If you don't get slant board training, you don't get it!

[geoffda]

Someone needs to slap me. After avoiding Epic for an entire season, I went back the other day...There was a guy with a photomontage of him trying to do edge locked carves and the braintrust was trying to give him MA. There were a few valid points, (like shoulder rotation), the usual b.s. (like you need to incline before you angulate), and a complete lack of awareness that the guy was showing knock kneed alignment, but what struck me most about the thread was that not one person was focused on what was going on in transition. Transition is EVERYTHING! If you can't get from edge to edge properly, nothing else is going to matter--your turn is already broken and all of the messed up stuff you are doing later on down the line is just a symptom of that fact! When I go to evaluate skiing, the first thing I look at is what is going on with the feet in transition. If they aren't tipping, then nothing else matters--there is no skiing happening.

So what does this have to do with slant board training? Everything! We give a lot of lip service to "balance", "high C", and "getting upside down in the turn" here, but what do those things really mean? Let me offer a hint. One of the skiing requirements for PMTS Black level certification is to demonstrate carved short and medium radius turns on a groomed black slope--with speed control. Does anyone really understand how hard this is? I know Max_501 and Heluva do. Let me offer an image: I'm standing off to the side of upper Ramrod at A-Basin, which is a steep blue. Jay rolls up to the top and proceeds to make edge-locked, slalom-and-a-half radius turns down the pitch SLOWLY. It's like he's just hanging there on every turn. I'll offer up another image: somewhere in the forum (this year) there is a picture of Ligety at absolute top of one of the steepest turns on a GS course where he crushed the field. He is already on his new edges, inside leg flexed, outside leg already getting long; he's counterbalanced hard, and in perfect balance over his skis. Besides Ligety, the only other skier that demonstrated that kind of balance on a consistent basis this season (on the race course) was Hirscher and maybe Neureuther (in Slalom). So of the top 30 men on the WCSL, maybe three guys are demonstrating the type of control at the top of the arc that Harald is teaching. That is the level of elite we are talking about and for you ski instructor types from other systems, that is why some of us get so frustrated when you open your traps and start advertising your ignorance. This is a skill that probably 0.1% of all skiers can even demonstrate let alone understand, that I have yet to see anyone on Epic demonstrate, yet there are several members of this forum who are in that 0.1%. To even get to the point where this starts to matter (and be comprehensible) requires more skill than most skiers will ever develop.

What the very best in the world can do, and what the very best PMTS-trained skiers can do is not only engage to new edges while the skis are moving across the fall line (which is hard enough), but they can BALANCE there, over the ski. Because of this, they have the ability to make the ski start carving IMMEDIATELY. Plenty of people can change edges and get "upside down" in the turn, but they lack the level of balance required to actually be over the ski and control it in the high C portion of the arc. They have to ride the ski until they can catch up balance-wise and get the ski to come alive. That is not what we mean in PMTS by getting upside down in the turn. That is park and ride. Somewhere there is a great thread where WNYSkier is describing how he and Heluva were working on developing the ability to change edges while still remaining in balance in order to control line in the high C portion of the arc. What those guys are doing is what we mean in PMTS when we talk about getting upside down in the turn and carving the high C.

Back to slant boards. When it comes to skiing, Harald points out in Essentials that he knows that skiers are ready for double-black all mountain skiing when they can do the full release to new edges on a slope drill. Primarily, what that drill teaches you is how to apply the movements of transition in such a way that you end up in balance on your new edges. The slant board allows you to do the same thing, without snow, in the comfort of your living room. What your learn from these exercises is that it is impossible to make a high C transition without tipping, flexion, counterbalance, and counteracting. Moreover, the slant board teaches you all of the intricate details about each one of these movements. For example, the steeper the slope, the more flexion you must have in order to stay in balance (not to mention move quickly enough edge to edge). 90 degrees of leg bend is not unreasonable if the slope is steep enough. You also learn that flexing to release is not enough--flexion is also needed for engagement if you wish to remain in balance. The slant board teaches you that counterbalance is critical and must be matched to your tipping. Even the slightest delay in starting your counterbalance will be enough to make balancing on the new edges difficult. While you may be able to recover on the slant board, consider the implications of that slight balance check when on snow. How far would your ski have travelled before you regained balance and control? The slantboard teaches you about counteracting too. How to hold it until you are on your new edges, and then how you have to move to apply it correctly into the new turn.

What I've been discovering as I've been working on high C lately is just how fine a line it is between being in balance and making a great turn and being slightly out of balance and making a mediocre turn. (Can anyone say "WEAK SIDE!"? ) Little errors get magnified when it comes to control in the high C, but it is all too easy to ignore what is happening when you get into balance eventually and still get a nice pull from the ski. But if you want to get better, you have to stop being lacksidaisical about what is going on with your balance in the critical portion of the turn. The best way to do that is to add some slant board to your diet. The first step is to learn how to release to new edges (both sides) in balance. The next step is to practice this until you can do it every time (both sides) with no balance checks. Because if you want to be an elite skier, that is what is required.

[h.harb]

It's a journey, a process and a goal. Great skiing is never realized if one, just one "essential" aspect of the transition is missing. Because if you are on a black off piste run with 8 inches of powder on top and hard bumps underneath, you better not be missing flexing. http://youtu.be/s8ZBh_7y9y4 Go to 44 sec in this video for an example of such a run.

