MA Request

[Volklskier1]

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

Skier: Female age 11
Ski: Volkl Women's Pearl 111-84-111 twin tip 13.3 radius
Location: Big Burn/Snowmass

[patprof]

She would be ready for her L3 exam if she could get rid of that damn carve and learn to steer and skid her turns more.

[Max_501]

Does she race? Great to see an 11 year old ripping like that.

Do you have any video of skiing on a narrower ski? I ask because there seems to be difficulty with tipping to the LTE which may be because of the 84mm waist.

Things to consider for MA -

Does the release start by flexing the outside leg?
Does LTE tipping lead engagement to the new turn?
Are the feet pulled back at transition?
Is the inside foot held back throughout the turn?
Is there enough CB and CA and is the timing right?
Strong inside arm?
Is the pelvis included in the CB/CA movement?
Is the inside leg flexed as the turn progresses?
Is the outside leg extended as the turn progresses?
Does LTE tipping continue throughout the turn?
Is there a pole touch and how is the movement and timing?

[Volklskier1]

Hey Max:

Thanks for jumping in. She does not race. She is a park rat although she also really likes to ski powder. She hasn't been on a narrower ski all year. She insisted on these skis this year and although I kept her race tigers, I could never get her on them. Undoubtedly, being on a narrower ski would make tipping much easier. What is it that you see that leads you to difficulty in tipping to he LTE?

I like the questions you ask for analysis and I would love to know what you and others think. Don't be shy! Rip it apart.

The initiation of the turns seem to be under transition and experimentation. There are some particularly to the right where there is an extension that seems to be part of a re-centering necessitated by being caught back (no feet pull back?). Others she seems to be able to flex to release. It seems that she has a good amount of CB considering the terrain. She will naturally go to a pole touch in shorter radius turns or steeper terrain, bumps etc. There is not much continuing flexing/extending but there is continuous tipping and she does get the ski bent. When you are talking about the inside arm, are you speaking in a fore aft sense or in a vertical sense enhancing CB?

Does she race? Great to see an 11 year old ripping like that.

Do you have any video of skiing on a narrower ski? I ask because there seems to be difficulty with tipping to the LTE which may be because of the 84mm waist.

Things to consider for MA -

Does the release start by flexing the outside leg?
Does LTE tipping lead engagement to the new turn?
Are the feet pulled back at transition?
Is the inside foot held back throughout the turn?
Is there enough CB and CA and is the timing right?
Strong inside arm?
Is the pelvis included in the CB/CA movement?
Is the inside leg flexed as the turn progresses?
Is the outside leg extended as the turn progresses?
Does LTE tipping continue throughout the turn?
Is there a pole touch and how is the movement and timing?

[BigE]

I see more of an Inside Leg Extension than I do of a phantom move. There is a distinct UP in transition, sometimes even assisted by up arm movements, and the skis become unweighted in the hi-c part of the turn.

When she comes down onto the skis, they do bite, but the movements that got her there were not PMTS movements -- the movement of the upper body into the turn defined the edge angle. Sometimes the movement is inaccurate, and she comes down with a lot of weight on the inside ski.

There is some upper body rotation in the turns, and she appears to be a bit aft balanced. A lot of what is happening on the snow is happening as a result of the upper body movement. This is probably a hang-over from her park skiing.

I'd love to see what would happen to her sking in the gates.

I would narrow her stance and work on power releases.

[h.harb]

If you look at MA by reviewing, first, motivation of the subject, you come to some very interesting conclusions. This is an 11 year old skiing on 85mm wide skis. The ski selection is based on the motivation held by the skier.

If you know that the farther the ski sticks out on each side of the boot on groomed and hard snow the more difficult the ski is to tip. This makes it difficult to access the skis side cut.
So the skier due to a combination of technical considerations and ski design, especially a 70 pound skier (estimated) surfs the ski to the side and forward during transition.

I approach MA by watching for the movements that are lacking. In this case it’s moving the feet back at transition and flexing. You can’t tip if you don’t flex with an 85mm waisted ski. The skis have to become lighter if they are to be tipped. Flexing makes skis lighter.
If extension is used tipping can’t increase. If the feet are surfed tipping can’t be increased.

Given these circumstances there are limitations to change based on the skis, but changes can still be made; they will just be more difficult to access and to realize, when, and if, they happen. It’s harder to learn certain movements with wide skis.

There is no doubt, nice skiing for an 11 year old. Although I know 8 years olds with better technique. (I didn’t say more talent, don’t confuse those two).

The next consideration is, does this skier have the motivation to improve and change her skiing? This discussion has to happen early in the process or you won’t make anyone happy.

If the skier if happy skiing this way (very functional for this terrain) and wants to be in the park more than carving turns, then there is absolutely nothing wrong with the skiing.

[Volklskier1]

I approach MA by watching for the movements that are lacking. In this case it’s moving the feet back at transition and flexing. You can’t tip if you don’t flex with an 85mm waisted ski. The skis have to become lighter if they are to be tipped. Flexing makes skis lighter.
If extension is used tipping can’t increase. If the feet are surfed tipping can’t be increased.

So if I move her to the GS skis for the next couple of weeks it should make changing the movement pattern a bit easier? Do you think that keeping the feet back is related at all to strength at this age or is it the result of what is happening prior to and the transition itself?

