Any suggestion on how to improve at one-ski skiing?

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Any suggestion on how to improve at one-ski skiing?

Postby Mr. T » Tue Jan 20, 2004 10:43 am

I started last Spring with inline skating doing slalom on one skate at a time. I continued in Summer and Fall and now in Winter I spend a lot of
time doing one-ski skiing. I keep my poles (mostly because I am afraid
that if I leave them somewhere they would be stolen), but rarely use them. At the beginning I could only do traverses, then I did what I think it is called a banana turn, then I managed to do complete moderately long green runs on a single ski. However, I do not seem to be able to get
to do the same on a blue run. I can do the banana turn (even on a moderately steep black run), but not complete turns.
Is it that I am not strong enough yet? Or is there some kind of drill that could help me to achieve the result I am aiming at? Thank you everybody.
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Postby Guest » Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:37 am

Hi MrT ,

I also find one ski skiing invaluable to get a feeling of smooth crossovers . When you ski on green runs do you carve cleanly on one ski , i.e. no skidding at all , if not then your weight will be a bit back which makes it more difficult on steeper runs ( something I battle with also ) After a successful hour of this I feel nicely centred .

I work with the poles exaggerating the "strong arm" technique and moving the interior arm up and forward after poling . Harald mentions this on a recent post of his . Also I find the smoother the cross over and float stages the cleaner the carve . Leg strength helps , especially ( of course ) quadriceps and those just above the knee . Kill those leg extensions but only from 45? down and tense briefly at full extension . Heaving up from 90? with too much weight just stresses the knee , and back etc....

I don't know how steep one could continue skiing like this but I suspect that leg strength would have to increase exponentially to cope with rebound on steeps .

J.C.
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Postby jclayton » Tue Jan 20, 2004 11:45 am

Me again , Iv'e logged in better this time

Another point , I really have to work on the float , feeling the flat ski on release or the "moment of stop" as HH says . Also I tend to flex my knee more when on one leg , I don't know if this is good or not .

J.C.
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Postby tommy » Tue Jan 20, 2004 12:29 pm

Hi Mr T,

I'm also a fan of one ski skiing, and have a similar background to arriving there as you - practicing on inlines.

I've noticed that for me, doing linked turns on one ski on blue or steeper slopes, the most difficult turn is to go from the inside edge to the outside one. When the slope is a bit steeper or icy, I find it very hard to engage the outside edge cleanly. It tends to skid. It's much easier for me to go the other way, where the inside edge gets engaged.

I don't know if this is an alignment issue, or simply due to that my ankles/feet are stronger to stabilize on the inside edge. Or then it's just psychological - in order to engage on the outside edge, you have to lean over to a side, where there is nothing more in place to support you, should you lean too much. When engaging the inside edge, you still have the other boot on the side where you lean over to, which can be used to save a fall.

An other observation is that when riding the T-bar with one ski only, it really takes a toll on the lower leg muscles (don't know the english term for that part of the leg, calf ?), as well as the muscles in the ankle. Maybe it would be a good idea to "always" exercise these muscles by lifting one ski during T-bar rides...?

Cheers,
Tommy
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Postby jclayton » Tue Jan 20, 2004 1:00 pm

Hi Tommy,
when Harald talks about the Phantom move he mentions that the leg naturally moves quicker to the inside than to the outside i.e. moving from outside to inside edge is quicker than the reverse . Thus the necessity of moving the new inside ski first in the said Phantom move . This would explain why it is more difficult going from inside to outside edge on one ski . I find it helps a lot concentrating on the free foot in this situation also , sometimes it strays to far away and I have to pull it back and in .
Try also feeling angulated , it feels a bit wierd like angulating the wrong way but it feels a bit more secure .
Also I tend to freeze up in this turn and so really concentrate on relaxing at release .

See if this helps a bit , it's a fun exercise but some days it takes more effort than others , but thats probably age .

J.C.
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Postby gravity » Sat Feb 07, 2004 4:29 pm

Yo T,

Turning on the inside edge only is an awesome test of your balance. If you're finding that it's difficult, then I would suggest you feel your balance by feeling the pressure of your leg against the boot cuff.
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Postby gravity » Tue Feb 10, 2004 8:03 am

Accentuate the foot that's in the air as if it were involved in the turn too. I find that helps a lot.

The idea is to balance and turn on the inside edge ...not to be a one legged skier. Be active with both feet. Turn from your core.
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Postby Guest » Tue Feb 10, 2004 9:27 am

"accentuate the foot in the air"
I.E.
do a reverse phantom move , pulling the outside free ski in and back with the hamstrings. It worked well for me playing around with different free foot positions .
J.C
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Boots

Postby Curious » Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:35 pm

PMTS stresses the importance of proper boot alignment.

