Plan for real improvement this season!

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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Robert0325 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:38 am

For indoor ski slopes (available all year round)
There are 2 drills from ACBAES2 which I can't do that well which I want to get nailed.
1. 2 footed release from a stationary start - Almost there with it. The new "teach yourself" videos on Youtube are really helpful.
2. Full weighted release with outside ski lifted. Can do it in one direction but not in the other.

For the mountains (10 days a year only! :( )
1. 2 footed pullback. I guess flappers are good for that?
2. Last year I had good improvement in my technique by concentrating on keeping the inside leg pulled back though the turn, particularly in steep / difficult terrain where I used to find myself in the back seat at the end of a turn, so will continue to work on that as well.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:56 am

Robert0325 wrote:Full weighted release with outside ski lifted. Can do it in one direction but not in the other.

Have you had your alignment checked? Solved that problem for me.

As Max noted in his original post, "Delaying that... was a HUGE mistake and if I could do it over again I'd start the PMTS journey with a visit to [the nearest PMTS certified shop]."
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Robert0325 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 6:39 am

DougD wrote:
Robert0325 wrote:Full weighted release with outside ski lifted. Can do it in one direction but not in the other.

Have you had your alignment checked? Solved that problem for me.

As Max noted in his original post, "Delaying that... was a HUGE mistake and if I could do it over again I'd start the PMTS journey with a visit to [the nearest PMTS certified shop]."


Yes, had my alignment checked by Jasper at Portes Du Ski in Holland. Just a minor tweak to the boots own canting adjustment and of course I had proper foot beds fitted. So alas I fear it's my technique that is lacking.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby skijim13 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 6:58 am

Step 1. Preseason training; yoga for balance, teeter board, one footed balance, hip flexability training, weight training, bicycle interval training, slant board training, and roller blading
On snow; two footed releases, one footed release from uphill ski, ball control release, phantom javlin, weighted release (all with video analysis)
Double boot touch to ensure no extension during transition, tuck turns,
pole usage improvement, ensure pole tips foward of boots on the snow lightly and moving foward during turns to ensure CA, and CB, improve no swing pole tap, got the tomato stakes that we used in camp to place between the two poles to use as the drill Walter has us do.
Angry mother drills from both E videos
Drills from short turn E videos, and drills for brushed carved turns from E video

I know last year my SMIM was not to extend during transition, I believe I got this out of my skiing during last season, I also did not keep consistent CA from one side to the other I need to improve this. I also sent a great deal of time improving my LTE balance. Additionally tipping could be improved further by increased flexing.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:27 am

skijim13 wrote:Step 1. Preseason training; yoga for balance, teeter board, one footed balance, hip flexability training, weight training, bicycle interval training, slant board training, and roller blading


Excellent!

skijim13 wrote:On snow; two footed releases, one footed release from uphill ski, ball control release, phantom javlin, weighted release (all with video analysis)
Double boot touch to ensure no extension during transition, tuck turns,
pole usage improvement, ensure pole tips foward of boots on the snow lightly and moving foward during turns to ensure CA, and CB, improve no swing pole tap, got the tomato stakes that we used in camp to place between the two poles to use as the drill Walter has us do.
Angry mother drills from both E videos
Drills from short turn E videos, and drills for brushed carved turns from E video


You've got a lot going on here. Consider breaking it down farther and creating a step by step plan. Identify the SMIM at the beginning of the season (it might still be flexing) and then work solely on that until you've got it nailed. At that point you'll have a new SMIM and you can put together a sequence of drills to tackle it, rinse and repeat.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby skijim13 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:40 am

Thanks, Max I tend to suffer from wanting to be an over achiever and work on too much at the same time
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby dan.boisvert » Tue Sep 29, 2015 5:17 pm

My plan is to start the season by working on the stuff in my notes from last year's Short Turns camp, and hopefully spend the early season doing drills and stuff. We usually get a month or two before anything besides groomers is available, so I'm hoping to take advantage of that to front-load my season with practicing.

I'm going to Super Blue camp in January to get a refreshed list of things I suck at, and booked a week at Vail right after camp, to hopefully reinforce what I'll have learned.

Aside from that, my plan is to screw around, do more touring, and have fun. It might not help my technique any, but it keeps me motivated.. :D
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Tue Sep 29, 2015 7:38 pm

dan.boisvert wrote:Aside from that, my plan is to screw around, do more touring, and have fun. It might not help my technique any, but it keeps me motivated.. :D


Hate to say it, but screwing around will take you backwards as far as technique goes. All I can say is that the fun factor is about 1000x higher once the Essentials are ingrained.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby skifastDDS » Wed Sep 30, 2015 8:30 am

SMIM - Free foot management and tipping

My right footers had some hip dump last year, so the main focus is flex/tip to engage and patience in the high C.

My checklist from my coach at the end of last season:
1 -Collapse inside, especially after apex
2 -Flex/tip to engage, right foot especially
3 -Inside hand up

Internal cue - Send it [stance ski] .... Wait ..... Wind it up [CB/CA]

The above internal cue was very helpful to me last year. I've been in the gym working on strength, and I hockey skate at least once a week to work on balance and ankle control. I hope to make it to the mini-gathering at Killington again this year, we'll see how that goes.
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
-Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Basil j » Wed Sep 30, 2015 3:55 pm

ToddW wrote:Basil,

If you can make it to the Killington gathering for a day, you'll get the benefit of live feedback. Doug will have just completed a camp, and Jim and Lori took a camp last season. Most campers pick up a bit of PMTS-centric MA ability. Their comments may help you refine your improvement plan for the upcoming season.

