thinking

[milesb]

While skiing this year, I have found that if I think about tipping the inside ski and pulling it back, I can easily make good PMTS turns just about anywhere. However, if I am just thinking about where I am going, I am not sure if I am doing it right. This particularly seems to happen when I go fast in big bumps or in really funky snow. It's not that I was having any kinds of problems, but when I resumed thinking about the movements in those situations, my skiing seemed to improve a bit. Does this indicate an unconcious reliance on old habits, or just a performance boost from focus?
One other thing, I made a real point to focus on just using inside ski tipping while skiing the very tight spots. It worked well , but I often got going faster than I intended due to it not seeming to be quick enough. Not fast enough to be a real problem, but a bit scary in a few spots. Any thoughts on this?
Heh, one more thing, I got a chance to ski behind a very skilled snowboarder on Sunday. I would reccomend doing this, as they take different lines through the trees and rocks than skiers do, and it opens up the mind to new possibilities. However, he told me that he didn't like following me, as it wasn't fun on a snowboard. So be kind when your snowboard pals are following you, make bigger turns and don't stay right in the fall line. And catch some air, they appreciate that.

[Pierre]

. Does this indicate an unconcious reliance on old habits, or just a performance boost from focus?
One other thing, I made a real point to focus on just using inside ski tipping while skiing the very tight spots. It worked well , but I often got going faster than I intended due to it not seeming to be quick enough. Not fast enough to be a real problem, but a bit scary in a few spots. Any thoughts on this?

Milesb short of watching you ski it would be hard to tell if you are falling back into old habits or just better focus. It could be either or both.

As for just tipping the inside ski. You are likely getting a bit static and just letting the skis run while making slightly larger turns.

I enjoyed skiing with you at Alta. You pointed me to some decent crud that day.

[piggyslayer]

These are very good questions and I hope we HH, SS and others to contribute.
My views on this are:

PMTS delays BTE on purpose, this solves many problems, such as A-frame entry at a cost of small initial delay. The quickness comes with more experience.

I am sure milesb knows about all of this, but here is what I believe are main points to regaining quickness:

-Try to use Super Phantom to make quicker turns.

-Make sure you use your foot and not knee movement to invert your foot. This will result in the stance foot following free foot quicker.

-Locked ankle position should improve how fast the stance foot follows. Pulling on your hamstrings at the beginning of your turns locks your ankles (and that sounds like "Bob?s your uncle", so it must be good !).

Robert

[jclayton]

I don't quite understand the locked ankle part , if you lock your ankles wouldn't it be harder to articulate them ?

[piggyslayer]

Ankle lock: jclayton good point.
I am not really sure it ankle lock is happing that much with the hamstring pull, but logically I think some measure of it should be happening. I would appreciate kinesiology experts to comment on this.

I am not 100% sure on what I wrote in previous post about it, I think that it is about locking the stance foot ankle more than about the free foot and is a result of hamstring pull of the free leg and does not need to be achieved by active dorsiflexion.
However, I also think that if the action of the leg pull locks both ankles, it should not affect adversely your skiing. The point is that effective skiing is more about using right muscles low in the kinetic chain and not necessary about getting big free foot inversion. You can still use the same muscles, only you will see more impact of such movement up the kinetic chain (hip) and back on the stance foot. I would appreciate kinesiology experts to comment on this as well.
The whole thing may not be all that important, I am simply not sure on this.

On somewhat related subject: counter acting with your hip ?locks? the stance leg in reducing the BTE pronation and makes stance leg more passive, I think that is the reason why javelin turn drill is so effective.
This is interesting biomechanical phenomena as well.

[milesb]

Whoops, I forgot to mention that I was skiing on 90mm waist skis with very little sidecut. Maybe it's silly to try to get quickness with those without steering? Although Pierre might be right about the static part, that sounds right for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.