Where Does/Should Separation Happen?

[LiquidFeet]

....I've found that the Schlopy drill can be fairly effective, even with students making simple wedge turns. Finally, you can have a student make a cage around the pelvis with ski poles, straps around baskets. The position of that cage while skiing doesn't lie. The student will see and feel where the hips are.....

Yes, the Schlopy works very well. I use it all the time. I love that drill. It's even elegant.

I've not used the "hip-o-meter" pole thing you're describing with novices. If they fall, those poles threaten to get tangled up with the skier. The skiers recognize this threat and it makes them feel insecure. How do you keep your students from getting freaked out by the poles sticking out like that?

 

[Doby Man]

I think he's saying it's good to simply focus on turning the head and the feet in opposite directions, and see what one can do with the body parts in between to accomplish this task. --- If I have understood him correctly.

Yes. Of the four types of developmental skiing mentioned in another post, this is somewhere between modified skiing and focussed skiing. As far as your concerns regarding safety, I think that drills, exaggerated movement and the others all have seperate risk assessments that needs to be judged based on a number of real time variables, the most significant of which is the customer's athletic inclination. The typical one and done 8 student instructor scenario does not extend to the instructor much capacity to individualize the lesson as well as makes overall safety more of a concern. I am no longer ever surprised at what a beginner can do on day one compared to what an advanced intermediate skier can't do to save their own life. A skier's worst traits are often their most stubborn habits that tend to follow them everywhere they go and harden as they advance in spite of it.

(rant) I am always much more impressed with skiers who are able to manage a fast pace of development simply due to their competency in learning than compared to what their actual ability is. That is probably why I am not as impressed as others with WC level skiers, almost all of whom were born and bred with a silver ski on their foot. WC racers only "deserve" comparison with other WC racers. But most of them know that in spite of how the typical fan prefers to accolade them as Gods of "all" skiers. Even then, it is "typical" that the best WC racers had access to the best of everything from day one, Shiffrin being and excellent example. Take any urban minority out of the hood who would have had the capacity to succeed at any top level collegiate sport and give him or her the upbringing and resources that Shiffrin had and you will end up with about that many similarly elite top racers. Sometimes, it is easy to forget that skiing has always been and always will be a sport of economic privilege. If it weren't, we'd see the same numbers of participants as in basketball and football and the competition level would be so high that Shiffrin's current skill level would be average in the WC. When we see pro football players climb to the top, it is a mountain compared to the WC hill that may only be a mountain on a financial basis. So, you see, being a sport of privilege weakens the competition and it is the strength competition itself that is the "true" privilege of any sport.

 

[Chris V.]

I've not used the "hip-o-meter" pole thing you're describing with novices. If they fall, those poles threaten to get tangled up with the skier. The skiers feel this threat and it makes them feel insecure. How do you keep your students from getting freaked out by the poles sticking out like that?

Hmmmm..... It has to be the right student, doesn't it? A good reminder, thank you. I wouldn't want to do it with a student with stability issues. I'd want to see the ability to link turns with confidence, the ability to turn wherever wanted or needed on the terrain being skied. Probably a good idea to learn how to fall safely first.

 

[Jamt]

Yes, the Schlopy works very well. I use it all the time. I love that drill. It's even elegant.

I've not used the "hip-o-meter" pole thing you're describing with novices. If they fall, those poles threaten to get tangled up with the skier. The skiers recognize this threat and it makes them feel insecure. How do you keep your students from getting freaked out by the poles sticking out like that?

I don't bother with the full hip-o-meter setup, I just have the students grip the pole(s) with knuckles forward and have them place the thumbs on the hip bones. Hip-o-meter does not work with the LEKI system anyway

 

[Kneale Brownson]

I don't bother with the full hip-o-meter setup, I just have the students grip the pole(s) with knuckles forward and have them place the thumbs on the hip bones. Hip-o-meter does not work with the LEKI system anyway

^^^^A system that's equally effective and significantly safer, while not requiring poles with straps and a bunch of time to set up in the cage

 

[razie]

I don't bother with the full hip-o-meter setup, I just have the students grip the pole(s) with knuckles forward and have them place the thumbs on the hip bones. Hip-o-meter does not work with the LEKI system anyway

A weaker, LEKI version is to keep the poles pressed across the hips, it will still give an indication of what's going with the hips. One can also borrow some proper poles from someone...

