Ruth, Charlotte, Lucas – day 2

Excellent progress today!

Angulation
The main task today was Hip Angulation.

There are four key objectives:

• prevent rotation
• protect the lumbar spine
• make pressure on the ski fronts safe and secure
• gripping on ice

Facing shoulders downhill wrecks the lower back as it places the weight bearing hip too far forward beneath the front rib cage. Deliberately pulling the hip backward when standing on the leg – from start to end of the turn gets the pelvis/hip behind the ribs and when pressure loads up under the foot it activates a reflex contraction of the lower abdomen to protect the spine. Essentially – pelvis facing outside of the turn – shoulders facing ski tips. In short fall-line pivots this just looks like the whole torso facing downhill from the shoulders – but that’s largely an illusion.

Charlotte had been skiing with too much rotation – even when working with angulation in the video here you can see the (left) arm on the inside of the turn disappear behind her body during some turns. Otherwise the hip angulation as well as dynamics both still need to be exaggerated more – yet the first half of the turns must not be rushed. We worked on “early pressure” extending the uphill leg from the uphill edge of the uphill ski (outside edge of foot) and this helps develop a nice un-rushed turn entry – fully dependent upon dynamics. Charlotte also needs more pressure on the fronts of the the skis and to avoid traversing between turns – generating more of a rhythm and linking the turns. We started working on the forward pressure with the “pivot” and Charlotte is managing that nicely.

Lucas is showing great adaptability and rhythm. Still a bit too much rotation and rushing the starts of the turns instead of letting dynamics do the trick (You’re looking for a linear translation – not a body rotation!) – as with Charlotte much of this is due to lack of feeling for the fronts of the skis doing the work early in the turn – and a legacy desire to push the heels out – which is however being well resisted.

Ruth is skiing tidily and doing well controlling her arms here. The posture is definitely weaker on the left leg and this probably needs the pelvis to be tilted up a little at the front when standing on the left leg – well look at that tomorrow. You can see from the pivot in the video that the lifted ski has the tip held high in the air – indicating weight too far back! This may also be affecting posture. Good rhythm and range of motion – good timing. We need to work on developing a closer stance.