How to stop a up movement in short radius turns

[skijim13]

I was reading some of the posts on the short radius camp about reducing an up movement when releasing in the turns and how to elimnate them. My wife and I both started off the season last week working on the short radius turns using one footed and two footed releases. We spent a long time with the double pole drag, tuck turns, and the boot touch drills as well to try to eliminate the up movements since being TTS trained I sure we still have some of it left in our skiing. Can someone please tell us any other good drills and how you can feel the up movemtne while skiing. My fellow ski instructors were impressed with our improved turns we have been making and doing our first video analysis we could see that our skiing looks different than the other skiers on the mountain. We are excited to ski with a fellow PMTS skier in early December in Killington before the Pro Jam. I will post a video in the future when we have skied more since this was our first weekend on skis.

[jbotti]

Two drills will help eliminate this problem. The first is the pole touch drill. This is very simple, ski with both your pole tips on the ground all the time. Any up movement will lift one or both the tips off the snow. Have soemone watch your pole tips to make sure they aren't coming off the snow. The other is the boot touch drill that we typically use to improve counterbalancing but done properly it will also eliminate an up move. In this one you reach down and put your outside hand on the boots at the ankles of your stance ski. Keep your hand there through the transition (edge change) and then touch the other hand onto the boot of the new stance leg. If you do both of the drills correctly and engrain these movements you will eliminate the up move. Bear in mind that eliminating and up move is one of the hardest things to do and it takes time and real commitment.

[Erik]

skijim-

One of the challenges of getting rid of up movments is to develop patience in transition and to sequence the movements correctly. Doing short radius turns is probabaly not doing you any favors in your learning that sequencing and patience. Apart from the drills I will mention below, you might try some garlands, where you focus on the transition movements. Also, the target tipping drill helps me develop patience in transition and focus on tipping the skis rather than stemming/steering them to rush the turn.

For every PMTS essential, you will find out that after you understand the correct movements, you will need to develop "more" of each. Starting to flex to release is something that you can pick up early, but it really takes some focus to learn to continue that flexing movement through the release and into the new turn. Since tipping is the most important essential, that should be a major focus for you at this point. The tipping and flexing work together to get rid of the up movement.

For the tipping part, I would recommend that you spend a lot of time on the slant board drilling the the sequence of tipping off the old edges and on to the new edges. Harald's slantboard videos give excellent demonstrations on how to learn these movements and tie together the tipping movements of the old stance foot and free foot as you progress from the bottom of the old turn to the new High C part of the turn. If you don't have that tipping sequence down solid and you try to rush getting on the new big toe edge, you will be pushing off. Developing the discipline on the slant board will help you develop the patience on the slope to not rush the transition. In addition, I would recommend that you do the "Walking the S-Line drill" to reinforce the concept of what is supposed to happen when in the turn. Harald had an example of the S-Line drill that incorporates the slant board in the slant board video series, but you can also walk the S-line with your ski boots on on the snow (try it on flat ground first before you move onto a slope).

For the double pole drag, take turns with your wife to ski behind the other during the pole drag, and it is the follower's job to yell at you if you don't have both pole baskets on the snow. Every time I have been in a group that is practicing the pole drag, including those who have been to several PMTS camps, it is amazing to see how skiers absolutely lose focus on whether they are dragging their poles or not. Once you can consistently learn to use the external cue of feeling the basket drag on the snow, you can try a variation where you hold the poles sword-style and angled out to the side / \ rather than vertical I I. Doing that will keep you lower to the snow and help to develop deeper flexing.



Erik

[h.harb]

Knee touch and double knee touch will do the job in one run.

[Max_501]

Excellent suggestions above. Let me add that TTS trained skiers may need to really EXAGGERATE flexing to get rid of an ingrained up move. Pull your knees up towards your chest as you would for absorbing a big mogul. This may be easier to learn with larger radius turns.

Look at the size of the turn and the amount of flex during each release:



This old thread has some good information: Drills and range of motion

[skijim13]

http://www.mcall.com/news/breaking/mc-pictures-news-shunning-the-shops-some-make--004,0,2206469.photo

Thanks for the advice I will hit the slant board until I hit the slopes this weekend.

Can someone point me to the double boot drill I don't remember seeing it in any of the videos or books.

[Max_501]

Can someone point me to the double boot drill I don't remember seeing it in any of the videos or books.

Essentials page 77.

[h.harb]

Begin with the single version.

[Ken]

Drill on a slope so easy and empty that you don't have to think of anything except the drill. Be watchful and safe, always, put drill where you can put as much of your concentration into the drill as possible.