The ability to smoothly roll from left edge to right edge and back and so on on one foot is a wonderful drill to determine lateal alignment.

Regardless of what was done to your boots (if anything) you need to have your alignment needs accurately assessed while on snow then adjusted accordingly.

One footed skiing will become a breeze.
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One footed skiing exercises

Postby SkierSynergy » Wed Oct 06, 2004 4:47 pm

For those people with Harb Carvers (and skates too), I have begun posting some one footed progressions and exercises using the Carvers.

Just finished a progression for one footed turns on the inside foot. Static exercises, Banana turns in a fan progression, walking the poles, dragging the rear wheel, one footed weighted release, linked turns on inside foot, etc.

go to:

http://web.pdx.edu/~petersj/HoodCamp/CarverExercises/CarverExerciseIndex.htm#OneFootedInside

Just a rough draft, but I hope it is useful for someone. More exercises and videos to come. Submit an exercise if you have one.
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Postby piggyslayer » Fri Oct 08, 2004 5:03 pm

I spoke with Harald about 1 legged skiing/skating in the context of Harb Carvers. I find Harb Carver to be much harder to do 1 legged skating than skis or skates.
I did some thinking about what Harald told me and hope I am not misinterpreting too much what is the truth of this matter. Here is what I remember from the conversation + some of my thoughts:

ALIGNMENT: I can simply echo everybody, if you not aligned in your boots one legged skiing will be very hard. Good footbeds are essential for almost everybody. The footbed cannot be to rigid but I should not be to soft either as it will not provide for adequate support needed in balancing.

GOOD FORM: Many try to do one legged skiing at all cost. Apply all kind of inefficient movements do finally get it. One such example may be rotation. Proper counter and upper body, arm position, etc. is important when performing this drill.

BALANCE IS MORE THAN ALIGNMENT:
This is the most interesting part to me.
I was always curious why one legged skiing is considered advanced skill, why is it so hard. If you properly aligned you can balance on one leg standing so why it is so much harder to do that when in motion?
I have skated on slalom Carvers, Pro Carvers and now on Comps. Why it is easier to do 1 legged skating on slaloms, harder on Pros and even harder on Comps (which are highest and heaviest of them all)? Why doing it on skis is so much easier than on Harb Carvers?

There are many reasons, here is one which is leads into interesting biomechanics:
There is bunch of muscles around our hip joint responsible for internal leg rotation and adduction. The antagonist bunch is responsible for external leg and abduction movements.
When in motion on one leg we have to tense our muscles a bit. What happens if one group is stronger than the other? It will be hard to balance, right?

For example, for many women the muscles performing internal rotation and adduction are stronger than the antagonists responsible for external rotation and abduction.
If you read some of my old post, you know that I like to go to gym and squat. I do all kinds of squats, in particular wide stance squat. This type of squat is building internal part of quads which help in adduction. I believe my muscle development is not balanced.
The higher the platform, the heavier the equipment, the more my internal hip rotators/adductors take over and the harder it is for me to balance on one leg.
This may explains the progression: one legged skiing is relatively easy, one legged skating on slaloms is harder, one legged skating on Comps is very hard.

Hope this was not too long and somewhat interesting
Piggy Slayer
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Postby Mr. T » Wed Oct 13, 2004 10:10 am

The season is almost here again and I plan to use this drill as much as possible and your review is a good starting point Piggyslayer.

Last year I left basically at the point where I could pretty much ski 0.5 miles+ on an easy green run all on one ski and doing slaloms. However, I did not have the same outcome when trying on blue runs. It was not fear but simply I found the turn initiation to hard to perform when the pitch of the slope increases.

Hence, I assume I have quite a bit of work ahead of me. But I am looking forward to it.

As some of you know I am an avid inline skater and this past Summer I entered into competitions. If you want to be competitive in
inline skating these days you need to perform what they call the double push and to learn that one has to do a lot of drills on skates ranging from one-skate slalom to slalom crossing your skates from behind and so on. It was not easy and I surely took a few falls, however, it paid off.

I just cannot wait to go back on skis now and start working at one-footed drills. I think that is the road to definitive success: if you can ski with one skis , you can definitely ski even better with two. Otherwise while bother to buy two skis?

Doing the snow dance here in St. Paul right now. One day hopefully I will move to the Rockies.
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