Moving Fore/aft Balance

PMTS Forum

Moving Fore/aft Balance

Postby Harald » Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:38 pm

For/Aft balance:

Controlling and staying in perfect natural for/aft balance while skiing fast GS or slalom turns is an athletic skill bestowed on few individuals. It took me many years of serious training in my racing years to find answers to this problem in my own skiing. It is essential for racers to manage for/aft balance, as when you stay forward for the whole turn, they are slow in races. This of course is less of a problem for recreational skiers. Racers must learn not only how to get forward quickly, but also how to get pressure back through the middle and heel of the foot to accelerate the skis. Notice I say pressure to the heel rather than back of the ski. When you feel the pressure or balance on the back of the ski it is already too late to save the turn.
Check out Bode crashes


(additions 11-02-05)

Recently I was skiing with one of our clients, friends, and we tried to reference the heel pressure and how it related to pressure under the ski edge and where that pressure helped or created part of the turn. He realized that the beginning of the arc the hips needed to stay open (reference in this case to forward tilt). Open means not bent at the waist or at the pelvis. The stronger position is with open or un-flexed pelvis. He had the habit of leaning forward with the shoulders and upper body. This is a substitute for keeping the boots under the hips.

The definition of “for to aft balancing” relates to constantly moving and changing relationship of the hips to or over the boots or feet. Commanding this relationship is accomplished by monitoring the sensations relayed from the bottom of the feet, front and side of the shins to your brain. To a lesser degree, but important is tip engagement and ski behavior and that can be felt and realized by the relationship of the body in space and time. Once you have trained yourself to know where you are in space (relationship of hips to slope and skis to the falline) you can be active with adjusting the degree and duration of extreme forward pressure, which is based on hip position and/or feet to hip relationship.

How do you develop this ability? The easiest way you can arrive at the beginning of a turn with proper hip over the feet position is to use the energy from the previous turn to launch you into the optimal position.

(Additions 11-02-05)
It has been a life long pursuit to be able to convey this ability to skiers and racers. Open the hip and keep it open as long as you can in the turn.


When you achieve energy enough to do this, you must then learn to organize the body into the feet and hip relationship during what I call “the float” between turns. As with much of skiing the question becomes, what comes first (chicken or the egg) the energy or the proper positioning of the body/feet to begin turns? To get the energy to achieve enough float between turns to organize yourself for the next turn, depends on how you exit the last turn. So how do get it if you don’t have the energy from one turn to the next? You have to first learn how to move the hips so they are ahead of the feet at the “High C” (description of high C turn is in articles on the Real Skier member web site) part of the turn. This can be also said in this way: move your feet (back) so “the hips” are in the proper position for the new turn.

(Addition 11-02-05)
There are no moving the hip forward muscles in the body. You have only the boots and the skis with which you can lever the hips into position. The rebound or energy from the last turn can also project your body into the right place. You have to know or learn how to organize it once it gets projected. This is a very high end movement.


I describe this in both my books as, “bring the feet back or pulling the feet back”, to hold them under the hips as the hips move forward and into a more direct route to the next turn. The hips move forward relative to the feet. This movement sequence is first trained and learned by performing simple exercises on the flats.

Stand in an upright comfortable position; pull your boots or feet back by sliding the skis and leaning forward with the hips. Now push the feet forward so they end up in front of your knees. Now practice this on the flats until you have strong movement of the feet both back and forward under the hips. The skis have to slide back at least six to twelve inches. Now this is a gross exaggeration of the movement you need to make if you have the “float” energy from the last turn. This exercise is skiing static, and with the body vertical on the flat, which is very different than moving dynamically and inclined on the slope.

The “pulling of the feet back” between turns is done during the transition. It is part of the flexing movement of the legs. If you are still pushing off and extending upward to release yourself from turns you will not have success using this method of releasing between turns. This move requires that flexing is the way you release. (Flexing, bending or retracting the legs is explained in Expert Skier 2).

