Leg Steering to tighten a Carve - Finally an Answer

[John Mason]

Ok, I had that post a while back about out PMTS'er's tighten an arc. Leg steering came up, and I never felt I got an actual answer that made any sense as to how that would tighten a carve.

Now I have found a logical answer that makes some sense.

In Witherell's book the Atletic Skier, he makes the statement that applying steering (which he defines succinctly as a pivoting force applied to the foot) while in a carve will tighten the radius of the turn. This is much like others have said but never with the why. When you look at the whys many said, the oppisite is true - as Jay pointed out, the heel will go flat so edging diminishes.

Anyway, Witherell points out that the pivoting force on an inclined edging ski is always to the base of the ski, not a perpendicullar to gravity pivoting force. So, when your in a carve and banked over with your ski edging, when you add a steering force it simply makes the tip of the ski pressure down into the snow harder. Thus, you aren't really pivoting or adding pivoting to your turn as that is in the up down directcion.

This may not be what people mean when they are talking about this, but for me, this at least has some logic and passes the "smell" test.

I'm not sure how relevant this movement pattern is now adays as this book was written in 1993 before shaped skis. The need to make sure the side of the ski at it's tip is in contact with the snow that Witherell felt some steering helped maintain while in a banked carved turn, may not be much of an issue on todays much shorter shaped skis.

I found it interesting that Witherell made a complete distinction that steering was to rotate the side of the tip down into the snow and not to in any way directly "rotate" the skis in the turn.

My question would be for people advocating this "legacy" movement pattern.

1. Is this needed anymore on shaped skis?
2. Are people taking this old adage and not understanding it and thinking Witherell meant rotate the skis with leg steering?

[Jeff Markham]

That sounds like what mechanic/ydnar was describing in the "How does PMTS generate rotary turns like at the top of Mogul" (Note: Please, let's NOT go *there* again!) discussion when he talked about the "feel of pointing". From what I could determine, he was/is pressing the LTE edge of the free foot into the snow by abduction.

Ydnar?

[ydnar]

Jeff,

You are right in using the pointing feeling to engage the tip of the ski and further the move gives me enhanced tactile feedback of how the edge of the inside ski is engaged and tracking on the snow. At lesser edge angles the feel of pointing my toes will introduce an element of brushing into the turn that will allow me to guide the skis into an size turn I want with any degree of brushing I want.

Hope you have fun with Bill at Alta on Sat.

yd

[SkierSynergy]

. . . So, when your in a carve and banked over with your ski edging, when you add a steering force it simply makes the tip of the ski pressure down into the snow harder. Thus, you aren't really pivoting or adding pivoting to your turn as that is in the up down directcion.

. . . When you look at the whys many said, the oppisite is true - as Jay pointed out, the heel will go flat so edging diminishes . . .

Sounds reasonable . . . Until real life kinetics become involved.

Just tip one of your feet on the floor so it is sitting on its BTE. Try to keep the foot on edge without moving it. Now, leg steer your imaginary ski's tip into the floor (rotate your knee down and in). What happens? Do it until your imaginary ski starts to lose part of it's grip. Which part loses it first? What does this tell us about whether this movement is adding force consistent with a carving force or a skidding steer.

I don't think there is any way around it steering is skidding - and that's the best thing that can be said about it. It doesn't add any grip, anywhere, anytime.

Well . . . Except for the initial second after a Finnish flick, but that's WRC instead of WC.

[John Mason]

Jay - from a historical perspective, did it ever help? On a shaped ski, obviously if the middle of the ski is carving in the snow the wider tip is gonna be there. But in the days of long skis would a vertical bias applied to the tip sometimes get one out of trouble?

I believe by your response, if you pivot to dig the side of the tip in, your gonna remove pressure from the tails - and away you go.

(oh, got my elder son skiing parallel in 3 hours today. I'll post a video.) (that's the son that swore off skiing after an hour lesson at a well known RC ski resort 3 years ago. (that was the only other time he had skied))

[Arc]

I would encourage anyone to go out and do a proof of concept test, provided you can effectivly carve a turn well enough and have the awareness to differentiate the cause and effect of this concept.

I have found this activity, as described in TAS, to be not only effective in general, but critical when transitioning from one turn to another over the crest of a drop off to steeper terrain. This action very effectivly precludes the ski tips disengaging as the terrain drops out from under them. I would suggest however that the rotary should be as a recruited result (as much as possible) from an appropriate increase intensity of the rolling/tipping of the feet and not as a rotary motion to the exclusion of that primary movement.

When skiing undulating terrain it helps to be aware and anticipate how the skis interaction with the terrain may require adjustments in both intent and movement blends to produce desired results. As important as imprinting efficient core movement patterns may be, skiing will always be interactive (I hope!) and requires on-the-fly adjustments and adaptation.

[Harald]

Steering in any form is and always has been an excuse for those who can?t tip the ski to a high enough angle, early enough in the turn and those who can?t pressure the tip enough to decrease the radius of the turn. Increase the edge, body and hip angle, counter act any rotation and balance your body to the out side ski and you won?t need steering.

