I prefer proof, not justification for mediocrity

[Harald]

Miles you ask what seem like simple questions, but they really stretch the boundaries of explanation. Your question points to the source of misunderstanding and controversy about wide stance and two footed pressuring. Therein lies the answer to the real difference between PMTS and traditional skiing.


If you can ski in balance with forty percent pressure on the inside ski and sixty percent distribution on the stance ski, you should still be OK in many situations. I need to reinforce that there is a way to ski in balance with a fifty-one to forty-nine ratio between stance and inside foot, but I don?t recommend it. This is a precarious ratio with which to maintain balance. In this situation you are at the mercy of many forces and surface changes that are ready to disrupt balance in aggressive skiing.

If you become comfortable with this precarious distribution and make it status quo for your skiing, you will fall apart or ski tentatively on more challenging terrain, as support for outside ski edging from the core is limited with this distribution. Of course, the narrower your stance width the more likely you are to be able to maintain this very even weight distribution. As your feet get wider, you will end up losing your balance to the inside ski.

When you try carving with ratios near fifty-fifty, you are close to the limits of the leverage relationship for a level pelvis. When you ski with balance on the outside ski the pelvis is held on a more level plane. When the weight shifts to the inside ski lateral level hip and pelvis stabilization vis-?-vis the forces acting through the body, is no longer maintainable.

It doesn?t take much perturbation or disruption on the ski from the surface to carry energy back up the leg, into the hip, to unbalance the whole system. The pelvis has a critical function in maintaining body integrity, so it can act against the forces and stay angulated. The pelvis must be able to stay as level as possible. If it begins to tip toward the turn (lower on the inside and high on the outside of the body) the house of cards falls down. When pressure begins to shift to the inside foot, the forces no longer line up through the joints and limbs of the outside leg because the pressure is moving away from the edge of the outside ski to that of the inside ski. The pelvis begins to tilt with the outside hip lifting up, to align over the inside hip joint. The force line begins to move toward the outside of the inside hip. As you begin to support your weight on the inside leg, it tends to lift the pelvis, losing the favorable level pelvis and allowing the side of the pelvis over the outside foot to lift. The body has no resistance to this lift when in the compromised situation of balancing on the inside ski, the muscles that stabilize the tilting of the pelvis can no longer hold it level.

Miles, my response to your question therefore is that you are probably not really skiing with fifty-fifty distribution, but it may feel like you are. At a true fifty-fifty distribution you would find that outside ski balance is elusive. Remember perception is rarely reality in skiing.

In order to carry 50% pressure on the inside ski, one would have to keep the skis glued together and would have to use extreme counterbalancing and angulation of the upper body to maintain true balance on the outside ski, especially at the top of the arc.

This is particularly true if you are in powder with boot width skis (70 mm), with wider skis, say 88mm, you have more platform and forgiveness, but all the principles are still valid, except that you will find the ability to recover easier with 88mm skis or wider. The wide 88mm plus skis, don?t tip over as quickly, because the edges far to the sides of the boots have more resistance to tipping; it is most apparent in powder, we have more time and support to recover from balance errors. The wider skis in powder allow for rapid pressure development and can therefore be skied successfully with less ski and body angles.

[john heath]

Harald, thanks for that, this is one of the most clear descriptions of your system i have read. i have one question though - is the horizontal pelvis lost then in the weighted release drills and van gruenigen turns? i thought the weighted release has an advantage over the super phantom in that the C.o.M. goes into the inside of the turn earlier. in gaining this, do we lose something else?

[milesb]

Hey, thanks Harald, I really appreciate your participation here so that we can get more detail than what is in the books and videos. You are right about the not 50-50 distribution, it just feels that way. In deep snow, I try to only put just as much weight as needed on the inside ski, so who knows what I'm really doing? Especially since I like to go fast in deep snow.

[Harald]

In a weighted release the body releases its angulation and edge hold and we move off the big toe edge side of the stance ski, toward the little toe edge of that ski in the transition. This transition provides two ways of managing the CG relative to the pelvis. The trickier one, but the one some WC skiers use in GS transitions, less in slalom, is the one where they lift the outside hip and often the arm goes alone. The upper body is anticipating the angles for the next turn.