About monitoring sensations:
When you have the knees flexed or bent, pulling the feet back is easier as the hamstring muscles have more leverage from this higher degree of bend. Many skiers respond by saying they don’t feel pulling the feet back or they don’t understand how to achieve pulling the feet back, often because of the reasons I stated earlier. When you are in the optimal position for the beginning of the turn you will feel you hips applying pressure to the front of the boots through the shins. If your hips are too far back your knees will not affect pressure to the front of the boots. Being in proper for/aft balance at the beginning of turn is about where you position the hips not about pushing the knees into the boots.

The role of the skis;

The skis travel ahead of the feet while the body is in transition. But the skis should be tilting to their new edge angles as they travel the wider rounder line than the hips. The hips travel the shorter more direct line to be inside the arc the skis describe. All this occurs during the “high C” part of the turn. When the skis are aimed straight downhill, half the turn is complete. Most skiers begin their edging at this point that’s why they have difficulty staying forward on their skis. Getting forward is done during or at the upper or High C part of the turn.

(Addition 11-02-05)
Pulling or holding the feet and skis from moving forward in the transition is another way to look at this repositioning from turn to turn. If you are a strong enough skier, you only have to hold the feet and skis back, while your Center of Gravity moves into position toward the new turn. Sense where on the foot and the ski pressure develops as the stance leg extends and produces pressure on the ski. Feel the whole ski through the bottom of your foot or side of the foot that is on edge. You should be able to pin point exactly where the pressure is focused on the ski. (Front, middle, heel)


A few comments about ski to hip relationship through the turn:

There is no need to push the feet ahead during the carving or arcing phase of the turn, they will more with a natural acceleration that the slope provides. If you are on very steep terrain you may need to hold the feet back under the hips through more of the upper radius and let them go near the end, to release the turn. Great skiers know instinctively how long to hold onto the feet while the feet are under the body. For this reason you never see a great skier out of balance or slipping on ice, as the ski is always inline with CG pressure and the their body mass is lined up with the ski. If your body mass, hips or center are behind the feet you can not engage and pressure the ski (at least not for very long).

(Addition 11-02-05)
This is what you see when skiers are parking on the side cut to make the turn. The true test of functional fore/aft balance is the ability to decrease the radius of every turn (at the bottom of the arc) regardless of the steepness of terrain or how slippery the surface. This begins with proper fore/aft balance and the ability to increase angles of the body and skis through the turn.


While in the turn use the flexing and pulling back of the free foot and ankle to add forward positioning to your body. Extending the inside leg has no benefits, as this will move the boot forward and reduce body angles to the slope.

When you begin training these movements and monitoring your experience, work with larger turns on moderate slopes at the beginning. The movements will feel contrived and mechanical at first, but you will find you will be able to work through that phase and produce a huge change in your skiing if you stick with it. I have done this process with many developing racers that went on to great achievements.

In conclusion 11-02-05,

Pulling both skis back doesn’t cause skidding or lack of edging ability. In all mountain terrain, crud or powder, one needs to be able to do both, the inside ski pull back and the two footed pull back or hold. Keeping the inside ski and boot back during the turn is very important and it was introduced in Expert Book 1, back in 1997.

The Austrians were masters at this and it was a big reason for their success especially in speed events. If you keep the inside boot back you will create a strong engagement and slicing action. If this movement is nonexistent, the body parks on the side cut of the ski, upper body rotation and steering becomes noticeable.

These two detrimental movements reduce edging and ski traction. If you follow world cup technique closely you will notice that the inside foot moves forward and out of the tucked under the stance boot position, only after the critical part of the turn is accomplished and not until. Those that move the boot away from the stance boot too early or too far lose turn radius and pressure needed to affect a powerful release and rebound.

About counter, we move in and out of counter (with hip, torso and upper body shoulder counter) counter is not static, again static is demonstrated by the park and ride side cut turns.