Those who can?t will always advocate steering and ski with less ski and turn performance. There is the steering group and the slicing group. Once you know how to ski with angles and develop pressure you won?t talk steering any longer. If you continue to try steering and stay with it, you will be constantly arguing your limitations and you will own them.

Please, we don?t need another fir ball upchucking session on this topic, I?m out.

[SkierSynergy]

I would suggest however that the rotary should be as a recruited result (as much as possible) from an appropriate increase intensity of the rolling/tipping of the feet and not as a rotary motion to the exclusion of that primary movement.

When skiing undulating terrain it helps to be aware and anticipate how the skis interaction with the terrain may require adjustments in both intent and movement blends to produce desired results.

Arc, you bring up a very fine distinction that I think is crucially important and often misunderstood.

You have been one to point out that the primary movements originate in one set of muscles and steering movements originate in another; and that steering muscles don't get you primary movements -- even thoughj it may look like it on the surface. I especially like how you put it in a recent post on Epic:

While the movement of inverting the foot will recruit the abductors, rotating the leg with the abductors will not invert the foot. Even though engaging abductors might visually tip the lower leg shaft and the boot, there remains a passive foot inside the boot clueless as to what it should be doing.

However, I would change the word "recruit."

If someone thinks that once the foot is inverted (and the edge engaged) that the muscles involved in leg rotation can then be used to blend in steering. They would be mistaken. Well, you can do it, but it is not PMTS.

As a result of inversion/eversion there is passive rotation in the joints of the leg to accomodate the effects of inversion/eversion and flexion, but this is not a recruitment of the steering muscles to actively blend in steering.

I'm not sure that you meant to say the muscles related to leg rotation/steering are/can be/should be involved.

I would have to say that in some of your posts this is what you seem to imply. I think it hinges on your use of terms such as "activate" and "recuit."

I could be misunderstanding you. Or you could have a more accomodating attitude toward the place of steering/rotation.

Some advocates of steering have mistakenly called the results of the kinetic chain "passive steering" as part of an argument that even PMTS is involves steering, but I will say there is no such thing.

I am pretty hard and clear in my position on this. If the higher leg muscles are involved for more tghan stabalizing, there is active steering. If not there is no steering.

The reason that it is a passive rotation of the tib/fib and the femur is that the upper leg muscles that produce steering are NOT involved.

In my understanding, one can do primary movements and then one can steer. The former lead to positive results, the later leads to negative ones. The negative effects don't just go away because you are steering over drop-away terrain.

In my opinion, blending should be left to scotch. Well, sorry . . . I take that back.

The only thing blending and rotation are good for is a margarita twister party at Hooters.

[Rusty Guy]

Steering in any form is and always has been an excuse for those who can?t tip the ski to a high enough angle, early enough in the turn and those who can?t pressure the tip enough to decrease the radius of the turn. Increase the edge, body and hip angle, counter act any rotation and balance your body to the out side ski and you won?t need steering.

Those who can?t will always advocate steering and ski with less ski and turn performance. There is the steering group and the slicing group. Once you know how to ski with angles and develop pressure you won?t talk steering any longer. If you continue to try steering and stay with it, you will be constantly arguing your limitations and you will own them.

Please, we don?t need another fir ball upchucking session on this topic, I?m out.

Harald,

Please indulge me for one moment.

What if, for whatever reason, the place you intend to go is inside the limitations of the ski you are utilizing or the conditions you find yourself in? The limitations may simply involve the pitch of the hill, the snow you are on, or the speed you are traveling.

It could be a race course, glades, it could merely involve another skier in our path on a busy holiday weekend.

A racer decides he has chosen a poor line and can more quickly redirect (high or low) via turning the skis where they intend to go?

You crest a knoll in waist deep snow at Steamboat in a glade of Aspens and you see..........an Aspen?

It's a holiday weekend at a busy resort a some little child has fallen in front of you?

Ridiculous or reality?

[SkierSynergy]

Hey Rusty.

I'll give my answer to your examples.

I think the same control can be gotten by more effective technique.

First, if your doing a good High C turn there is a lot of capability to tighten the arc and avoid most everything that you will ever need to.

Second, if you are caught out, you can skid/drift and jam in the angles to turn or stop using just primary movements. You already know my interpretation of the race situation. The overall strategic results may be the same, but the movements are qualitatively different.

Lastly, as I have presented in other posts, If old instincts override better knowledge, my view is that you can do what you desribed, but then you have to live with the consequences. Because the are generally negative they usually won't help the situation that you are in. One would not want this to happen as little as possible. If it happens, it won't be pretty, and then you move on to better skiing.

[Ott Gangl]

Jay, I hope one day to be able to ski with you. I'm old and can do primary movement and I can do a whole lot more like rip a slope with only negative movements or only with positive movements, long and slow or so quick you wont see me change my edges, and if you can stay in my tracks I will buy into your mantra of only letting the skis do it by tipping. I mean no disrespect.

....Ott

[John Mason]

Ott, that'd be fun to see. Jay definately rips!

Regardless of what rotary people might throw in to handle an extrodinary event, the other side of the coin is the rotary people put in that they don't have to or are not even aware of. Or, to get even more picky, just doing active lateral tipping of the outside leg instead of tipping the inside leg and standing on the outside ski. All of these PMTS errors show up in video and do detract from the most efficient clean skiing I'm aspiring to do.

