I was writing an e-mail to HH with a report on Italian ski situation but you cast a pebble in the pond, and a big one, so I reply.
Harald first asked me about Jam session ski school last november when I was skiing in Tignes, he found them on Youtube and was curious.
I sent him other links to their videos, he answered that they have some very good points when they ski agressivly expecially Albertini e Rigamonti
(former good Europa cuppers and B-team, now national instructors) but when they
ski short radius turns they show too much pivoting and extending,that is true
so we come directly to the black beast of italian skiing.
The black beast of italian teaching and skiing system is the concept
of PROIEZIONE AVANTI-INTERNO [forward-inside(diagonal)body projection]
that is the worst tool ever to recenter a skier at the transition,
expecially with shaped skis.
It has a lot of bad consequences both for intermediate and expert skiers.
An intermediate has two chances:
1) he cant perform the move (is obscure and mystical) and so is stuck in the back seat
2) he finally arrived to perform that holy graal move and he discovers that:
a) he overpowered the skiis losing contact with the snow, big push
washing out the tails, no way to control speed in short radius turns,
no way to perform a decent medium or large turn.
A top expert skier:
1)free skiing he can arranges performing that, generally resulting in a **BIG UP MOVE** so he must looses a lot of time to recover and correct,
he looks unelegant, in a short radius turn he is OBLIGED
to set abruptly the edges in the last third to control speed, is tremendously tiring and unsure.
2)in the gates: is simple, THEY DONT DO THAT, point.
Now to demonstrate what I stated above I put a link of the same guys (most of them Italian Demo team)
and I permit myself to suggest to all of you what to look for.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WHL0G4InJo&feature=relatedSkip the advertising and go directly to:
1.15 > not bad but not perfect, air transitions, as Geoffda stated, accomplished without tipping, just relaied on forces good skiing, but not sufficient at that level
(italian national instructor and demo team), the guy with the white helmet is often in a too cifotic posture in transition, chest too leaned forward,
hips too high from the snow, both legs too extended, skis too long disconnected from the snow. Tipical product of the infamous proiezione avanti-interno.
2.00 > very good GS skiing (lot of offset lot of ice, medium/high pitch, I skied it)
2.54 > Oriano shows some difficulty to engage high C in medium arcs
3.00 > sorry for Paolo but this a dead end exercise with a lot of up move and legs twisting
3.52 > Albertini e Oriano Rigamonti showing a jump & brake coreographic turns,
this is BAD skiing very well performed by two good athletes, didacticaly is pure B.S.
average people on the hill,even with skills, cant do that, better ways to ski SRT
Is it all to throw in the garbage?
No, they teach to start with the ankles and they spent a lot of time making people
dry practicing rolling feet inside the boots, they want people counteract and counterbalance,
they spend a lot of time on an exercise on hips level similar to hip-o-meter, in the
general panorama of Alps ski school they are much better.
Their race camps are good, this year they had Giorgio Rocca with them, the problem
is that they teach different things to racers in relationship of what they teach to free skiing camps.
The some thing is shown in new AMSI (italian PSIA) technical text, look:
Agonistic carved turns (with no up moves)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92gdN4-1GYo&feature=relatedDidactic carved turns (with up moves)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h57l2VtogJo&feature=relatedI dont link the rest of "Progression"(?) is typical TTS dead end REgression : wedge, christiania etc.
If this skiing progression were a dance this would be my comment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZwfHNb7q2I&feature=relatedLast year after my first Hintertux camp i tried to mix things, worst move in my skiing life,
I only gained a couple of sore knees, after January I committed myself to follow only PMTS,
I received a lot of critics but my skiing improved. A lot. And I'm going on this way.
DONT MIX, it's not brilliant.
Ciao,
Federico
p.s. Sgarrozzo mandami un pm, fatti sentire anche se non puoi ancora sciare,
a novembre vado da Harald in Colorado.