Richard
- Feet Forward Technique
- Body Management / Hip Angulation
Feet Forward Technique
“Feet Forward Technique”… gives security through the start of a turn on steep terrain by tightening the turn radius (applies to skis running forward across the slope and not to “pivoting”)
Pushing the outside (uphill initially) foot forward during the turn. The foot never gets in front of the other foot – it just tightens the turn instead.
The exercise is practised with skis off and standing in ski boots. For this static exercise we use ski pole support with the body faced downhill with the uphill foot pointing across the hill and the downhill foot pointing downhill and the heel jammed into the snow. The uphill boot is pulled over onto its inside edge and pushed forwards in a natural arc.
Here is some video of exactly the same action in ice hockey training. In skiing the direction of travel would be straight downhill instead of straight ahead on the flat ice.
Body Management / Hip Angulation
Refer to “day 2” for more complete details.
In the snowplough the outside hip can still be pulled backwards during a turn while the foot of the outside leg is pushed forward to tighten the turn. By focusing on this while travelling slowly you can feel the applied counter rotation of the pelvis area – increasing hip angulation, giving better control over edging (grip) and making turns more secure.
Suzi
(Advanced Body Management)
The hips can only be properly relaxed when the shoulders/upper torso are turned into the new turn.
When this is done the entire posture can fall into place automatically.
Beginning from the feet upwards…
- Toes lifted upwards slightly (not “gripping” with the toes)
- Feet slightly everted ( turned outwards) inside the ski boots
- Pressure mostly on either outside edge of each foot and/or balls of the feet (no matter what ski edge is in contact with the snow) It’s the shafts of the boots that hold the skis on their edges – not the feet!
- Outside leg fully extended through the turn
- Inside leg flexed
- Leg adductors pulling together (under tension – knees not allowed to collapse inwards)
- Pelvis tilted to “neutral”
- Soft and flexed at the hip joints
- Outside hip joint pulling backwards (counter rotating the pelvis to the direction of turning)
- Feeling the core at the centre of the physical action (as well as being the centre of mass)
- Upper torso turning in the direction of the turn – even leading with the the uphill arm across the skis during the turn transition. (not the arm that would make a downhill pole plant!)
Lottie, Alexa, Vivi, Tistan
We just skied (after 5 minutes of “advanced body management”) because if you are young and fit then with a few good fundamentals in place the most important thing is to get skiing – following/copying and watching. No time for filming today.