Plan for real improvement this season!

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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:30 pm

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


Before camp spend some time working on the Super phantom with touch-tilt:

As in a regular super phantom, transfer balance to LTE of the uphill ski. Then, touch the inside edge of the lifted, dowhnill ski to the inside ankle rivet of the stance boot ("inside foot arch touches outside foot ankle"). Keep it touching while tipping the free foot further toward its LTE. Don't let that free foot touch the snow until the very end of the turn. VERY IMPORTANT STEP! At the end of the turn, when the free foot touches the snow on its LTE, immediately pick up the new free foot, and touch-tilt the new stance boot.

And the Pole Press drill.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 12:40 pm

skijim13 wrote:... 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.

Unfortunately, I don't have video of these runs. If I did, I'd post it and let qualified eyes MA.

FWIW, I was intently focused on not actively extending. After quickly retracting the old stance ski right off the snow to release, I very consciously kept flexing both legs even more (a tiny amount) throughout the transition. KEY: I was still flexing even as the new stance ski was rolling from LTE to BTE... my legs were bent more at the end of transition than at the start.

On a flat slope, it's only the stance ski's divergence away from your CoM that necessitates lengthening the stance leg. The tactile clue is maintaining ski/snow contact. You allow the leg to lengthen just enough to do that - no need to push. Besides, pushing feels so gormless. Did Fred Astaire ever push? Does Harald? 8)

Like you, I skied for decades pushing my BTE. Like you, I thought a dominant BTE improved edgehold and shortened arcs. It doesn't. I've never skied cleaner, rounder, tighter or better controlled arcs on ice than the ones I made in those exercises.

Another clue that I wasn't extending (or not much): my quads never worked hard. I could have skied 50 runs like this without tiring my legs. They simply weren't doing any work beyond resisting natural centripetal forces - which were minimal because this was not a steep trail and I was not skiing fast. Skiing this way is like flying. Skiing with BTE pushing is just schlepping.

Of course video or trained PMTS eyes will tell the truth. I only know what I think I did, and I've been wrong before!
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 1:44 pm

Max_501 wrote:Before camp spend some time working on the Super phantom with touch-tilt:

As in a regular super phantom, transfer balance to LTE of the uphill ski. Then, touch the inside edge of the lifted, dowhnill ski to the inside ankle rivet of the stance boot ("inside foot arch touches outside foot ankle"). Keep it touching while tipping the free foot further toward its LTE. Don't let that free foot touch the snow until the very end of the turn. VERY IMPORTANT STEP! At the end of the turn, when the free foot touches the snow on its LTE, immediately pick up the new free foot, and touch-tilt the new stance boot.

Thanks Max. That's exactly what I did on those runs last year. I don't blame you for not wading through my endless post but I'm 100% confident I owned the movements you described.

What surprised me was how easy it was. The last, "VERY IMPORTANT STEP!" required a conscious effort, but only because it took me half a run to remember that the trigger to start the next turn is the free ski touchdown (on its LTE, duh!). After that, I began linking SPwTT's through all sorts of conditions. I made 4 non-stop runs, so 8,000vf of these. It got easier/better of course. Near the end, I was playing with refining edge angles at any point in the turn with very tiny tipping adjustments... just for fun... with my free ski off the snow and touching.

Max_501 wrote:And the Pole Press drill.

Might the Pole Press drill be redundant? Not that it would do any harm, but if I can already demonstrate hundreds of linked SPwTTs done correctly... what's next?

My fore/aft balance was good. 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 against the front or back of my boot.

Lateral balance was adjusted by... um... I have no idea! I was never out of balance but I don't know why. I was focused so intently on my foot movements that I literally have no idea what was happening higher up. I may have been leaning, or hip dumping, or even using textbook CA/CB - who knows? Probably pointless to guess. The pertinent chapter in ACBAES2 would probably be as good a start as any.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby dan.boisvert » Thu Oct 01, 2015 2:40 pm

Max_501 wrote: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.


With respect, how do you know when you've got them sufficiently ingrained that you can go touring and screw around with your friends? I'm really interested in how you measure that and where you'd set the benchmark.

