by h.harb » Tue Oct 21, 2014 8:57 am
If you go down this road, you are doomed, it will ruin your skiing forever, and it's contrary to everything that's right about skiing. No one can ski like Ted! This guy "Hip Steering" has been trying to sell this for years. He is another charlatan trying way too hard to impress, while hurting skiers. Not one of the Austrians skis like this and it's totally out of context for recreational skiers. Sure you will see skiers using hip rotation, that's what this really is, and they do struggle with everything from short turns, to bumps and speed control. Like our us ski team slalom skiers. There are many things you can do to improve your skiing that will bring instant positive results. This isn't one of them. But then who am I to stop anyone from doing this? It will make a difference in your skiing I guarantee you that.
What is amazing about ski instruction and coaching is that some people out there try to teach what is already a detrimental movement that holds skiers back. Look at the US Ski Team men's Head coach, he says, Steering movements, leg rotation are missing in our National Team slalom skiing. However when you watch our slalom skiers, who make the cut, top 30 second run, they have too much ski twisting and steering. They already have this movement and way too much of it. What the US ski team coaches don't get is our racers are missing a release with tipping movements.
In a technical presentation recently, the US Men's Head Coach pointed out what he thought were the most import concepts used by a world class slalom skier. That list didn't include a transition or tipping movements. How can you even pretend to be a ski coach, without strong emphasis on these two Essentials? What that demonstrates is that this coach doesn't get world cup skiing.
You can't coach or become a world class slalom skier without these movements. Yet the US Ski Team wants 'more" emphasis on leg twisting to re-direct the skis. How idiotic is that? It's hard to fathom.
Same goes for hip rotation, everyone already has too much of it and are using it incorrectly, why? Because they never learned how to CA properly first. If you know how to CA, you can feed in some hip follow, hip follow is totally different than hip rotation. in "big turns", some hip follow is necessary, this is due to the nature of the body's amount of femur range of motion. This is a given, it has to happen or you can no longer keep tipping your legs in long turns. So hip follow in long turns does happen, but it's not a necessary technique if you are using CAing and tipping.