No up move

[HERB]

I felt pretty good skiing today. One of our group was a ski instructor for 30 years. Long story short, on the lift he was trying to politely help me with my technique. He was concerned that I didn't stand up for a relaxation phase. Anyway he said I always stayed low, I never came up, never. Now i doubt I was that good, but it was sweet to hear, though not to his way of thinking. I love PMTS, it works.

[Icanski]

Ah yes, let him just think that you're doing it all wrong, while you smile and make great turns!
Feels good, doesn't it.
Icanski

[patprof]

Its taken me 5 years to get rid of the dreaded up move (and it still creeps into my skiing if I'm not careful).

[Max_501]

If an instructor of 30 years cannot recognize that you were doing flexion/retraction at transition, then something is wrong.

I ski with some persent and former CSIA instructors and although they recognize that I don't do the up move, they also understand that I am all about flexing at transition ("cross-under" move if you wish). Nobody has ever suggested that I should stand up at transition.

I hear/see instructors (and even some race coaches) teaching an extension movement for transition all the time. And that includes trying to get folks that are already flexing at transition to stop doing that and instead use an extension movement. Their argument is that the up movement will get the hips forward whereas the flex movement will drop the hips back.

[HeluvaSkier]

I hear/see instructors (and even some race coaches) teaching an extension movement for transition all the time. And that includes trying to get folks that are already flexing at transition to stop doing that and instead use an extension movement. Their argument is that the up movement will get the hips forward whereas the flex movement will drop the hips back.

Exactly. The racers I was working with recently had been taught exactly this for their entire racing careers. They were GOOD at doing an up extension, but none of them had ever used, or been taught to ski without an up extension. As we all know, using a flexed transition (and flex to release) opens up a lot of possibilities to a turn that are simply not available to the skier who uses an up movement in transition. These racers came to realize that a properly executed flex-to-release transition will always be superior to extending in transition. Flexing is now their "go-to" movement and they view extending as a "bail-out" movement.

The moral of the story, is that those who only teach an up move to transition do so because they do not understand how to properly use a flexed transition (or how to properly execute the movements). They think it is a backseat transition because they are squatting their hips down and back instead of pulling the feet up to release the turn. They also are more than likely not using any foot pull back to recenter at all in transition and probably aren't using any component of the phantom move at turn initiation. This just represents a very low level understanding of skiing and teaching.

[BootsCanyon]

A deeply flexed release and transition can be temporarily backseat, but only during the light part of the turn. One of the big advances in describing the mechanics of turns has been Harald's point that the path of the hips may vary from turn to turn -- ranging from a pretty straight path for the hips in a deeply flexed transition to a pendulum in a transition that is not as quick -- but that the key is to release by flexing the outside leg. This does away with the whole crossover/crossunder/crossthrough confusion.

But, it is correct that a deeply flexed transition will still often be viewed as a mistake, particularly by ski instructors who have "getting tall at transition" ingrained as the proper mechanics for a turn.

[BigE]

I was skiing at Blue Mountain today, and overheard a very brief comment during an instructors session (Instructor teaching a group of instructors): "That drill focussed on the wide stance." Then he related stance width and speed. I dread to think that wide stance is being taught there.

There are only two ways I know to kill tipping: Stand up or widen your stance.

When you realize that there a folks teaching BOTH, you have to ask yourself : what are they doing for engagement? I saw this over and over again today, instructors, students, general public -- pop up and when you come down on the skis -- lean in to edge....pure inclination. And if you are not so confident, you'll be using a wide stance to boot.

So here we have a school of skiing that is grossly restricting your turn initiation options to one movement -- and it's not tipping! This has been in the CSIA for a long time : "First inclination THEN angulation". The idea is that inclination is used to start edging and get the body into the turn, while angulation is used to resist the building turn forces.

How can they reconcile this with teaching "First ankles, then knees, then hips?". That clearly uses tipping to start the turn!

How inconsistent! I am much less than impressed in the general state of the CSIA ... It looks like the pocket of sensibility I enjoy is very small indeed.

[HeluvaSkier]

It looks like the pocket of sensibility I enjoy is very small indeed.

Spend some time observing in a traditional ski school and you will come to a new realization of how small that pocket really is.

[BigE]

I was part of that for a while. I was not just observing. Thankfully, I came across the essentials, gave up instruction and based my coaching around them. Even in my hands, they worked.

The Essentials supports the primary truth about skiing -- only a tipped and pressured ski will turn. The Essentials tells you how to do that. Today, I was working on tipping: showing the bases to the top of the hill. Marvelous results which are impossible to achieve with an "up move" in transition. Stay low through transition, extend the leg outside leg through the turn. Raise the inside arm for even more edge bite ( it kills any inclination ).

