Facing downhill vs. square aligned with skis.
I hope to reopen some of this discussion and at the same time get an answer if my understanding is correct.
My experiments in the field make me believe that keeping upper body facing downhill at the end of the turn
has the effect of extending the turn with skis still on the edge. This keeps skier in the old turn for a moment longer even though the CM may have already crossed over to the new turn. I believe this is direct result of maintaining more countered position at the end.
In contrast, aligning the upper body square with skis tends to speed up the moment when the skis go flat against the snow as there is lack of upper body counter at that moment when I do that.
I think this is simply my rephrasing of what Harald wrote:
If my skis need more grip, I keep the hips and shoulders facing more downhill and I keep the inside hip into the hill, to support my edge angles. If I don?t need grip, I release my skis and my hips move more square.
The 1st approach (countered position at the end) seems to me a very cool way to ski. I think it can aid the development of top C carve as the new edges have to be established very fast to accommodate for CM position relative to skis as the transition to new edges happens late.
Even though I try to think about feet only when I ski, the 1st and the 2nd (square at the end) approach seem to me clearly 2 different variants of how the upper body reacts to movements introduced at the foot level.
Flexing legs at the end of the turn seems to me to be quite a different experience when I am countered and when I am square. In the 1st approach (countered end of turn) the flexing pulls the knees up to the side of my torso and I think about a bit of contraction of obliques in the abdominal area.
In the more square position, I think of relaxing my legs and hips and pressure applied to heels of my foot and this generates some flex (even though sometimes using abs and pulling knees up a bit sideways seems to help on ice).
Am I trying to make too much out of it, or there is something dramatically different between these 2 approaches?