Interesting discussion. I just purchased and watched a video called "Project Kitz" by JF Beaulieu, Paul Lorenz and Reilly McGlashan. I know that HH has skied with Reilly and made some very positive comments on his skiing. I personally think those three are great technical skiers.
Now, in the video, I posed a segment where all three are standing on a gentle slope to see how long their ski poles are.
Paul is standing relaxed, but pretty upright. His uphill side pole is planted and his hand position is around his waist height. So, if her were on a flat surface, his hand position could be even lower than the typically used 90-degreen elbow position.
JF 's pole length seems to be the same. His uphill pole is around his waist while his downhill pole is slightly lower relative to his body (almost his hip height).
Reilly's poles look even shorter. His arms are in front of him and bent about 90-degree angle. He seems to be posing for the video and holding the poles a little bit below the grips, but the pole baskets are slightly below his knees. In my eyes, Reilly's poles are much shorter than the other two. If he plant the poles on the snow, his hand position may be around his hip or even lower.
I'm 5' 8" = 172.5cm now (used to be 5' 9" = 175cm, but got shorter as I age.
) and have used 125cm poles. Pole planting is one of the things that I have been working on. I have been wondering if the length of my poles might not be helping me improve my pole planting.
Also, I feel HH and those three skiers seem to keep their center of mass low. If so, perhaps poles shorter than 90-degree at elbow length guide line work better?
Any thoughts?/////