jclayton wrote:Yes John ,
I understand you are talking about the float stage when the skis are flat to the snow and the CM is directly over them , this can be seen quite clearly in Haralds videos and books . It appears to me in the video I mentioned that this is anticipated somewhat , i.e. the CM is well over the skis while they are still finishing the last turn , before they go flat .
Also I don't mean the upper body starts the turn by twisting , it moves laterally , the apparent twisting motion in Grandi's turn I imagine is just to position the CM , not twist the skis .
I'm not sure I'm saying anything different, so I'll digress and see.
In a turn as your in the last 1/3 about to commit to the new turn, you often do a pole plant in the direction of the fall line. In a short radius turn this will be more to the side, in a gradual turn this will be closer to your ski tips. (this seems to take care of itself as long as the pole plant is down the hill) When I do this, I'm not leaning on the pole or pole blocking. It, for me, is more of a timing to just commit to the turn, keep my fore aft balance proper and go. That go, for me is, remove pressure from the downhill ski and crank the foot over. - or - Leave my pressure on that foot and crank it over anyway. As Jay points out, I don't think - now is the time to accelerate my CM or continue it's motion down the hill (depending on turn intent). Anything that happens with the CM is a result of tipping the foot.
With either turn style this tipping of the down hill foot along with the pole touch has me past vertical over my skis well before they are flat to the snow. Over is straight up. On a slope of 30 degrees, I'm over and basically falling well before fall line transition. At fall line my skis are flat, my body is way past vertical at this point. I'm all lined up and banked to take the pressure of the reengagement of the new stance ski. For a second there, though, there is no pressure from either the old turn or the new turn. I'm assuming this feeling is what is described as the float. When the new stance ski engages (not from some lower foot steering action or tipping to the BTE) because of the new alignment of my body caused by the the original tipping of the old stance ski that created the release, I'm all set to rock and roll into the new turn.
Sorry Jay. I'm not trying to confuse the issue and thanks for clarifying. How can you move the CM? You can't directly. The CM discussion was brought in because of two false premises that were posted on epic.
1. That your CM never should be inside your inside ski. (can we say wide stance)
2. That your own body momentum is enough to get your CM to cross over the skis, that no release is required or tipping prior to the fall line transition.
Because of those statements (and thankfully many over there rejected 1, but most still think 2 is true), I have been replaying my own turns and enjoying how a proper release initiated before the fall line transition, takes care of the grossly improper physics postulated in number 2 above.
I do think about how much I want to accelerate my CM, though I don't think of it in exactly that way, it is the result.
If I want to go from a lazy long turn, then whip off some real agressive short ones, at the transition between these to turn styles, ie comming off the last long turn and having intent to whip off a tight one on the other side, rather than gently releasing pressure on downhill leg and tipping it, I can dramatically release the pressure and tip strongly - or - I can leave the pressure on and tip it anyway. Either will almost snap me over the skis as opposed to the lazy long turn I'm exiting.
To me it feels like I'm being pulled into the new turn. I'm not pushing off to get into this more agressive turn. I suppose, I'm accelerating my CM by doing stronger moves, but I don't think about that.
I'll repeat what I posted on Epic about this for your comments. In a short radius turn you are controlling the strong pull of gravity down the slope. In order to get a net drop in speed of the CM going down the hill, you increase the difference between the s curve of the skies vs the path your body is taking. As this occurs you will feel a strong increase in pressure on your skis at the bottom 1/3 of the turn. This increase in pressure is your CM being slowed down. Because of this, if your goal is to have a passive re-engagement of your new stance ski, you must do something active to get the CM over the skis and to return some of the lost speed. You do it by doing a release before fall line transition. The tipping of the old stance ski and pole plant down the hill combine to get you set up for the next turn and do result, as a result, with an acceleration of your cm. This is in contrast to believing that you need do nothing and the cm will cross on it's own. If you do nothing, the speed of crossover will be too slow for the angles of the body to engage the BTE passively and you'll have to compensate with some gross smearing active leg steering.
I am aware that tipping a foot pulls you in that direction. I can feel this when I ski. I can control how much pull I get and match my turn intent. (I personally feel this much more in the weighted release and I suppose that is how it's supposed to be)
Perhaps I'm more aware of what my CM is doing than I should be. It's a result, but I know how to make it do what I want, with foot movements.