Whether it be flexing, (old stance leg) holding the CA, tipping to the new LTE, PATIENCE OR WAITING TO BE ON THE NEW EDGES WITHOUT PUSHING YOUR BODY OUT OF BALANCE WITH EXTENSION, transition done right IS EVERYTHING. All of it needs to be in place. And if you are teaching any kind of extension in these situations; you don't understand skiing. And as Geoff says, they don't have a transition they don't get transitions, because they are teaching extension.

The Slant Broad exercises, as Geoff says are essential and meaningful, if you want to move your skiing ahead faster. YOU ALL KNOW WHAT I THINK OF EPIC COACHES AND INSTRUCTORS I need not add anything here, but they don't get skiing. And they are trying desperately to justify the bad techniques they use. Why not just come over and use what is working? Stubborn, ignorant, blind, I don't think they understand what good skiing looks like and they think they are skiing well. So they are blind to good skiing, that's the disconnect.

The journey to expert skiing isn't always fun, sometimes it's frustrating, but with PMTS at least you know you are getting somewhere. You don't have to look very far, not even as far as the World Cup, there are skiers here, on this forum, who are doing it and doing it very well.

[HighAngles]

Great skiing is never realized if one, just one "essential" aspect of the transition is missing. Because if you are on a black off piste run with 8 inches of powder on top and hard bumps underneath, you better not be missing flexing.

It doesn't have to be 8". It was only 3" this morning at LL on top of Spring refrozen crud. I felt like I was rendered into a total intermediate skier by the early morning conditions. The tough conditions definitely expose missing essentials.

[geoffda]

It doesn't have to be 8". It was only 3" this morning at LL on top of Spring refrozen crud. I felt like I was rendered into a total intermediate skier by the early morning conditions. The tough conditions definitely expose missing essentials.

There are no bad conditions; only bad skiers.

[h.harb]

In these situations it's mental. As an ex-high-level racer you don't care, you just dominate the conditions. So you don't think twice about going into these conditions full blast. As a recreational skier, without this background, you relent when the surface kicks back. You have to learn to trust your movements and step over the line. In other words, you have to harden the f--k- up.

The hard part is, when I learned it, I was 18 years old, you learn to do this easily in those years, it's much harder to trust this after you turn 40. I see mentally, I have to work much harder to get the same response for mental aggressiveness into my 60ies.

[h.harb]

BTW. great thread G---D-----AAAAAAAA!!!

[jbotti]

Great skiing is never realized if one, just one "essential" aspect of the transition is missing. Because if you are on a black off piste run with 8 inches of powder on top and hard bumps underneath, you better not be missing flexing.

It doesn't have to be 8". It was only 3" this morning at LL on top of Spring refrozen crud. I felt like I was rendered into a total intermediate skier by the early morning conditions. The tough conditions definitely expose missing essentials.

At least you are skiing. Unfortunately for some of us ski season already feels like a distant memory.

[HeluvaSkier]

...even I'm still skiing. May have two more weekends after this one. Amazing season here this year.

[HeluvaSkier]

In these situations it's mental. As an ex-high-level racer you don't care, you just dominate the conditions. So you don't think twice about going into these conditions full blast. As a recreational skier, without this background, you relent when the surface kicks back. You have to learn to trust your movements and step over the line. In other words, you have to harden the f--k- up.

This bears repeating.

[h.harb]

If you are new here, (especially the locked ones) read many threads before forming your ideas about how you should go about changing your skiing to PMTS. This thread has many descriptions of how PMTS movements can accelerate your skiing ability, but they can't be accomplished , remembered, or worked on all at once. Take one PMTS Essential at a time and work on it until you are comfortable. And read the post that BigE put up. PMTS is about balance, but balance is not a movement. The Essentials are movements; they will give you the balance you are looking for on the mountain. As is always repeated here, lifting the old outside ski as in the "Phantom Move", will provide one ski skiing. The obvious is, keep the ski lifted and unweighted, so you can tip it farther while in the arc. If you weight or lean on the inside ski, you will never learn what skiing with balance is about.

[HeluvaSkier]

The obvious is, keep the ski lifted and unweighted, so you can tip it farther while in the arc. If you weight or lean on the inside ski, you will never learn what skiing with balance is about.

This thread is full of gems - another one here. Balance is everything. As an expert skier, I don't execute a single movement until I know I have established balance first. As Harald says, the best way to learn it is "keep the [free foot] ski lifted and unweighted".

[Ihamilton]

There is still 3 weeks left of skiing at WB, but it is warm, great cycling and the good skiing envelope is less than two hours. So how do I keep getting better or at least not slipping? Well it is the slant board exercises. So this is a great thread to read all summer.
Next fall will be my 5th tech camp. Each year I have gone, we have a core group it is always good too see and ski with again. In past years I have thought that my skiing has really improved and that I have likely narrowed the gap between myself and the others. Then I see them skiing and holy cow they are way better than they were last year. I have to get better just to stop the gap from getting larger. The whole tech/short turns group are far better than when I was first there.
I may ski some more , but it is practicing the transition on the slant board that will have the emphasis until next tech camp.

[h.harb]

Irwin, we have 6 of your Welch buddies already signed up, and I'm sure there will be plenty more other folks from the core group. That camp will fill up in a few days.

[Max_501]

Then I see them skiing and holy cow they are way better than they were last year. I have to get better just to stop the gap from getting larger. The whole tech/short turns group are far better than when I was first there.
I may ski some more , but it is practicing the transition on the slant board that will have the emphasis until next tech camp.

My secret weapons are summer skiing at Mt Hood and Harb Carvers. The slant board is great too.