[BigE]

Harald, is right. The 85 mm skis will effect the ability of an 11 y.o. to properly tip the skis. Since it's very hard to do that she is finding other ways.... A video of here with GS, or better yet SL skis, would be better for MA, since the very wide skis are definately affecting the quality of movement.

I know many adults that would LOVE to ski like that.

[Ken]

Note the amount of tip lead...very clear at :53 seconds. Can she try to keep her toes even, or as even as possible, reduce the tip lead, and improve the range to tip the inside ski, as well as keep her balance centered?

Can she try one-foot skiing, especially to get on the outside ski before she starts her next turn and stay on it until ready for the next turn? This will be a big help for narrowing her stance and reducing the weight on the inside ski, part of effective counterbalancing. Of course, she'll need to learn to switch her weight distribution for powder & park vs. packed snow, maybe another skill she doesn't see the need to learn at this point. Tell her that being able to balance and ski smoothly on either ski, one ski at a time, will be a huge help in powder and the park when things don't go exactly according to plan.

[jbotti]

VS, I will pass along some commentary on ski width. My daughetr just turnd ten, she is 4 5" and 51 lbs (quite light). She skis on Head XRC kids skis with alot of sidecut. She can carve very nice turns, but her love is skiing off piste (but very little park stuff, maybe she will gravitate to that in a few years). When she was skiing powder with her 3 friends and an instructor (non PMTS, but a decent instructor from the PSIA school) the instructor suggested that she get some fat skis, and that it would make it easier for her to ski in the powder. She came to me at lunch that day and asked if I would rent some powder skis for her for the afternoon. I told her that I dodn't think they would help her at all (at 51 lbs she doesn't need float), and that in fact they might make it harder. She still wanted to try them. So she got them, took two runs and said that they made skiing the powder much harder (which was correct because she got no added float, and the fatter skis were much harder to tip.

My point with your student is that even at 70lbs, she is getting zero, or close to zero benefit from an 85mm waisted ski. In fact all she is getting is a hindrence (I am willing to admit that in the park there may be some modet benefit to the wider ski, but since I am never there myself, I really don't know) to proper tipping actions. Looking at pure physics, many different studies have shown that ligher skiers need substantially less wide skis to get similar or superior float to heavier skiers. I get reasonably sufficient float on 85mm waisted skis and I am 6 3" 185 lbs!!, This means your stundet on a 64mm ski will float much better than I on my 85mm skis, and actually better than I on my 112mm skis.

My point by now is obvious, get her on some carving skis. But more importantly, have her really examine what she gets on the thinner skis and what she oses (if anything). My guess is that she will come to the same conclusion that my daughter did, which is that at her weight thin skis are much easier to ski on.

To add further emphasis, I skied with Diana and Harald for three days in 2-3 feet of fresh snow. On the epic day, where we were knee to waist deep all day, I skied my PM Gear Lhasa Pows (112mm under foot with modest tip and tail rocker). I had convinced my self that these skis had to be eaiser in the deep stuff. The next day Diana had me get on thinner skis, and really focus on the technique that we had been working on. Hands down the thinner skis were easier to ski. Why? Because tippinng from a flexed position was much easier!!!

[h.harb]

Motivation with kids is everything. Show them how they can get what they never thought of, as better than what they have, and you will always be successful with changes in behavior.

I have numerous business people, tell me, after they took our accreditation that they used our Student Directed approaches in their business and had huge success. Same goes for kids.

[A.L.E]

Do they make "sick" looking skinny skis for the park?

[Volklskier1]

It's not a matter of a "sick" look or of "float". I appreciate the thoughts though. In the park the width helps with landings and a twin tip is really necessary for switch takeoffs and landings. There is a also no riser in the mounting either so the boot is on the ski. She will hit a 40ft step down and do various 7's off it. She can also get up and out of a super pipe. There are some kids skis that were narrower in twin tip but unless you're talking race skis most kids skis aren't great for performance. Unfortunately, I can only get 1 pair of skis per year per family member.

She's motivated to improve and as the season winds down there is usually more time and interest to do that. I'll get her on the old GS skis and see what happens in the next couple of weeks.

[A.L.E]

I'm jealous you are able to talk to her about tipping etc etc....I don't have much success with mine. I guess given we only ski a couple of weeks year I'm crazy to think I should interrupt their fun.

[cheesehead]

What Harald said about motivating by showing them what they could achieve is better than what they've got is so true -- my 2 kids are totally different on how much they will take advice . My 13 year-old daughter would do anything NOT to take advice and has been like that since 2 years old, where my 8 year old son is willing to consider anything. But for BOTH of them they wouldn't take advice if they didn't see the advantage for them.

Skiing only 2 times a year? I can see how that would cut down on the motivation to spend time and effort "learning." It would be great if you could figure out how to swing it more often.

One thing I have noticed in MA's is that the PMTS skier is screaming down the slope in a way that anyone can see that they are having fun. But off to the sides you can see the other skiers, steering around turns, skidding awkwardly, and they all look like gramma and grampa standing stiff and upright and going a whole lot slower.

This example only has a brief flash like that, but if you show them one of the MA's that has better examples of that, I bet you could get motivation -- "do you want to ski like this guy zooming down, or gramma here toddling along? If you do, here's what you need to do ... "