"High C" part of the turn

PMTS Forum

"High C" part of the turn

Postby h.harb » Thu Nov 13, 2003 12:18 pm

I had this question today from the site:

Harold, I spent the summer reading "Anyone 1" and watching the video. I also purchased the Instructor Manual and video. I just started my third year of skiing today and hope you can give me some direction....
I'm able to carve on the green and blue with pretty good results.
On the steeper runs, I am a bit cautious and tend to do a combination carve and hockey skid turn to keep my speed down!
I notice that my stance is a bit wide and think this is an area I can work on.
6'2" 205lbs. age - 50, athletic, ski is Atomic Beta 9,12 170cm.
Can you suggest some of the exercises for me to practice? Thanks, Steve


This is such a good question I had to post it. I hope Steve doesn't mind!
The question addresses the essence of carving and high level skiing. Part of the answer already exists in the ar :idea: ticle I wrote on "What is a Expert Skier" on this site.

I sent Steve the following answer:

Dear Steve,

I frequently have skiers in your situation ask exactly the same question. There are a number of reasons skiers of all kind have difficulty transferring their carving skills from Blue, Green to Black and all mountain conditions. There are two specific reasons you can carve on moderate slopes and not on steeper more difficult ones. The first is that on steeper slope even shaped skis require more pressure on the front or fore body of the ski. The other is the commitment to higher edge, foot, ankle and ski tipping angle, high in the turn, must be increased. We have introduced a number of very interesting, new, specific drills and movements to bring higher awareness to the tipping and forward pressuring abilities.

First, the part of the turn where higher edge tipping and fore body pressure are required is the upper part. The part of the turn where these two abilities are most required and needed is in the "High C" part of the turn. I am at the moment in the middle of coaching a Masters Training Camp, this week at Copper Mt.. We are working on exactly the same abilities and the same part of the turn you are struggling with.

Here is what you have to look for if you are trying to develop edge angle changes for the "High C" part of the turn. Have someone stand on the slope above you as you make turns. They must see the bases of your skis before you start turning into the next turn. Let me explain, if you are traversing change edges without changing direction. You will find at first, that you will have the tendency to fall downhill, unless you are skiing with enough speed and creating the right amount of momentum. But, you have to start somewhere, so the place we start is with a static exercise. Stand across the slope and place both ski poles downhill. Support you body with your ski poles. Now tip both the downhill ski and the uphill ski to the other (downhill side) set of edges. You will find that leaning on the poles is necessary at first. You will also find that your downhill ski and boot do not want to co-operate. The downhill ski will want to slip downhill. You must move your downhill ski not only to a flat, on the snow position, but continue that movement of tipping and tilting beyond flat to the new edge, on the downhill side of the ski. This may sound very difficult, but I have most of my students able to perform this movement. This exercise requires, what I call, counter balancing movements. This is not to be confused with countering movements, as they are not the same. This exercise may be hard to picture, so I will post one of my early season skiing tips on the Real Skiers site using this photo sequence. I also recommend you review the counter balancing exercise and demonstration in my Expert skier 2 Video/DVD. Also read the parts of the Expert 2 book where I discuss pulling the free foot back. The "Free Foot" pulling back movement helps to get the body over the skis to pressure the ski fore body.

First visit the article I wrote on the web site (http://www.realskiers.com) about Expert Skiers, there you will find more about the "High C" part of the turn.

Hope this helps, regards,

Harald
h.harb
 

"High C" part of the turn

Postby jclayton2 » Sun Nov 16, 2003 2:50 pm

This post sounds like a new book coming along , hopefully .
I have one question regarding the high c turn on steeps , where would the "float" come in , if at all ? I would imagine too much float would mean having to jam the edges around too low in the turn . Where in the turn should the edges be visible from above , 90? to the fall line ? I guess the second question is a corollary to the first .
Regards and a nice little tip , can't wait to try it out .
jclayton2
 

float

Postby h.harb » Mon Nov 17, 2003 3:44 pm

The float is a term that tries to describe a time or moment in a turn transition when you become passive with turning and relax the body to give it time to move across the skis. The reason I bring it up in my expert skier book 2 is because skiers are often too active and in a hurry to turn the skis into the falline. When the dh ski is juiced, our term for twisting it to an edge, the float isn?t achieved. There is a float phase even during very aggressive bump or slalom skiing.

I just finished coaching a Masters Race camp and during it we often tried to convey to the racers that too much turning activity before angling or tilting activity reduced turn efficiency. The float gives your body time to get up-side-down to the slope. Relax, and let the body fall, but don?t push it into the next turn.

The same applies to the bumps, but in the bumps you are in a more flexed and absorbed position in transition than on groomed or on the race course. The movement in transition in bumps isn?t a push of the ski tails to the side; it should be a rolling of the skis to the new edges.

As the edges roll or tilt the body follows laterally across the skis in the downhill direction. You are probably aware that in Direct Parallel we move the feet, ankles and then the legs and torso. We focus on starting movements of tipping at the base of the kinetic chain to achieve ski angle changes. This is a new approach in ski technique and instruction.

Remember tilting without turning is basically a simple concept and understood by many, but a very difficult movement to time and achieve. In conveying the movement the instructor must be very precise with the terminology. Many misconceptions exist about how to achieve a transition that develops the ?high C? part of the turn.

Until recently many of the Masters racers I trained still believed the skis needed to be moved to the side or up against the slope to achieve edge angles. I also run into this misunderstanding from ski instructors. PMTS Direct Parallel has clearly established a set of exercises and presentations for this part of the turn. The traditional terms and descriptions like leg steering, and rotary leg actions don?t convey or result in ski angles required for high performance skiing. My experience is that skiers who learned with those approaches have great difficulty developing ski performance.

Most skiers try to edge the skis by pushing them to the side. This results in edging, not angles. Edging movements alone are weak. Many skiers and ski instructors still see what results from the ?edging? movement, which is knee angle, as a strong skiing position, we at PMTS don?t! The skis should not move to the side in transitions. The skis should roll off their edges and through flat onto a tilted relationship to the slope for the next turn. The body should move in accord with the change in ski angles. The floating or ?Float? is the time it takes for the body to move from one side of the skis to the other.

Yes, you are right, a new book and DVD are in the works and they will detail in addition to other actions in skiing the ?High C? turn.
h.harb
 

High C

Postby Guest » Fri Jan 09, 2004 8:36 am

Harald wrote:
SNIP...
Here is what you have to look for if you are trying to develop edge angle changes for the "High C" part of the turn. Have someone stand on the slope above you as you make turns. They must see the bases of your skis before you start turning into the next turn.
EOS

Harald and others,

I read this item on Tuesday evening, and on Wednesday morning I had the opportunity to try pieces of this advice under perfect conditions: I was very pleased to notice that "showing the bases to the mountain uphill" makes quite a difference in carving a turn! The few times I really managed to do it, my (new) stance ski really stayed engaged without any tendency to slip. Unfortunately, I didn't remember the exercise part of your post, but I will try it out during the weekend.

For those of you who don't mind some physical formulas, the book "The physics of skiing" by David Lind and Scott P. Sanders, ISBN 1-56396-319-1 has a detailed explanation on the various forces (centrifugal, centripetal, lateral) involved in a pure carved turn. And their explanation is fully consistent with "show your bases to the mountain" at the high part of the C.

Cheers,
Tommy
Guest
 

ooops! forgot to log in...!

Postby tommy » Fri Jan 09, 2004 8:39 am

Sorry, no intention to be anonymous in the previous msg; just forgot to log in .....!

--Tommy
tommy
 
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