It is the rare skier that has done both ways comming up that can do as Jay mentioned before, simply pass the green ski test cert. Usually, the blended model skiers learning PMTS are still blending in rotary when they are sure they are not.

Ott, I'm still planning on skiing for fun with you in January. I'm no Jay skier at all.

As Jay and PMTS teaches, the SMIM for me has been fore aft balance. Nothing else works while that's off. But, that's been adjusted for now and for me the second SMIM was going back to just standing on my outside leg while tipping the inside ski. I had started "helping" that outside ski tip and it was (by just the way the body is wired up) overpowering my inside ski. I think Jay's SMIM was much more esoteric like, add a bit more flexion at transition. Jay was already all over adding counter at the top of the turn. (Jay - is that in the PMTS movement hierarchy)

I would be interesting in exploring how the phantom move generates rotary tighter than the radius of the skis. I was playing with this Sat while my son was learning to ski on the bunny at Nubs Nob. I had convinced myself based on speculation with people at the camp that it's because the tip of the inside ski is dragging the ski around, but it sure seems like this is not the case. As I was skiing if my outside foot was kept flat and my inside ski was tipped but still on the snow and centered, no tip dragging, and no divering tips, the skis can be made to rotate almost in place. I'm doing no conscious leg steering. This seems to work to create any tighter than radius steering angle you would need. I think it's as simple as tipping latterally while the outside foot is left flat creates an imbalance in the kinetic chain that creates a rotary force. Normally you would simply fall that way and let the tipping match. But it feels like if you let the O frame stay by not letting your outside foot follow the tipping, you get a rotation effect.

Jay, is that what you were talking about in that there is a PMTS way to create turns of tighter radius without using active rotation? I'm just describing what I do and what it feels like to me.

[piggyslayer]

Reading John?s post reminded me about a story on the ?Rotate or not to rotate is the question? topic. Folks here on both sides may find it interesting.

I have a friend, he is an excellent skier and former ski instructor. He has not worked as ski instructor for ages, he has stopped teaching way before shaped skis were invented and for many years he can only afford one week ski vacation (vacation time is expensive for all of us).
He does not know PMTS, and I never tried to share PMTS bug with him. I figured why should I? He does not look for improvement in his skiing and is happy with his current ability and he is, as I said, very good.

We spend one day skiing together. We had conversation about controlling speed on steeps and I ended up showing him drills from the ACES II book referred to as two footed and one footed release drills. It is the drill in which you end up turning on a dime (if this is a valid expression) around planted pole. It takes less then 1-2 ski lengths to do full turn.
He repeated the drill and created a sharp turn, as sharp as mine, but he looked different, way different than any PMTS-ian doing it, it is almost hard to put your finger what was different but something was. Then he told me that he likes the drill a lot because it clearly shows how leg steering helps in skiing. WHAT, LEG STEERING?
I was speechless.

There are 3 points of this story.
Point 1: sharp turns are possible without rotation, just learn the one/two footed release drill to make yourself convinced.

Point 2: is that we all look at what we see through the prism of our understanding and experiences. Often we see is what we like to see and not what is actually there.
This maybe why many view rotation as an essential element without which you can do a squat.

Point 3: And since we are on the subject of squatting ? just kidding, I will leave this tread squatless.

Robert

[piggyslayer]

One more thing, from all pro-steering /pro-rotation posts Arc?s post is most interesting.
As far as I understand it, Arc uses steering to actually make more aggressive carved turns and this clearly contrasts with what other people try to do with steering.
I found that interesting, I would try to pullback with hamstrings to achieve the result that Arc explains, but I have to admit that rotation is more straightforward in this context. I would also be afraid what Arc is describing will mess-up the countered position in the turn which is more problem than benefit.

I will be able to try in about 3 weeks .

Robert

[Harald H.]

Some concepts not often discussed by skiers are the actions during the lower part of an arc, as in the under the slalom gate situation or location in racing. The skier should be flexing or bending the knees to absorb or even-out pressure building, this action allows movements to increase ski angles. Although this is not an un-weighting type of flexing, it does keep the pressure at the bottom of the arc more even to maintain good gliding, rather than holding/gripping, through the lower part of the turn. When your legs bend at the knee: foot, ankle, boot tipping can be increased; therefore the ski can tighten in the arc, just before the release. This is how you achieve the very dynamic curve in the bottom of the turn. When relaxation and bending to release is then used, the skis react very quickly to the un-weighting and rebound for the next turn. To then facilitate the release, more relaxation of the leg muscles with a quicker reduction of pressure is required, sucking the knees to chest type action. In bumps, use the bump to help flex the legs; this is similar to relaxation and knee to chest sucking-up move.

These movements I am describing are often perplexing to proponents of leg steering. They incorrectly analyze this part of the turn as where steering should occur, but steering is counter productive during this phase. It leads skiers to body rotation and hips squaring, which isn?t appropriate in performance in skiing. Leg steering adds counter productive actions, and is performance robbing and misleading.