Bode develops more counter and he holds it stronger and longer than anyone else on the world cup (some of the duration of counter depends on the event and turn radius). Most observers don’t see it because he moves into counter very late in the arc and he holds it very strongly until the release. He also gets extremely counter balanced late in the turn. Unfortunately, often he is too late getting into this ideal position for the conditions of the slope and the ruts in the gates. Now, if he could get his hands out of his wallet pocket in slalom, and set up a slight bit earlier, he might have something.
Last edited by Harald on Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Maximum Skiing information, Minimum BS
Harald
 
Posts: 1181
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:36 pm
Location: Dumont

Postby Max » Fri Feb 11, 2005 4:43 pm

Is this covered in the Books or Video? I'm having a hard time picturing what I should be doing, but from the description I know I'm not doing it the way I should be : (
Max
 

Observation

Postby Harald » Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:03 pm

This is a difficult move to show in photos (as I do it in almost every turn and most skiers don?t noticed what is happening) without making it look ridicules. Don?t feel slighted as most skiers and instructors don?t know what I?m talking about and surely can?t see it. It is not covered or talked about by or in traditional instruction methods. There method to get re-centered is to rise between turns. When cross under is discussed in traditional skiing re-centering is never addressed. It is just supposed to happen.

I do cover this topic in Book 2. If you compare regular skiers at the top of the turn to photos in my book you may be able to see the difference it makes to re-center, but other wise it is hard to see the movements. Follow the instructions in my post where it describes the static practice and try it on your next ski day.
"Maximum Skiing information, Minimum BS
Harald
 
Posts: 1181
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:36 pm
Location: Dumont

Postby piggyslayer » Sat Feb 12, 2005 8:11 am

I was working on the fore-aft balance yesterday nite after work (before I got the chance to read new version of Harald?s post). We got some rain followed by windy 2 days and it was icy, even my local ski hill area web site said ?icy? on their snow conditions page which doe not happen too often. They have closed some of the runs which where glossy shiny ice. The rest remained icy but OK.

I would like to comment/discuss the pulling the foot/feet back vs. skid issue.
I think this largely depends on other elements of the turn.

MY GOOD STRATEGY.
The movements described by Harald have been working great for me in these icy conditions.
1. I have strived to regain my fore balance at the end of each turn (feet pullback).
2. I have strived to maintain my feet under my hips during turn transition into the upper C. (I have a tendency of relaxing too much in this phase and letting go of the fore-aft balance :( ).
3. I have been relaxing my hip allowing the angles and counter to develop early.
4. Once on edges, I forced a mental picture in my brain of my stance ski being 3 inches behind of where it was. This seems to help me in effective pulling back of my feet in preparation to bend the ski.
5. As soon as the stance foot has moved back I would start extending the stance leg jamming the edges into the snow at the same time.
6. I was continuing very strong pressure on the stance leg until after the fall-line.
7. The skis would go slightly forward on their own, I would pull them back at the very end of the turn and start over.

As with anything else I was trying to push the limits with 4, 5, and 6.
Pushing the limits give me speed control on steeper parts ? I mean high speed turns with a lot of control.
The problems I got were:
- by pushing the limit of loading and extending the stance ski I lost counter once and ended up in trouble because of it (rotated).
- I have hard time to think of aggressive extending of the stance ski at the same time as aggressive tipping of the free foot. Some level of tipping is ingrain into my memory but aggressive tipping has be explicit. I need to try how the turns will feel when I combine the two.

I was surprised how well the turns where holding the icy snow (It was not the blue shiny stuff though).
NO SKID, no rotation!

MY SO-SO STRATEGY.
If on the contrary, I fail to extend the stance leg by pressing it to the snow, don't develop adequate counter, and continue pulling back the free foot, I will make my turns shorter and less carved.

I think this is it, balance of all elements in the turn. If I keep strong action of pulling back the free foot neglecting other ingredients I will end up ?out of turn balance? and possibly create some sort of skid (call it brush or something else).

Finally, I know this will sound like kissing up but I want to say it.


Harald: thanks to this forum, you have remained an effective coach of my skiing despite of the fact that I have not seen you for 2 years. Skiing snow like this with confidence and energy was above me 2 years ago.
Turns like this have been above me even one year ago. Sure you posts are hard to read, but they convey information which is not trivial so they have to be re-read and re-read.
Thanks for posting the technical stuff.
I am so grateful for all you have done to my skiing.

