Tech Talk in Nov 19 Ski Racing Mag

[Bolter]

Ron LeMaster's MA of Lindsay Vonn includes the following:

By Ron's definition/use of the term, Knee angulation: drive the outside knee inward to edge the ski.

Independent leg action resulting in the lower legs being something other than parallel.

Vonn carves predominantly with the outside ski, actively adjusting its edge with knee angulation throughout the turn and uses her inside ski as more of a balance and pressure adjuster than as a carving tool.

Having a lot of knee angulation and tip pressure going into the fall line serves her well. But if she were to not make the right adjustments when she gets into the last third of the turn, she would encounter a problem common to lesser skiers who get to far forward on the ski going into the bottom of the turn, causing it to oversteer and the tail to flair. The trick is to decouple the dorsiflexion of the ankle from the inward rotation of the leg. She keeps her outside knee in while sliding her foot forward. Where the natural tendency is to let the outside leg turn outward as the foot slides forward and thus reducing knee angulation, the best skiers can keep the outside leg rotated inward while sliding the foot forward. In other words they control the skis edge and fore aft pressure independently.

Any comments?

So much of this is directly opposed to what I see and believe to be right, some things may never change.
Knee drive
pushing foot forward
inside leg balance focus

[h.harb]

I don't like to comment on Ron (any more) because he has no idea of what he's talking about. It's not worth the effort. How can you even decipher what he's trying say, it's biomechanically incorrect, confusing and wrong. Since that article Lindsey won a slalom. Sorry, Ron you got it wrong again, she is one of the best slalom skiers.

Harald

BTW, you don’t control ski angle, by knee angulation, when are the editors and writers of skiing going to wake up to that fact?

What he says she is doing is laughable and I know these athletes and they think Ron is laughable, they joke about him. Like Ligety did in a nice way last year. Ron LeMaster, has never raced, he's a terrible skier and he's out of touch. I blamed Ski Racing before for publishing his junk and for misrepresenting skiing the way they do. I can’t believe there isn’t a bigger uproar in the coaching community about Ron’s articles. What that demonstrates is that they are at a loss for good information from the US coache's association. They have to resort to Ron because he has a great camera.

[Mikey B]

Every PMTS skier knows that the inside foot/leg is not simply a balance point along for the ride...leg flexing, pull back and free foot tipping! We all also know that Vonn is not controlling her edge angle on the stance ski with knee drive or angulation...tipping ankles and feet, and on that race course, counter balancing and counteracting!

LeMaster, simply describers her skiing as he understands it , or tries too...in reality he tries to conform what she is doing to his understanding.

Mike

[h.harb]

Mickey B. Thank you, Oh enlightened one, aahh ummm! More good information in that one post than all of what PSIA and the US coaches association has to offer.

[h.harb]

Oh yes, and thanks to Bolter for being the first to point out these fallacies. JBotti, I'd like to hear what Thor has to say about LeMaster's points?

[nugget]

"The trick is to decouple the dorsiflexion of the ankle from the inward rotation of the leg".... what?!!!!

I would like to see that done at speeds of greater than zero miles per hour and other than sitting in a chair. That would be some trick all right. More confusing jargon borrowed from other disciplines. She is not a truck and trailer unit nor is she undergoing any physical rehab. It's skiing man!

[h.harb]

There are many forms of tricks, from the flimflam man, used over the decades to take people, smoke and mirrors and sight of hand, come to mind, the early elixir sales man is another example, but LeMaster uses a different modern well developed trick, known as, "baffle them with Bull sh--t".

[Bolter]

"The trick is to decouple the dorsiflexion of the ankle from the inward rotation of the leg".... what?!!!!

She is not a truck and trailer unit nor is she undergoing any physical rehab. It's skiing man!

What is the interrelationship of dorsiflexion and internal leg rotation? I think the readership of Ski Racing will not know, I don't.

JR

[Larry_in_ME]

I see no mention of counterbalancing in Ron's excerpt. Am I missing something? He makes a reference to edging and edging requires tipping and tipping is complemented by counterbalancing.

[Bolter]

I see no mention of counterbalancing in Ron's excerpt. Am I missing something? He makes a reference to edging and edging requires tipping and tipping is complemented by counterbalancing.

Ron is the one who is missing something, not you. His edging concept is founded in steering and knee drive/angulation with the body moving forward and across the downhill ski. NO TIPPING movements mentioned, anywhere. In his world the upper leg drives the knee, the foot gets dragged along for the ride. You will not find counterbalance in his text, angulation is the PSIA/USSCA word/movement and he wants it at the knee! Knee braces for everyone!