 

[Magi]

Anyway, inadvertently these drills tend to focus on keeping the shoulders square to the fall line, which has resulted in the separation mainly happening at the waist instead of the hips. Makes sense?

So, are there recommendations for drills that help promote separation by rotation at the level of the femurs?

@LiquidFeet already said this - but I"d like to emphasize:
Do the same drills, but do them with a correct understanding.
The goal is to turn your feet under your body and more than your body. If you do that correctly - your body has to end up pointing more down the hill than your skis...

This is why I dislike the admonition to "keep the shoulders facing downhill"...

Amen @Kneale Brownson ! "keep your shoulders down the hill" is (at best) a side effect of turning your feet and legs more than the upper body and (at worst) an invitation for the student to rotate in the spine instead of the hip socket.

I've not used the "hip-o-meter" pole thing you're describing with novices. ... How do you keep your students from getting freaked out by the poles sticking out like that?

Never had a student take issue with it. I'm not sure if that means I'm lucky, or I only ever break it out on terrain that the student feels comfortable on, or I mostly use it training other instructors... (who are used to ridiculous drills?)

Variants I've also done include holding the poles at the waist, holding the poles just above the knees, using a piece of bamboo instead of a pole and holding that at the knees or the hips...

 

[razie]

@LiquidFeet already said this - but I"d like to emphasize:
Do the same drills, but do them with a correct understanding.
The goal is to turn your feet under your body and more than your body. If you do that correctly - your body has to end up pointing more down the hill than your skis...

Amen @Kneale Brownson ! "keep your shoulders down the hill" is (at best) a side effect of turning your feet and legs more than the upper body and (at worst) an invitation for the student to rotate in the spine instead of the hip socket.

Well... if we're talking about a correct understanding... carving is not achieved by turning the feet. IMHO the correct way to achieve carving is to put the skis on edge, then let the skis turn and counter-turn the hips on top of an anchored leg.

If we believe Newton, the part of the body that's "anchored" when carving, is the leg, not the hip. Without getting into a detailed biomechanics dissertation, a focus on turning the leg will just take the skis off edge, especially at the top of the turn.

So, if we're to describe carving and getting ski performance , using the lower body and good separation is important and, by contrast, if focusing on turning the legs in the hips we're basically using the upper body's inertia to pivot (at a lower intensity than counter-rotation, but the same thing nonetheless) so we're essentially skiing with the upper body .

So, talking drills, I prefer to focus on the braquage part of the pivot slips.

 

[Kneale Brownson]

Well... if we're talking about a correct understanding... carving is not achieved by turning the feet. IMHO the correct way to achieve carving is to put the skis on edge, then let the skis turn and counter-turn the hips on top of an anchored leg.

.

How to achieve separation when carving

 

[Rod9301]

@LiquidFeet already said this - but I"d like to emphasize:
Do the same drills, but do them with a correct understanding.
The goal is to turn your feet under your body and more than your body. If you do that correctly - your body has to end up pointing more down the hill than your skis...


Amen @Kneale Brownson ! "keep your shoulders down the hill" is (at best) a side effect of turning your feet and legs more than the upper body and (at worst) an invitation for the student to rotate in the spine instead of the hip socket.



Never had a student take issue with it. I'm not sure if that means I'm lucky, or I only ever break it out on terrain that the student feels comfortable on, or I mostly use it training other instructors... (who are used to ridiculous drills?)

Variants I've also done include holding the poles at the waist, holding the poles just above the knees, using a piece of bamboo instead of a pole and holding that at the knees or the hips...

The body is not supposed to be turned down the hill.

It's supposed to face the outside ski all the time, which is down the hill only at the very end of the turn and the transition.

 

[razie]

How to achieve separation when carving

As the skis go through flat, start turning the hips "the other way", i.e. towards the new outside ski, to create counter, as the skis are tipped on the new edge.

There's quite a bit of discipline and body awareness needed to not rotate the skis at all when flat and just ensure a clean edge change, imho. Especially as an expert skier is already "coiled" and tries to maintain this coiling through the edge change.

Doing correct hockey stops are a good model - say start square to the skis, across the hill and let them slide and as you tip them to grab and stop, turn the hips down the hill for balance. The skis are "anchored" just like in carving... except of course, carving is more dynamic and they actually turn at whatever radius one manages, given the angles one manages.

 

[James]

The body is not supposed to be turned down the hill.

It's supposed to face the outside ski all the time, which is down the hill only at the very end of the turn and the transition.

