Left Turn Problem - Stuck Hip?

[nickia]

Hi,

I always have issue turning left. I spent this season just practicing left turn. It got better but something looks off in video with my left turn.

Some background information:

I was in HSS shop back in 2017 and had Walker fitted me a Lange RS130 boot. Initially, we had some duct tape shim on the right boot. Since the camp was full, I took few private lessons with Diana. Due to limited time, we didn't do a full diagnosis and took off the shim. I haven't ski until this season.


In this season, I've spent all my time working on left turn. Initially, I thought it was because I couldn't tip my free ski so I worked extra hard tipping on the free ski (left foot). Lately, I realized maybe the issue is I have problem getting my stance ski (right leg) on BTE so I worked extra hard lately to get my right leg into BTE.

I filmed two videos today:

a)Edge Roll Exercise


Right turn seems ok


Compare to Reilly


Left turn: legs are bent in weird angle


compare to Reilly



I couldn't tell what my issue was so I guess it could be my hip is in the wrong place in left turn. Basically reverse hip dump in left turn and have hip stuck in my right turn position. As result, I filmed a phantom javelin video and since this exercise is suppose to put the hip in the right position:





What's your diagnosis and recommendation?


Edit:

More self diagnosis…

Looks like I’m hip dumping on the right turn which locks up my right turn tipping free foot.

This locked up hip also prevents my hip from able to freely rotate to the other side for right turn.

I reduced this hip dumping today and my left turn TFR works much better since my hip can rotate freely…


Edit 2:

I did some "running man" exercise to deliberately rotate my hip in the "reverse counteract" position to free my right hip. Please forgive me if I'm "rotating my body"




Here is some screencap of the end of my right turn





Looks my hip is excessively rotated which blocks in the inside leg from tipping and holding the edge angle at the end of each turn. This creates A-frame at release. My plan now is to practice turns without any counteract to establish a baseline and then add CA back once I get rid of my hip dump and excess hip rotation.


I did some slow turns with focus on holding neutral hip position. Once I got back to neutral, I'll add back proper CA...



Compare and Contrast the amount of CA, Hip, and upperbody rotation. My body/hip is definitely overly rotated:

[nickia]

More self diagnosis…

Looks like I’m hip dumping on the right turn which locks up my right turn tipping free foot.

This locked up hip also prevents my hip from able to freely rotate to the other side for right turn.

I reduced this hip dumping today and my left turn TFR works much better since my hip can rotate freely…

[Robert0325]

I'm definitely not an expert so don't rely on my advise but you appear not to be Counter acting on your left turns

[nickia]

I'm definitely not an expert so don't rely on my advise but you appear not to be Counter acting on your left turns

Hi Robert.

Thanks!

I think you're correct.

My hip is stuck at counteracting in right turn position (excessively) so it couldn't counteract on left turn...

[mauricet101010]

No expert but the angry mothers exercise could help. Diana's got a separate video on this exercise.

[GregM]

I don't know whether you've been in the HH camps, the way they sort out people into groups is to make you go down the medium pitch slope for 50 to maybe 100 yards or so. People who can go slow while making round turns go to advanced group, people who go fast making shallow turns end up in the beginner group. I've end up in the beginner group.
Shallow turns and at high speed means very quick transitions and it it no way to learn or practice. You can do those only when you mastered tipping, timing and so many other things at slow speed. And you got to make round arcs so your transition happens while you are going across the slope vs going down the slope with added acceleration due to that. And I recall the book says the same -- you made mistake in transition and you are in recovery mode, you lost your next turn completely. My biggest lesson was figuring that what is happening now is not caused but what I am doing now but by what I did in the prior transition and the beginning of the turn, or maybe the whole turn before that, etc. so it is constant preparation to what you want to happen in the future by doing something now. The couches in the camps say similar things during video analysis too, like you are now in this position because you did not do this or that or did this or that wrong. In this respect it might be counter productive to analyze the still shots because you and Reilly arrived into current position doing different moves and thing prior to that. To me the still says a lot about whether you did things right in the prior time preparing to be where you are, then you can look at the counter rotation, counter balance, tipping achieved, etc.
Not being the MA expert, you may have some alignment issue or might be observing extra active rotation on your left turns as a means of compensating for prior errors in the turn.
I'd say you need to seriously slow down. Beware, it is much harder to ski slow and requires better balance but practicing for better balance is a good thing too.

[nickia]

I don't know whether you've been in the HH camps, the way they sort out people into groups is to make you go down the medium pitch slope for 50 to maybe 100 yards or so. People who can go slow while making round turns go to advanced group, people who go fast making shallow turns end up in the beginner group. I've end up in the beginner group.
Shallow turns and at high speed means very quick transitions and it it no way to learn or practice. You can do those only when you mastered tipping, timing and so many other things at slow speed. And you got to make round arcs so your transition happens while you are going across the slope vs going down the slope with added acceleration due to that. And I recall the book says the same -- you made mistake in transition and you are in recovery mode, you lost your next turn completely. My biggest lesson was figuring that what is happening now is not caused but what I am doing now but by what I did in the prior transition and the beginning of the turn, or maybe the whole turn before that, etc. so it is constant preparation to what you want to happen in the future by doing something now. The couches in the camps say similar things during video analysis too, like you are now in this position because you did not do this or that or did this or that wrong. In this respect it might be counter productive to analyze the still shots because you and Reilly arrived into current position doing different moves and thing prior to that. To me the still says a lot about whether you did things right in the prior time preparing to be where you are, then you can look at the counter rotation, counter balance, tipping achieved, etc.
Not being the MA expert, you may have some alignment issue or might be observing extra active rotation on your left turns as a means of compensating for prior errors in the turn.
I'd say you need to seriously slow down. Beware, it is much harder to ski slow and requires better balance but practicing for better balance is a good thing too.

Thanks Greg. Makes perfect sense. I'm trying to revert to basics and go back to slow long turns.


I did few changes since the first post:

1. Reduce my pole length (great tips from Tom Geille). Changed from 115cm to to 100cm pole. Makes pole plant in low position a lot more natural and solid.
2. Focus on right turn and stay more squared and add CA later when necessary instead relying reflex-based excessive CA and twisted body position.


Here is the footage of some phantom turns with 115cm pole. It is way too long and my arms kept getting pushed up. I don't have any footage of the same turn after pole change but pole plant feels a lot more fluid and solid and less bouncy flailing arms.



Here is the footage of making roller blade turns when I wasn't focused about my right turn CA issue.



You can see I started my first right turn with OK body position.


Second right turn, got worse


Third right turn, progressively worse as I lost focus and old habit kicks in


Fourth right turn, full blown over CA






Here is a Power Release on Blue Terrain on Spring bumpy condition. I focused stay patient on release instead of rushing the turn. It is a great new sensation to have this much load on my stance ski. My quad burns after few turns. Compare to the right stance ski, my left stance ski (right turn) doesn't feel as solid and stacked. I'm suspecting my excessive CA on right turn is putting the skeletal support out of alignment.

I know I wasn't tipping much on inside ski in this video. I did few drills after this vid was filmed to focus on matching inside ski angle by tipping it more.




Right Turn - Still too much CA than required. Hard to kick an old habit





Left Turn - Looks more natural and closer to HH's upper body position






Another Comparison between left and right turn upperbody position. Right turn looks more squatty with a slight hip dump.





This season will be a success if I can get both sides of my body look identical.