What bugs me is the ascribed creditability he is given, the pulpit from which he dribbles is distributed to all our USSA members- kids, masters and coaches. Some will read this and assume the info is right on! The perfusion of his ideas infects the membership (with his notions). The antidote? Call BS on him and keep your kids away from any coach that claims Ron as an "authority."

JR

[skidaddle]

Ron is a modern jackass - see definition http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... rn+jackass

If that definition doesn't capture this, nothing does.

[h.harb]

"The trick is to decouple the dorsiflexion of the ankle from the inward rotation of the leg".... what?!!!!

What is the interrelationship of dorsiflexion and internal leg rotation? I think the readership of Ski Racing will not know, I don't.

What bugs me is the ascribed creditability he is given, the pulpit from which he dribbles is distributed to all our USSA members- kids, masters and coaches. Some will read this and assume the info is right on! The perfusion of his ideas infects the membership (with his notions). The antidote? Call BS on him and keep your kids away from any coach that claims Ron as an "authority."

JR

All good comments and all correct.

Many coaches and racers don’t know what to believe any longer, with all the confusion coming from USSA Coaches Ass., PSIA, or individuals like Ron. . This situation happened to me the other day while coaching. We were discussing what WC skiers were doing and someone in the group mentioned they understood this because he had read Ron LeMaster. I asked what he did understand? The response as you can imagine, was convoluted. It had no content at all to do with movements. Not one movement that one would access, or how to ski the movements and it was full of technical jargon that had to do with antiquation, body inclination and knee drive. When I told him I didn’t see anything in Ron’s writing or pages of racer analysis that could benefit a skier who wanted to race better. He did an about face and agreed he really didn’t get what Ron was trying to say. It’s so perplexing to me, it’s as if they all have to agree, because they don't know any better and don't want to expose their ignorance. That’s the state of US instruction and coaching?

[h.harb]

"The trick is to decouple the dorsiflexion of the ankle from the inward rotation of the leg".... what?!!!!

What is the interrelationship of dorsiflexion and internal leg rotation? I think the readership of Ski Racing will not know, I don't.

I will elaborate and explain the biomechanics of these interactions in my next post.

[h.harb]

Part one:

Independent leg action resulting in the lower legs being something other than parallel.

At times she is not symmetrical, agreed, at the end of arcs. But while transitioning, watch her shins they are always parallel, so what? Her alignment is toward the soft side Knocked Kneed; of course the coaches don't know anything about that. Ron has no clue at all about different alignment set-ups. You can't comment about a skier's use of movement, skis and compare them to a norm or others, unless you know what alignment means. Without that knowledge you are in the dark ages of ski coaching and understanding.

Her leg independence in transitions shows a solid Super Phantom Move, which PSIA and USSA coaches said was old school, out of fashion, useless. Well, old school, not only won the World Cup, but also won the first slalom this year. The men's team has a nickname for Schlopy, they call him "old school" it works.
There is a difference between old school that works because it’s biomechanically correct and old school that is useless and doesn’t work; like PSIA’s ideas like, inside ski pressure, wide stance, knee drive and steering.

Vonn begins turns in slalom with little toe edge tipping first. This has to be the case as she is behind with the big toe edge at the beginning of the transition, so she has to catch up by leading the entry with little toe lifted and tipping, a perfect PMTS Phantom Move. I’m sure this will frost many PSIA instructors who criticized openly original PMTS and the “Expert Skiers 1” book, for being old, and worthless. Many argued (well-respected Epic coaches included) there is no lifting or Phantom Moves on the world cup, they also argued that narrow stance was bad and old. I never compromised on these movements and continued to build on them in PMTS, while PSIA went on wild goose chase in search of failed techniques for shape skies.

[h.harb]

Another comment, In the second turn of the slalom montage in ski racing, Ron goes on about how her inside ski pushing forward in the turn, which supposedly (according to Ron) saves her turn because she would otherwise be too forward, as lesser skiers show. He always mixes apples and oranges. In this run and turn, his photos are from the Aspen WC, last year, where the US women were humiliated. Vonn was over 2.5 seconds out a run. Here Ron is picking up on things describing them as beneficial, which are actually slowing her progress and costing her time. She is off line because she has less pressure than needed to rebound and therefore she is starting turns without enough momentum to hold her up-side-down to time her new turn entry properly.