Curing backseat skiers

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Curing backseat skiers

Postby Ken » Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:40 pm

I had an opportunity to ski the other day with a couple of skiers that were dedicated backseat drivers. We worked with Harald's drill where they traverse with their legs scissored well apart...the uphill leg way forward and the downhill leg way back. I asked them to describe the feeling in the back (downhill) leg that they had in the sole of their foot, their shin, and their sense of the hip being forward of their foot. We traversed both ways across the run in a big scissor, traversed both ways with the legs scissored half as far apart but the same feeling in that back leg, ditto with the legs scissored a quarter as far apart again with the same feeling. I then had them just ski down the run, but maintaining that feeling in the outside leg.

The guy was making turns so sharp that he was thrown off his skis. He'd been using too much tipping to compensate for riding the tails, and now with his fore & aft balance right he was tipping way to much for the radius he wanted to turn and for the amount of counter balance he was using. As soon as he modulated his tipping he was a happy skier. His wife just smiled and said that her skis sure turned easy now! I also gave them the clue to use of being so far forward on their skis that they seldom see their skis in the bottom of their goggles. We worked on continual free foot pullback after they learned the feeling of being correctly balanced over their feet. Never stop tipping and never stop pulling back the free foot.
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Re: Curing backseat skiers

Postby patprof » Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:47 pm

Exceptionally good post Ken! :mrgreen:
"I can't dance and I can't fly-but when I ski I can sometimes do both!"
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Re: Curing backseat skiers

Postby carver_hk » Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:33 pm

yes, great post. :)
I love line graphics :)
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Re: Curing backseat skiers

Postby nickia » Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:36 pm

Ken wrote:I had an opportunity to ski the other day with a couple of skiers that were dedicated backseat drivers. We worked with Harald's drill where they traverse with their legs scissored well apart...the uphill leg way forward and the downhill leg way back. I asked them to describe the feeling in the back (downhill) leg that they had in the sole of their foot, their shin, and their sense of the hip being forward of their foot. We traversed both ways across the run in a big scissor, traversed both ways with the legs scissored half as far apart but the same feeling in that back leg, ditto with the legs scissored a quarter as far apart again with the same feeling. I then had them just ski down the run, but maintaining that feeling in the outside leg.

The guy was making turns so sharp that he was thrown off his skis. He'd been using too much tipping to compensate for riding the tails, and now with his fore & aft balance right he was tipping way to much for the radius he wanted to turn and for the amount of counter balance he was using. As soon as he modulated his tipping he was a happy skier. His wife just smiled and said that her skis sure turned easy now! I also gave them the clue to use of being so far forward on their skis that they seldom see their skis in the bottom of their goggles. We worked on continual free foot pullback after they learned the feeling of being correctly balanced over their feet. Never stop tipping and never stop pulling back the free foot.



Thanks for the post Ken. I have been testing this drill in the past two days and have some questions:

1. To confirm, is the stance ski suppose to feel the same feeling during normal skiing as the Way-forward drill?
2. When I do way-forward, my heel of the stance ski lifts (standing on the ball of the foot) and the back of the heel hits the hard part of the back of my boots which is uncomfortable. Is this the correct behaviour or I should try to distribute pressure evenly on the ball and heel of my feet even during way forward exercise?
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