Mental Skiing

[Harald]

If you are a member of the Real Skiers web site, have a look at the first excerpt from my next book, Peter just loaded. How to control and conquer the mental approach to your skiing?

?Nine expert ways to defeat your fear.?

Post your questions and reactions

[RadRab]

Bs"D
Hi Harald,
I read the new excerpt, and benefited from it. Indeed, the profound effect of positive thinking in all areas of life cannot be underestimated. Looking forward to the release of the whole book.
What I wanted to ask you about was the picture of the "feel good warmup run" displayed after step #4:
I want to check myself here. You look to me to be in somewhat less perfect balance than your other pictures - like for example the now famous one accompaning your posts. It seems to me that you are leaning too much into the turn as oppossed to the use of more counter, like in the above mentioned picture, or the one displayed after step #9 emphasizing that very issue.
Was this perhaps an extra dose of the "aggressiveness" you spoke of there (#5), possible because of the gentler terrain, or is it always preferrable to maintain full counterbalance? Or, is the camera angle just deceiving me?
I also appreciated very much your recent discussions about narrower stanced one footed skiing. One of the reasons that I originally gravitated to your methods was because I have always skied this way and felt intuitively and biomechanically that it was still correct even as some voices were preaching other stuff. Thanks for continuing to remove any doubts that creep in from.. uhmm, the creeps.
Also, if you will allow an equipment query, what length do you ski the Supershape in for all around freeskiing?

[RadRab]

Bs"D
Is my counter in proportion here? (The full size picture of my Avitar for full ridicule is here):
http://fototime.com/ftweb/bin/ft.dll/detailfs?userid={70242802-093D-4074-A42A-4D82D5BEDA01}&ndx=0&slideshow=0&AlbumId={64FFD082-0AA6-4A0C-968F-AB559EF3E378}&GroupId=&screenheight=768
Thanks.

[Harald]

Response to RadRab, if you are referring to the photo in my article from my latest book on Realskiers.com, the photo called, ?Ski Terrain that makes your warm up feel good?, I should probably explain.

Unless I understand you incorrectly, #4 is ?Ski Terrain that makes your warm up feel good.?

This is a turn on steep terrain where I was playing with the lean angle. The snow is very slick, yet I was pushing the boundaries for fun. Sometimes I like to ski with less upper body discipline to experiment with how far I can go before things go bad. Shaped skis have given us the ability to make reasonably good turns with extreme lean. The test of a good series of turns is the ability to make the same size turns and maintain the same speed after the second turn the whole way down the section you are skiing. In this case even though I was playing with and experimenting with my inclination vs. counter balancing, I was successful.

Here I am still griping with strong edge hold, but I let my upper body go inside and come more square, not my normal way of skiing, but more of a Bode lean. If you see the rest of the photos in this turn it actually comes out rather well.

I am always experimenting with new forms of turns. When I see Bode leaning at the top of his turn, I like to try that approach and see how much I can get away with on these conditions. I don?t recommend doing this unless you are very confident in your ability to recover. I did not lose the turn as Hermann did in the race at Solden, check the photo link from the FIS web site, which I posted up. When you get out of shape like Hermann did, you know you are in for a split second recovery. In my photo, I didn?t get close to losing the turn, but you are right about the body lean and square position.

If you compare this photo to the one that?s up with my posts or the one under
# 9, which is ?One focus at a time,? you see a very different image. In the #9 photo, I am countered and counterbalanced. Here the terrain is very steep, upper Mt Hood public lane, and the snow was difficult. I was making high speed connected short turns. These demands attention, so no playing around. There are a number of sequences of this kind of skiing in my new book, if you are interested. In the book I have a comparison of a turn that has to much upper body lean or advance and a turn beside it with proper counter balancing and counter.

I like your photo in the powder, it is strong and looks like you are very happily balanced and in control. It looks like you are at the end of the turn ready to release as you are square and the downhill pole is forward relative to the uphill pole. This usually tells you that the body has come square. If you are just about to release that?s OK for strong skier in powder. If you are making shorter quick turns in the falline, on groomed snow you may want to be less square at the end of the turn

[RadRab]

Bs"D
Harald, yes, you understood me exactly. Thank you for the candid response, and the full clarification - including the bottom line advise: "I don?t recommend doing this unless...". I'm confident that I could recover, but not while maintaining the same rhythm, turn size, and speed. I'll leave it to you and Bode, I'm just satisfied I wasn't confused.
Of course my photo in the powder was somewhat like apples and oranges, its just the only digital one I had. Thank you for your comments, and the excellent analysis of the pole position.
I would still really appreciate your opinion on sizing. I was theorizing that for all around free skiing, the combination of a full Slalom sidecut for short turn ability/ease, but in a longer length for high speed/long turn stability would create a good versatility. Therefore, @ 167lbs, I was thinking Supershape @ 170cm to compliment an im88 @ 175cm (replacing my 8800 of 178cm and 1100 RD of 170cm [the latter is super at everything groomed except short turns in the fall line where it is too much work]).
Which way is better for the Supershape?:
165cm - better/easier short turn, still stable enough due to overall width and sandwich design, or,
170cm - more stable, less nervous in longer turn and straight run, still quick enough due to still deep sidecut at that length.
Thank you very much in advance for this additional important help (you can't always get to demo different sizes).