheerleading is for instructors who don't know how to get results or teach. Personally I'm insulted when someone blows smoke up my ass. And really, who can't see through it?
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