Robert
Last edited by piggyslayer on Sat Feb 12, 2005 2:55 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Piggy Slayer
let the piggy breathe
piggyslayer
 
Posts: 320
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2003 9:27 pm
Location: New Jersey

Postby Tommi » Sat Feb 12, 2005 10:45 am

Very interesting and useful topic for me. Makes sense to me, as usual in Harald's writing ;-). During the last sessions I have been working on this in many ways..

I have made slight changes to my boots, again. I bought the booster straps, I installed heel 'cups', which very slightly altered the ramp as well as made the heel fit better. I have reduced the cuff angle a couple of times..I am now getting used to the slightly more upright 'feel'. This seems to be very critical. Even a slightest alteration has a very big effect when skiing aggressively.

I have found the single ski practise very useful in finding the fore/aft balance. When the run is good, I can feel the changes in fore-aft during the turns very clearly. The free foot ski has its tail up during turn initiation and its level or slightly nose up near the end. I must say this is a real fun exercise. I have even tried it now at 40-50 km/h..feels quite awesome, it's wild 8)

In order to get the big angles, I have to be very careful with the transitions. When the rebound is directed also slightly forward, not only laterally to the side, then I get the absolutely shortest transition and best balance for very high pressure turn. I think this must be the same movement with different words: feet back / hips forward? I try to build the counter (not much actually) and tipping gradually so that initially in the engagement my body is almost straight and only when the forces build up I let my hips get in and low more and more. For some reason its easier to maintain balance this way and I can take much more G-punishment also. If I try to get 'low' too fast I usually run out of muscle and /or loose grip..

Just my experiences.. 0.02 eur worth.

Have fun,

T2
User avatar
Tommi
 
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:38 am
Location: Vantaa, Finland

Message

Postby Harald » Sat Feb 12, 2005 10:40 pm

Did you receive my message?
"Maximum Skiing information, Minimum BS
Harald
 
Posts: 1181
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:36 pm
Location: Dumont

Postby Guest » Sun Feb 13, 2005 7:31 am

Stand in an upright comfortable position; pull your boots or feet back by sliding the skis and leaning forward with the hips. Now push the feet forward so they end up in front of your knees


What muscles do you use to do this move?
Guest
 

For/aft

Postby Biowolf » Sun Feb 13, 2005 9:31 pm

Thanks Harald, for a truly masterful analysis of modern skiing.
May I add one thing? Watching WC I notice that the racers seem to create the "float" by pushing of the LTE of the uphill ski. This does not necessarily leed to an up motion because it can be absorbed by flexing.
Biowolf
 
Posts: 56
Joined: Sat Oct 30, 2004 8:09 pm
Location: Whistler

Guest

Postby Harald » Sun Feb 13, 2005 9:39 pm

The strongest muscles, with the most pulling affect to move the feet and boots back under the hips are the hamstring group, semitendinosus, semimembranosus and biceps femoris. There are other muscles involved to stabilize the body during the pulling efforts, hip flexors and erector spinae. Erector spinae muscles are often neglected, but are very important in maintaining upper body posture in skiing. My studies tell me that the abs are not as important, as during strong contraction they bring the shoulders forward over the thighs. If you have a muscle imbalance (one group more developed) you maybe experiencing too much upper body over the tips, rather than feet under the hips.
"Maximum Skiing information, Minimum BS
Harald
 
Posts: 1181
Joined: Sun Nov 28, 2004 10:36 pm
Location: Dumont

Postby MD_2 » Wed Feb 16, 2005 6:43 pm

I have just returned from 2 weeks powder skiing - average of knee deep powder. I had a few troubles when my feet where ahead of my body causing me to be in the 'back seat'. My question is can you pull back your feet as successfully to control fore-aft balance as in the groomed or are other techniques required to control fore-aft balance in deep powder. Thanks.
MD_2
 

Postby h.harb » Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:10 am

This is a good enough thread to bring back to life.