Reference page 82 Expert Skier 2 and compare the outside shoulder movements to page 59, where I lower the outside shoulder relative to the slope and to the WR. Command of the turn on page 59 is essential before the one on page 82 is introduced or you are likely to become very confused. In Book 3 we break down the components and built each component with exercises within reach of learning skiers, right to the quality of movement in expert skiing.

We must keep in mind that in transition you are light and not trying to hold a pressured edge compared to the forces you need to manage that develop later in the turn. The forces are not acting in the same way they do in the loaded part of the turn. So the body doesn?t need to keep a level pelvis or resist forces. (That?s your answer)

In a GS or in big turn weighted releases, the CG moves in an arc over and toward the downhill side of the skis. In GS a lifted hip and arm are common during the transition, as these are methods used to slow down the body movement toward the falline, during transition. So if you know how to get yourself reorganized before the forces of the turn act on your body (somewhere near or before the falline for a WC racer) you can get away with the hip extension and upward movement of the outside hip. I don?t recommend this type of skiing for the developing expert skier.

Bode does this more than anyone, Hermann less so, as he has matured, Darren Ralves rarely. The Darren?s approach is safer and more secure. You will not be surprised when I say the Bode approach is risky.

For a recreational skier and most ski instructors this move requires training and practice with a knowledgeable coach. The skier must have a strong counter balancing transition before they go to the weighted release (WR) hip and arm lift. Most skiers have the upper body movement already built into their regular skiing, but they don?t know how to counter balance and achieve edge grip, so their upper body move is a liability and not to be confused with a WC skiers GS release. Just as the wide stance is not to be taught to the developing recreational skiers for the reasons I posted in the last post on two footed fifty-fifty weight distribution.


The WR is not a move that just happens. It is a move that requires that the previous turn is released with considerable stored energy and ski bend. When we teach or introduce these movements to students, we have to introduce them in a safe environment, without the energy or speed of the final product. But that?s an introduction for students and it has to be therefore somewhat contrived, as we don?t have the momentum or energy helping to release the body. If you watch my Von Gruenegen turns in Video 2 you will notice speed, edge angles and tremendous edge grip and ski bend through the turns.

In slalom, the skier or WC racer doesn?t have time for this extreme change of body position. The slalom skier or skier in the bumps, the bumps are an example of the same movements in a recreation skiing application, have needs for immediate proper alignment to the forces even through transition, as the next turn requires good posture, edge angle and grip, immediately after transition. In this example, the WR transition happens more as a flexing knee, bending transition with the hips lower and more level.

If you ski on one ski with a group you can see the difference between the two types of transitions I?m describing. Some skiers will show the big body lean lifted hip type and the others will use the crunched down flexed hip and bent leg type. If I demonstrate one ski short turn skiing, in one direction a weighted release from the big toe to little toe is evident. I can ski with a reasonably level pelvis by contracting the hip flexors and counter balancing with the upper body (example one ski skiing in the Expert two video).

Book three has extensive explanations, photos and details for development of the all the essential components, in the book I have identified the ?Seven components of Quality Skiing?. Hey what a captivating title.

[Harald]

" There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance----that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
----- Herbert Spencer

I won?t point any fingers, but I just suggest here might be a soothing philosophy or understanding for the behavior of ?Guest visitors from the other planet?.

HH

[john heath]

that's a hell of a reply.
two more questions on the WR before i head for a glacier:
1) at the camp you mentioned an external cue along the lines of draining water out of your uphill ear. am i right in presuming that that was about counter?
2) in video 2, where you demonstrate the van Gr?nigen turns, are you tipping the free foot to the BTE as a phantom move as suggested by Jay in another post on the WR, or are you tipping with the weighted ski as the name WR would actually suggest? i think that post has confused me because i interpreted the benefit of the WR as promoting flexing and tipping of the inside ski without pushing off the outside one.

then i think i've got it.

[Harald]

John,

WR is an exercise that involves flexing of the stance leg and releasing on the old stance ski. (which is the the same ski and leg) Stance and balance remain on that ski even if it is in effect the inside ski for the new turn. The outside ski is lifted or light. The inside ski remains the stance ski, but it is the inside leg, until the ski points to the falline. When the outside leg extends it regains pressuring and balance, it becomes the new stance side, as in a normal turn, while the inside ski then becomes the free foot.

