Mark, remember I said a few days ago that getting the body functioning correctly automatically puts the hands and arms in the right place? Well, when working on the Foot Forward technique in the first frame of the video here – you weren’t even thinking about the arms – and for the first time they were in the right place (not so when skiing!).Don suggested a tour to the far reaches of Val d’Isère, partly to escape the vast hoards of really badly skiing students who had just been bussed into Tignes. With clear skies and no wind he couldn’t be refused. However this did mean that there would be less time spent on technical work. Along the way we did manage a little bit of technical input. Mark did a good job of skiing in my line to get the sense of shaping the turns and avoiding rushing the starts (ie. flicking the tails around to get the skis below you and brake etc). I explained the need to mentally remove gravity from the picture and imagine the terrain surface to be flat and level – then to think how the ski would be used the same from the start of the turn to the end. Einstein’s Relativity shows that gravity is not a force – it is a geometrical effect – and we can play with this geometry. In outer space you would consider yourself floating – but even falling of a cliff is identical – with only air resistance giving a sensation (and the splat when you hit the deck). In skiing our universe tilts on its axis to the perpendicular of the slope. We either enter this amazing new universe or we fight it and remain vertical “normies”. Vertical skiing is the sport’s equivalent of chronic political correctness – fine for the professionally offended millennial generation (there is no wrong way to ski etc.) – but nobody else. “Triggered” skiing is immortalized here in song… it’s very tiring and “there ain’t no rest”…
In the video Mark was a left leg normie – due to the left leg being tired – but the other leg was getting it right.Meanwhile Don was having a Tartiflette moment. The trouble with eating Savoyard food is that it induces hibernation – particularly at this time of year. Mark will remember the Foot Froward lesson from the video without me explaining too much here. He picked it up very quickly. He could feel the increased “solid” grip and the tighter turning. Pushing the foot forward doesn’t make the foot go ahead when skiing – it tightens the turn instead – just increasing reactivity and decreasing turn radius. We looked at the issue of “rotation” and how it makes this Foot Froward action impossible – the body having to be placed facing downhill – and how the action is exactly like a skating action – totally on one leg from start to finish. We all made it back together to Tignes with time to spare – Don appearing to have a second wind as the Tartiflette began to wear off.Mark – remember to take out your inner-boots and dry them in your room each night when skiing – gets easy with practice!