HH
User avatar
h.harb
 
Posts: 7047
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:08 pm
Location: Dumont, Colorado

Postby jclayton » Fri Jul 27, 2007 11:34 am

Yes ,
still , and always , relevant .

There is some lovely footage in the video posted of Sarka Z. , 00:48 to 00:52 , where she loses it a touch to the rear ( very athletic though and fast ) but pulls her feet back smoothly and strongly to regain balance and take the shorter turns .

I think some of us have mentioned it before , but it would be great for Harald to give a blow by blow dissection of a series of turns such as these .

The two turns of Goetschl mentioned in the same post also demonstrate this . In the Von Gruenigen turn the free outside ski is well pulled back . Pointing down strongly .
skinut ,among other things
User avatar
jclayton
 
Posts: 1019
Joined: Wed Oct 29, 2003 12:37 pm
Location: mallorca ,spain

Postby Tommi » Sat Jul 28, 2007 10:39 pm

Hi all,

A great thread. And a suitable 'link' to my findings in Hintertux in May.

Actually, it was up to day 4 of the camp, that I still had considerable shin bang and problems with front/aft. Shin bang in spite of loosening up the boots and using the booster straps.

When we made counterbalance exercises, I noted that - just a sensation - better front-aft. Then I tried to change the direction of the inside arm (you remember the exercise, outside hand on hip pushing in) and voila'

The main problem had been my arms in 'home base' being a bit forward. I let Jay weigh my arm: response was 'what the he..!'. My arms are very heavy, because in watersports I have to grip the booms very hard.

Conclusion: If you have any front/aft problems, I suggest having your home base checked. Even a slight change can make a difference. In Hintertux, on friday when we skied all day long and heavily, my shins 'healed' and the problem was more or less gone. Moreover, many other improvements snapped in without this problem disturbing the balance.

So this is the reason for my popeye avatar, my arms look a bit like those of his ;-)

One week of watersports summer vacation left, time to go kitesurfing..

Have fun

T2
User avatar
Tommi
 
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:38 am
Location: Vantaa, Finland

Postby h.harb » Mon Jul 30, 2007 3:04 pm

You never know which of the Essential movements will trigger results for skiers. Often as in Tommi?s experience, a completely different Essential then you are working on brings many different things together. That is why the Essentials book and concepts are so powerful. They are clean and basically simple, but very complex when combined. A skier on his own can go out and practice the Essentials separately and individually, making it easy to focus, and achieve hugely positive changes in their skiing in a short time.
User avatar
h.harb
 
Posts: 7047
Joined: Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:08 pm
Location: Dumont, Colorado

Postby Tommi » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:11 am

Exactly!

Another story from Tux experience - during the camp in last May, for all groups the trainers were changed during the week. It gave you another point of view to the movements and maybe some other drills.

The camp was really fantastic, almost 6hrs a day high level coaching is a lot. Sometimes even too much - Jay you remember my 'yelling run', eh? - the only thing in Tux I missed was some form of gate skiing, even a brush course would have been great especially on thu/fri.

With so many drills your balance is disturbed in so many ways, that'll reveale most of one's skiing problems - at least for me it really was an eyeopener. For most of us the biggest immediate improvement will come with flex.

Jay said one of the simplest and sort of self evident thing that made huge difference:
We were at a pretty steep slope early, when the slope was still hard. It sort of made you stiff, and the release drill was feeling really hard to do. Then Jay said: 'imagine where your C/M must be after the release and the turn - it has to go down the hill - a lot'. This phrase opened my eyes - I had hesitated, I should just let go and SINK - I thought - and the release happened by itself.. For an average skier just trying to relax is not enough, you have to exaggerate and really let it go - while keeping balance with finesse.

Enuff said, PMTS rocks.

Regards to all Tux campers, we all made huge progress!

T2
User avatar
Tommi
 
Posts: 296
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:38 am
Location: Vantaa, Finland

Next

Return to Primary Movements Teaching System

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 36 guests