An article on "Holding your counteracting".

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An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby h.harb » Sat Dec 29, 2018 12:25 pm

I saw and read some posts on the Coaching Lesson Plan Thread, from skiers who have been told to keep their hips and shoulders facing their skis. Still amazing isn't it?

There are three steps that need to happen if coaches are to start understanding.
1. They have to notice what the best skiers in the world are doing.
2. They have to know that holding CA is not just essential but critical to development.
3. They have to know it exists.

Of course, that is just a beginning. And of course, they have no idea of how to develop the teaching progressions to convey CA properly. So kids in USSA are screwed and everyday skiers will never learn CA with PSIA. The Demo Team has no idea. And even if they do they don't know how to ski with CA or how to teach CA.
I continue to point out that coaches don't have a clue. Here in this article, you can see how it should be done and how to recognize it. How to coach it is the difficult part, which may never happen

https://harbskisysems.blogspot.com
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby precisionchiro » Sat Jan 05, 2019 3:15 pm

Harald,

What I am finding most aggravating is listening to coaches repeat "Stay square! Upper body needs to be square! Square to the skis!"... then listen to them later, as they watch one of the better racers use CB and CA in slalom turns, say "Nice angles! That's the way to do it!"

I'm not sure which is worse. Coaches who don't understand skiing movements and actually ski differently themselves than what they are trying to teach, or coaches who have no clue what they're even looking at. Although those two seem to go hand in hand.

Does anyone know if PSIA/USSA actually teaches "stay square to the skis?" When I took my Level 100 a couple of seasons ago, one of the course conductors mentioned during the indoor slideshow that USSA is trying to move away from the term "counter." Apparently they don't want to use that phrase anymore. Nobody in the room said anything, as if it was just an inconsequential little thing.

I spoke up and said, "Wait, can we back up to that slide again? Did I hear correctly, that USSA wants to stop using the term "counter?"

"Yup."

"Ummm..... any idea why?"

"Hell if I know."

"Well, what are they proposing to say instead, to describe upper body relationship?"

Course conductor shrugs his shoulders.

It's downright scary to see race coaching come to this... attempting to teach and explain things that go against principles of physics and biomechanics, while simultaneously "liking" quality ski movements because the total package looks pretty to them.
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby Max_501 » Sat Jan 05, 2019 4:27 pm

precisionchiro wrote:Does anyone know if PSIA/USSA actually teaches "stay square to the skis?"


Once upon a time I tried to stay up to date on the different coaching philosophies. Turned out to be a total waste of time. It took me a while but I finally had to accept that what the other guys are teaching has nothing to do with what we teach and that I had no shot of getting the others to consider that there might be a better way.
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby Vailsteve » Sat Jan 05, 2019 6:20 pm

PSIA does highlight "upper and lower body" separation as part of the teaching progression. Some of the PSIA training videos even show the upper body moving in the opposite direction (countering) the direction of the lower body skis. And I have taken clinics where the goal is to keep your jacket zipper pointed downhill while your skis are steering underneath your torso.

BUT, and here is the key but, PSIA is all about steering or twisting the skis (as well as a big up extension). Another "upper lower body separation" video has a guy lying on his back, legs in the air, and the instructor twisting the guys feet left and right. I guess the goal is to feel the hips rotating. Stupid video.

I no longer worry about coaching philosophy or PSIA dogma. It seems to change every year or so, and it is impossible to keep up with the jargon coming out of the national PSIA organization.

I just want to ski like Harald and Diana (sigh).
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby h.harb » Sat Jan 05, 2019 10:37 pm

The PSIA trainers have no idea, as soon as they ski off they use a wrap-around pole swing that undoes any counter they may have accidentally achieved. The reason they have to extend out of a turn is that when you square up your hip and shoulders you don't have any releasing energy left.
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby dewdman42 » Sun Jan 06, 2019 7:01 pm

Vailsteve wrote:PSIA does highlight "upper and lower body" separation as part of the teaching progression.

....

And I have taken clinics where the goal is to keep your jacket zipper pointed downhill while your skis are steering underneath your torso.

BUT, and here is the key but, PSIA is all about steering or twisting the skis ....... Another "upper lower body separation" video has a guy lying on his back, legs in the air, and the instructor twisting the guys feet left and right. I guess the goal is to feel the hips rotating. Stupid video.
.


yes this is what they think and teach and its stupid. They have the false notion that your upper body can somehow be stabilized while you turn your legs this way and that under a "stable" upper half. Laying on your back per that video, of course, stablizes your upper half. But when you're right side up, its not stable at all...it will naturally face whatever direction your skis are trying to take them, UNLESS you counteract to prevent it. They do not teach counteraction, I never heard it once. The best you might get are some double pole plant drills which essentially can fool someone into subconsciously counteracting, not necessarily correctly or optimally, but at least some form of it.

You can usually fool them by using counteraction, they can't tell the difference as long as they see upper lower separation they can think whatever they want to think, they will think you're steering the legs rather then counteracting to achieve it.

But some of them are so hyper focused about watching the hip sockets for steering movement of femur that they literally do look for an extra swively leg turning thing, which by they way can only really be done on flat skis....so there's that too....... They have taken that false premise about how it all works and turned it into countless drills and lessons and tasks or whatever you want to call them to enhance that debilitating idea and movement pattern and they are looking for extreme success at it...which in my view is failure at skiing.
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby ErikCO » Mon Jan 07, 2019 7:47 pm

Vailsteve wrote: And I have taken clinics where the goal is to keep your jacket zipper pointed downhill while your skis are steering underneath your torso.

......

I just want to ski like Harald and Diana (sigh).


Aren't these two statements in opposition? :)
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Re: An article on "Holding your counteracting".

Postby skijim13 » Tue Jan 08, 2019 9:44 am

So sad to see our racers training at our mountain using PSIA drills such as skating down the hill, thousand steps, pivot slips, one leg drill with twisting the legs. Last week I road the lift with a race coach and his students and listened to him teaching them proper pole use he told them that moving the poles forward or back helps with getting tip pressure and then he told them that the pole plant should be at the tips not down the fall line. I watched him ski and his turns are very low level, sad that the parents are getting ripped off.
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