This is what the CSIA reverse airplane drill is supposed to do, but I doubt that 10% of the instructors using the move know that....

PS: As you can tell, I'm a bit cynical today....my eyes opened while watching the skiers at Blue Mountain. The entire hill was covered in terminal intermediates.

[HeluvaSkier]

PS: As you can tell, I'm a bit cynical today....my eyes opened while watching the skiers at Blue Mountain. The entire hill was covered in terminal intermediates.

Nothing wrong with that. I know how you feel. Sunday I had the displeasure of watching what appeared to be a J3 GS race. The conditions were really quite good so the racers were doing a lot of free skiing under the lift on the trail next to the race trail. The skiing I was watching was simply awful. Granted these are young racers but their skiing was lacking all of the essentials, which are fundamentals that MUST be taught at and early age if a racer is going to be successful. These poor kids had none of it... all wide stances, no pressure on the stance ski, no counter balance, no counteracting, huge up moves, flexed stance leg at the apex of their turns... the list goes on. I feel bad for the kids because they don't know any better. No one is teaching them to actually ski. Many of them were actually good skiers, or could be, if someone would teach them the right things. It is their coaches who should be taken out and run over with a groomer (maybe a little harsh, but seriously, they should be embarrassed).

[BigE]

Wide stance + up move = inclination for edging at turn initiation. Then comes angulation. This is very common. LIke it or not, that is how the bulk of racers are being taught.

[Icanski]

Big E,
teaching wide stance is not just at Blue, I see it in many places. Every time we have a session, the level 3 and level 4 guys tell others to widen their stance for stability.
I come donw in PMTS style with my legs close and only vertically separated and they say, "now that's nice skiing...just widen your stance for more stability." I say, "did I look unstable to you?" and they don't say no, they just say that will help stability, and I just say, I'm more concerned about balance. And they leave me alone.
But the wide stance stuff is taught all over the place because it's part of the CSIA 'toolkit'.
Icanski

[Max_501]

But the wide stance stuff is taught all over the place...

I also see it from some of the race coaches. I'm unclear on what the PSIA instructors are teaching (other than the wedge progression which I often see).

[Ken]

PSIA teaches a "functional" stance, whatever that means, and it is not defined. Some still say to ski with with a shoulder width stance for stability. They tell me to widen my stance for stability. I ask where my skiing was unstable, and they're stuck for an answer. Some still talk about the distance the feet are apart, not the width of the gap between the legs. With one leg flexed skiing over at angles the stance becomes "wider" even though the gap between the legs is constant... When they talk about the shoulder width stance, I politely suggest that the correct stance width is about the width of the skier's femur heads, but narrower for an unaligned knock kneed skier and wider for an unaligned bow legged skier. They sagely nod their heads and say that sounds good...but learn nothing. Recently I was teaching with a Level III trainer, and he told a very thin woman to widen her stance. Well, she had about an inch of space showing between her legs, and at that position her stance width was about equal to her shoulders and hips. I told her, in front of the high powered guy, that her stance width was fine for her frame as long as she was moving her feet independently. I got no argument.

By the way, PSIA is no longer teaching an up movement. They want to extend diagonally forward and into the new turn. Of course, they do not say how to extend diagonally, nor the fact that the diagonal movement isn't a deliberate movement at all, but the result of shifting to the new outside ski and moving forward (not up) at the correct times.

Retraction turns are clearly documented as quicker turns in the 2004 Science and Skiing III available by interlibrary loan through your local public library, or available by purchase on Amazon and elsewhere. Racer's wide stance for speed...sure, when they need to tuck for aerodynamics. The aero plus offsets the wide stance minus.

[HeluvaSkier]

By the way, PSIA is no longer teaching an up movement. They want to extend diagonally forward and into the new turn. Of course, they do not say how to extend diagonally, nor the fact that the diagonal movement isn't a deliberate movement at all, but the result of shifting to the new outside ski and moving forward (not up) at the correct times.

This is news to me... A few weeks ago I saw a clinic where I ski and the examiner teaching the clinic was teaching an ILE-type up move to release the old turn and engage the new turn. Also they need some mechanism to release a turn, and I have not seen anyone talking about flexing the stance leg to release the turn. To me this probably means they are still using an inside leg extension movement to release the turn and pushing off that leg to push the CM into the new turn quickly (basically throwing the upper body into the turn and hoping that the feet catch up by the time both get to the fall line...). This is their "move diagonally in the turn" technique... which ignores early engagement in the high-C and for all practical purposes skips any portion of the turn prior to the the fall line.