"Depends"...more than a diaper!
Not a zipperliner I see.

 

[razie]

It's supposed to face the outside ski all the time

...as long as it doesn't result in a park and riding outcome... I prefer to see counter as being created throughout the turn, dynamically - that part is a big deal for me these days... in fact, as I think about it just now, at skis flat I'm facing the new inside ski...

and @James I would agree - it's not about geometric stances etc - the relative movements matter more than the resulting geometry. Some use this "down the hill" cue (me too sometimes ) and it's maybe good for training/drills and learning, but in real-life, not everything will be a zipper line.

 

[James]

...as long as it doesn't result in a park and riding outcome... I prefer to see counter as being created throughout the turn, dynamically - that part is a big deal for me these days... in fact, as I think about it just now, at skis flat I'm facing the new inside ski...

and @James I would agree - it's not about geometric stances etc - the relative movements matter more than the resulting geometry. Some use this "down the hill" cue (me too sometimes ) and it's maybe good for training/drills and learning, but in real-life, not everything will be a zipper line.

True, but if one is doing short turns in a narrow corridor, say the side of a trail, you're essentially facing downhill the whole time. I should say "should be" facing. If it has some pitch and your skis are coming across the fall line, it prob won't be completely downhill, but nearly. There's just no time.
One also can do very shallow turns in the fall line on gentle pitches. Your body faces ahead - downhill. Not enough time or space to do other.
Both instances will have counter though obviously as the skis point a different direction.

 

[razie]

I'm missing the point honestly... are you strongly agreeing with me, yourself and @Rod9301 that it should be facing the outside ski / down the hill ~ish ?

 

[Doby Man]

Skiing or steering “into” counter is a way to put it that meets Magi’s point that the hip direction will not always face downhill and razie’s park and ride concern. Both are keen observations. However, it’s best have a number of ways to iterate a concept in case it takes that many tries to get a concept across to the student. The one that works best may be the one we agree with the least. Too bad. Get it done and move on. The development of physical coordination doesn’t always have to parallel the development of intellectual coordination. Adults always seem to feel the need to know everything before they do something compared to youth. It’s not just that youth have more physical advantages but also that adults place intellectual barriers in front of themselves.

 

[James]

I'm missing the point honestly... are you strongly agreeing with me, yourself and @Rod9301 that it should be facing the outside ski / down the hill ~ish ?

Probably not agreeing or I wouldn't have elaborated. I don't know how it was interpreted, so I can't comment on agreeing. Depends.
But here. The 4 images from the left. Basically facing downhill. I think the last is basically squaring up as he goes way to the right.
Is this "ish" to you or "facing downhill"?

Photo Ron LeMaster. Skier Jerry Berg

 

[razie]

he's rotating there if you ask me, there's no counter being developed... and the skis barely leave the fall line, but yeah, if there was some counter developed, that would be in the ~ish territory

this is more ~ish, with the skis more out of the fall line too and a lot of counter:

this one makes the mechanics more obvious, in a larger turn shape:

cheers

 

[James]

Maybe use the words because now I don't know what 'ish' refers to. Most things are ish. Some people always want absolutes. And some are preachers. So those two work well together.
"Facing downhill" isn't for all situations.
In the slalom sequence above, what are you telling the athlete in terms of upper body position for those two gates? Assuming they're after Mikaela.

 

[Fishbowl]

Well... if we're talking about a correct understanding... carving is not achieved by turning the feet. IMHO the correct way to achieve carving is to put the skis on edge, then let the skis turn and counter-turn the hips on top of an anchored leg.

If we believe Newton, the part of the body that's "anchored" when carving, is the leg, not the hip. Without getting into a detailed biomechanics dissertation, a focus on turning the leg will just take the skis off edge, especially at the top of the turn.

So, if we're to describe carving and getting ski performance , using the lower body and good separation is important and, by contrast, if focusing on turning the legs in the hips we're basically using the upper body's inertia to pivot (at a lower intensity than counter-rotation, but the same thing nonetheless) so we're essentially skiing with the upper body .

So, talking drills, I prefer to focus on the braquage part of the pivot slips.

I did try the drills Josh and LF recommended, but had difficulty applying them. I try to turn my skis by tipping the inside foot, so attempting to “twist” my foot against the turn or “put out the cigarette” seemed quite counterintuitive. Basically my mind could just not come to terms with the new motion and I was unable to even start the drill without feeling extremely off balance.