Draining water out of your outside ear is just a cue to have you tilt toward the outside ski in regular transitions, not for WR.

I think you maybe confused by the WR.
It was designed to help the TTS skiers who could not let go of the old big toe edge grip, which is habitually the ski they push off with to get into the next turn.

If you practice the WR with the step by step exercises we have developed for it, you will gain confidence in actually releasing the old downhill ski and begin to get the body to move in the direction of the falline. Most skiers have difficultly with not only the mechanics, but the comprehension, because it is usually the opposite of what they normally do in their skiing.

Limitations are build into every step of TTS progressions and maneuvers. This confusion about WR is just another example of skier limitations originating from TTS movements and understanding. I know we regularly get attacked by the PSIA clan for being a rigid dogmatic system. Nothing could be further from the truth, only the ignorant make those comments, giving valaidity to the statement by Herbert Spenser in the previous post.

One can?t say, if you want to be totally technically accurate that there isn?t a weight transfer in a WR transition, regardless whether it is described by me or Jay. The weight doesn?t transfer from one foot or ski to the other, but it does change from the big toe edge to the little toe edge of the stance ski. The transition happens on the old stance ski and it tips to the LTE with weight on it through transition. Once transition is complete then weight shifts to the outside ski near or before the falline, as I described in the previous paragraph.

As I stated in the post to Miles, unless you have an expert instructor with you and he can give you immediate feedback, you maybe digging your self a hole by playing with the WR on your own. I suggestion you stick with the basics, like good foot to foot transfers and transitions. Add counter balancing movements with the upper body toward the outside ski and you will be on solid ground.

Remember there are few coaches that know what a weighted release is, what it does and how to teach it in a way a student would benefit. I don?t always teach it. I use it only when it is the right time and place and only for a specific need of a student.

If you have a solid grasp of the normal release and you are sure you won?t screw it up by practicing the WR on your own, go ahead, but be aware that you don?t want to incorporate the upper body movements that will occur when you begin practicing the WR, they might remain with you for your normal transitions, without you realizing they are there. Look at the difference between the upper body movements in Book 2, I referenced in the previous post for analysis and comparison.

[Jonathan Swift]

HH wrote

I won?t point any fingers, but I just suggest here might be a soothing philosophy or understanding for the behavior of ?Guest visitors from the other planet?.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in a confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift

[Ott Gangl]

Hey guy, lay off the hardcore stuff...

...Ott

(note to forum - the hardcore stuff ott is referring to has been deleted - the moderator)

[NoCleverName]

No, Guest, it's not just skiing.

For the Eastern skier, it's larger than that. Maybe in the beginning, it's just skiing. But in the East, if you're going to ski regularly, it takes some hardening. With entire mountains many times offering conditions that would rope off a Western trail, you need a certain commitment. And on those days where the parking lot fairly represents the trails, you learn to accept what the mountain will give. In short, in the East, you have to develop passion.

So when your sitting at the club bar and a long time skier friend says he just can't do it any more, it's gotten past him, it hits you in the gut. When a friend's wife can no longer conquer the fear (no matter how many lessons), and they can no longer share the joy ...

I've taken all the lessons, read the magazine articles, bought the books. Trying to stave off the inevitable. Marginal progress interleaved with utter confusion as the TTS emphasis seeming changes year-to-year.

Now comes PMTS. Just on my own, managing to maybe understand half of it, it's made a qualitive difference. It's reduced the physical load, widened the range of conditions I can handle, and clearly kept me in less injury-prone zone. PMTS can give skiing back to you, where, dare I say, TTS has taken it away (or at least kept it out of reach). In the end, PMTS helps put more days in the "ski days" column rather than the "lodge days" column.

So no, Guest, it's not just skiing, it's life.

[Ott Gangl]

>>>....has been deleted - the moderator)<<<

Good for you, it's about time. If there is disagreement it should be an open and healthy disagreement not 'language abuse'. Make everybody sign in with their name and verify it via email so when somebody calls me a knucklehead I know who it is and 'knucklehead' I can tolerate, 'idiot' is too much.

....Ott