For me, I know that I quit stuff when it stops being fun for me, so it's important for me to not lose sight of the stuff I love about skiing. Drills aren't that for me; skiing interesting terrain and screwing around with my friends is, so I make sure I keep doing it.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby jbotti » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:51 pm

DougD wrote:
What surprised me was how easy it was.


Might the Pole Press drill be redundant? Not that it would do any harm, but if I can already demonstrate hundreds of linked SPwTTs done correctly... what's next?



I certainly love your enthusiasm. Having said that most people that are demonstrating some stemming in their skiing that come to doing work on Super Phantom releases/drills find that it takes multiple seasons to eliminate the stemming. In fact doing a SP well and correctly is one of the more difficult PMTS drills to master. Don't be surprised if when you get to camp that the coaches are requiring more work on this because if you have eliminated that in less than a season without help from coaches and video review you would be the first.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby milesb » Thu Oct 01, 2015 3:54 pm

"With respect, how do you know when you've got them sufficiently ingrained that you can go touring and screw around with your friends? "

Video. Or count how many times you rely on hop turns instead of TFR's or BPSRT's.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby jbotti » Thu Oct 01, 2015 4:08 pm

Doug, as a follow on, all of us that have worked PMTS hard for many seasons have learned (mostly the hard way) that a good percentage of the time when we are convinced we finally got something right, when we looked at the video it was clear as day that we were still falling well shy. I worked relentlessly for 2 years on my CA and was often convinced that I was nailing it (easily 18 months into the process) only to look at video and know that it wasn't happening. Our perception consistently deceives us. This unfortunately is universal and just one of the issues we all deal with in trying to change movement patterns.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:52 pm

John,

Thanks for your insights and experience. I'm sure I'm as capable of fooling myself as anyone. As I wrote at the top of my looooong post, the video SkiFastDDS shot of me early last season was sobering. I cringe every time I watch it

If the coaches want me doing SPwTT all week long, I'll do them and enjoy. I've had nothing but fun doing every PMTS drill or exercise I've tried.

I guess my question is:
- IF I've nailed SPwTT well enough to move to whatever's next (without implying that I shouldnt do more SPwTT); and
- IF I need to test/understand upper body essentials next; then
- what drills or tests would be recommended?

If either of those assumptions is false, or if the answer is "no one knows without seeing you ski", I have no problem accepting that.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby HeluvaSkier » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:58 pm

Short of skiing with a PMTS coach the second best thing you can do is shoot some video and get it posted here for one of the coaches or regular PMTS campers to comment.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby jbotti » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:59 pm

DougD wrote:
"no one knows without seeing you ski"


You answered your own question.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby jbotti » Thu Oct 01, 2015 5:59 pm

Yes, what Heluva said.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 6:06 pm

jbotti wrote:Yes, what Heluva said.


+1000

One of the key tenants of PMTS is that we use external confirmation of movement success.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby HeluvaSkier » Thu Oct 01, 2015 6:27 pm

Max_501 wrote:One of the key tenants of PMTS is that we use external confirmation of movement success.


Not only that, but external confirmation from a third party is best. I get far more out of watching my video with a coach or other high level skiers than I do watching it on my own.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby DougD » Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:03 pm

Thanks, gents. I'll be camping soon (mid Nov) and that will be my first chance to be videoed or seen skiing by PMTS eyes.
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Re: Plan for real improvement this season!

Postby Max_501 » Thu Oct 01, 2015 7:45 pm

DougD wrote: I don't blame you for not wading through my endless post but I'm 100% confident I owned the movements you described.


Let me give some context here... there are only three people that I've seen that have the touch-tilt drill mastered - HH, Diana, and Jay.

DougD wrote:What surprised me was how easy it was.


A new movement pattern as complex as the touch-tilt isn't easy for any developing skier I've ever met. However, I've coached many that say a movement (or drill) is easy when, in fact, they are doing something else based on their default and ingrained old patterns. Rewiring the neural pathways takes time, lots of time, and its never easy.
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