Todd
Todd let me know the dates. I certainly will try my best to make it if I can. I used to ski Killington every week for over 10 years. haven't been back since 04 :shock:
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby skijim13 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:51 am

Basil, we would love to have you come to Killington. We will be bringing Video equipment. Last year at Superblue Camp I learned a great deal of video analysis from Harald and Walter. I now see things in my skiing I did not see before, I sure the whole team of us can work together and help each other.

Jim
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:41 am

skijim13 wrote:We will be bringing Video equipment. Last year at Superblue Camp I learned a great deal of video analysis from Harald and Walter. I now see things in my skiing I did not see before, I sure the whole team of us can work together and help each other.


Excellent. Keep in mind that the key is to identify the SMIM. Much of the time that means getting back to basics and working on the Super Phantom with a focus on inside foot management.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 8:13 am

Basil,

Here's the Posse thread for the December Killington meetup: http://www.pmts.org/pmtsforum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4726
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 9:26 am

Max_501 wrote:Keep in mind that the key is to identify the SMIM. Much of the time that means getting back to basics and working on the Super Phantom with a focus on inside foot management.

Max,

Early last season I learned that I needed to work on this. Jim spotted an overly wide stance and SkiFastDDS took video that showed incomplete inside foot management, even some stemming. While that was only my first or second day on skis last year and I was fighting a bad cold, I was still shocked at how bad I looked. I'd worked for 30+ years to ski without stemming. To learn that I still reverted to that at times (without even being aware) was sobering.

PMTS is clearly the answer and last season I made real progress. After many hours practicing LTE balancing, I spent the last couple ski days linking hundreds of Super Phantoms. In lieu of video (which I don't have) here's how that went:

- the trail was a 2100vf groomed blue, light skier traffic made it safe to link controlled, short/medium turns top-to-bottom without getting run over
- the base was refrozen corduroy, very solid (no tracks) but edgeable if you know how to ski with quiet feet
- 8-10" of new snow was blowing around like crazy, many patches were bare, others had windpack to boot-deep powder - fore/aft foot management was critical as the skis were constantly slowing down, speeding up, slowing down...
- skis were i.SS Speeds, brand new with just a few days on them

- I committed to practice Super Phantoms with 100% outside ski weighting and with higher than my normal edge angles. My inspiration was a post of HH where he compared his angulation (with massive vertical foot separation) to another PMTS skier (who used less and attained lower angles).

- Releases began by flexing the old stance leg (using the ski rebound), followed by a slight, continued flex of both legs during transition (exaggerating to learn) - I'm 99% certain I wasn't extending even a mm
- I kept my stance narrow and my free foot back by sliding the BTE of the free ski up the inside of the stance boot/leg... eventually all the way to the knee - ski/leg contact was constant, so I'm 100% sure my stance was as narrow as possible (exaggerating to learn)
- transfer onto the new stance ski was directly onto the LTE, followed by a short, straight gliding traverse in which the stance foot/leg remained relaxed - no pivoting or tipping of the stance foot, just enough foot tension to make sure I stayed on the LTE (this was easy once I developed the balance, and because I was on ice it was very easy to feel the LTE gliding straight forward with no skidding, pivoting or any other movement)
- free foot tipping began as soon as the ski left the snow, and continued as the free ski scraped up the stance leg
- the stance ski, after being lightly held on its LTE for a moment (O-frame?), was allowed to tip in reaction - I could feel the ski roll g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y from LTE to flat to BTE with zero muscular effort in the stance foot or leg - being on ice, the sensitivity to very tiny changes in edge angle was exquisite
- all this happened with zero turning, pivoting or skidding of the stance ski, while it was aimed across the fall line - I'm as confident as I can be without video that my stance ski was edged and carving upside-down in the High C
- the belly of the turn was made with the free ski edge brushing the stance knee, in the air and tipping like mad (for me)
- at no point did my stance ski edge fail to slice directly forward, it was like being locked on a monorail making pure arcs
- the bottom third of the turn eventually brought the snow up to meet my lifted free ski LTE
- the second my free ski touched the snow, I actively retracted the stance leg and let the ski rebound help move me into the next turn.


Fore/aft balance was adjusted for powder vs. ice by anticipatory sliding of the stance foot forward or back, after just a few turns this became instinctive and I was never thrown onto the front or back of my boot. I think I've got that.

Lateral balance was adjusted by... um... I have no idea! I do know I was never out of balance. Whatever I was doing kept my ski slicing clean, round, repeatable arcs with virtually no effort despite variable and challenging snow conditions. As I was 100% on the outside ski throughout each turn, with the inside ski moving as described, I think my inside foot management was good for this exercise. But I was focused so intently on my feet that I literally have no idea what was happening higher up. I may have been leaning, or hip dumping, or even using fantastic CA/CB - who knows?

Based on the above (if you're still awake!) can you suggest a drill, exercise or SMIM?

If you can't tell without video then just say so. I'm sure the coaches at camp will start me off right.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby skijim13 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 10:22 am

Doug I was also working on a similar drill with transfer to the LTE, one of my problems pointed out to me at camp was that I would then extend the new outside leg at the start of the turn (old PSIA move). Did you look at your video and check to make sure that you were not using any time of extension in the start of your next turn. I also was releasing my CA before I was on tipping to the new LTE in my turns. I worked very hard on these two things after the camp, I found video to be one of the best tools to look for it, I am lucky to have a partner (my wife) that is into PMTS as much as I am that can take videos.
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