I've spent some time thinking about alignment in general, and canting in particular. I'd appreciate any insight from the people on the forum on these issues.
To better describe my questions, I'll take myself as an example: I'm knock kneed, and it appears to be more on my right side. For a while ago, I got a suggestion to cant my right boot, which I have found to be very beneficial to my skiing. However, after having decided to try canting, I got a bit confused about how to apply it: the tools available to me was a plastic wedge, with appx. 1 degree tilt. The idea was to place this wedge under the heel of my boot. But the question became: on which side of the heel (inside vs outside) to place the thick side of of wedge ? From a theoretical point of view, I could find arguments for both approaches:
a) place the thick side of the wedge on the outside of the heel, which would allow my knee to stay in its normal position, but still (hopefully) flattening the skis contact with the snow by modifying the angle where the boot attaches to the binding, i.e. tilting the ski.
b) place the thick side of the wedge on the inside of the heel, i.e. attempting to mitigate my knockneedness, by moving my knee out.
I went for alternative b, and it turned out to be very beneficial, but I'm just wondering whether I could have had similar, positive effect by attempting alternative a.
An other way to describe the difference in the two alternatives might be that in a) you make a modification to the "geometry" of your gear, while keeping the body stacked as it is, while in b) you modify the stacking of your body.
A second question is about the difference (if any) about what can be done in terms of canting, when using custom made (like Harb ski systems) footbeds, and using canting wedges/shims ? Assuming a "perfect" footbed, would there still be any need to use a wedge/shim ? I guess that footbeds, in addition to allowing for adjustment of alignment, also have aspects in supporting the foot, and comfort, but it seems to me that a "perfect" footbed would make any additional canting unnecessary?
Cheers,
Tommy