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Two thoughts:
- I’ve described some of this to struggling skiers as staying in the middle of your possible motions. That’s really what we mean when we say “face the fall line” or “stay in an athletic stance.” When we turn right across the fall line, our most likely next motion is going to be to transition in the opposite direction, and we’ll be more responsive and be able to generate a lot more power if our body is coiled for that next move. It’s important to remember, though, that in a long radius turn the likelihood of that next motion being in the opposite direction is less, so it makes sense for your shoulders to face more in the direction of travel than strictly down the fall line. AND it’s always in the realm of possibility that you’ll have to cut further uphill to avoid a rock or tree or snowboarder so you can’t coil too tightly, no matter your turn shape. Same thing goes for up and down motion and remaining flexed and stacked at all times… though that’s a lot more intuitive and obvious and there isn’t quite so much dogma to work against with that one. The point is, consider all the places you might need to go and stay as close to the middle of those motions as possible, weighted toward likelihood.
- With more traditional, cambered skis I used to pursue more upper/lower body articulation to achieve higher edge angles, plus it felt cool. Dallying my rens for years, though, that didn’t work. I found that I had a lot more steering control if they were always underfoot and I remained pretty vertically stacked at all times, even if I was leaned way over in a carve. It’s fun to be able to do that when I get on more traditional skis, but more and more I find I just always stay stacked and feel that sensation of retraction in transitions rather than that hip movement. Possible my hips are just getting old, too, and don’t move the way they used to.
Hoji is a reference point for this… is Mark Abma, too?
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this has been a really helpful thread. my background is coming to skiing late (last 10 years and mostly backcountry) and just getting a couple days on my first reverse camber ski (bc110).
i have had lots of fun but for me the challenges and parts im figuring out are:
- given the mount, how little ski is in front of me, 'feels' like ill be less stablr at speed
- finding my balance always; when pitches get steeper i am doing alot of fore/aft adjustment with my body to find the sweet spot. when i want to scrub speed i really lean back rather than using my edges just because my body naturally finds that feels good
lots of good enjoyable parts (sliding around on bases is really fun, love how easy to pivot they are when things get tight) but wondering if the above is all me getting used to this type of ski. ill be keeping the main ideas from up thread in mind while skiing tomorrow (staying stacked, initiating turns with pinky/toe, driving through the bases more).
fun learnings all round though. snow has been great round whistler area as well; hard not to enjoy.
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Great ideas here.
Last two winters getting more into progressive mounts. That and more reverse.
It is different coming from old school pressure the shin habits.
But it is refreshing. Not just something new. But really just standing there. Like when you don’t have skis on. You just stand there. On your feet.
Relaxed.
Intuitive.
Fun.
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Thx gaijin for entertaining my request to start this thread :)
Core Shot, you got me thinking about dynamic ankle flexion and extension through the turn. Deb Armstrong recently revisited the topic in one of her vids that the algorithm popped. I think ankle flexion and (extension) works with reverse cambered skis too, perhaps to a lesser degree though.. I find myself much more centered skiing the unicycle then the full suspension.
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One note, cause Ive been thinking about this over the last month now and then - Pretty sure even the most committed progressive skiers will have their shins into front of the boots when things get really steep - like maybe 35+ angles. I do it for sure, often without even thinking about it. Keeps your skis form getting out in front and happens naturally as you retract for each turn.
