FEEDBACK wanted....!

[tommy]

I placed a set of photos illustrating a few turns done by a presumed PMTS skier. I'd appreciate your feedback (even you non PMTS-folks... Ott, Rusty & Co are most welcome!)

http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=2131550543

TIA,
T

[Tommi]

Just my 0.02 eur worth:

I do not have skills/experience to give any advice on skiing this good, but I can say how it looks to me: it looks very, very nice.

The only thing that got my attention was the slightly early upper body counter around frames 19-24 in your left turn initiation (maybe looks to be aerly due to the camera angle?). Everything else looks very much like I wanted to ski!

And technically these photos and that site you use seem to work perfectly. Did you extract these frames from a video or did you have some sort of special camera taking lots of frames in sequence?

Great skiing!

WBR,

Tommi (2)

[Guest]

The pictures are frames from a video. Tommy will have to answer how he extracted them to stills. I was the photographer. The camera is a little olympus c70 (I think it's called c700 in the states). Given how small and light the camera is I'm amazed at the quality. I can fit about 5 minutes of video on a 256 meg card.

Tommy took a few videos of me which I'm currently crying over .

[Guest]

Last post was by me.

[ahallberg]

Last 2 posts by me, geez. I hoe the login worked this time .

[Belskisfast]

looks great!
only thing I can suggest is pulling the free foot closer to the stance boot and pulling it back...same thing I'm trying to do along with many other PMTS movements, like flex, stroing arm, being on both LTE's for a split second....etc. etc.....lol.
overall your skiing looks wonderful to me...

[milesb]

It looks posed, like the skier is performing an exercise. Was he working on something?

[jclayton]

Do I detect a slight "A" frame , the stance ski overpowering the inside ski a touch at initiation or perhaps the inside or free ski a little late tipping .
Also there is a "v" separation or reverse wedge early in the turn just afer initiation and perhaps a bit overcountered laterally , a bit forced .

Generally looks pretty solid to me .

Looking again the counter, I think, is held a bit too long and the body hasn't come square to the skis in the float period , at first I thought it might be the clothes as he is ata distance but I noticed the same thing in the 2nd and 3rd turns also .

Fame 11,12 , slight wedge .

Looks to me like all the ingredients are there but he could be a bit more relaxed and perhaps float a bit longer to bring the body square at transition .

The middle turn had some nice rebound of stance ski .

Perhaps the slightly forced counter at transition holds back the active tiping of the free foot .

Comments on my comments ??? These are issues I struggle a bit with myself .

[Max]

I think it looks like very nice skiing. Here are a couple of minor observations similar to above. NOTE: I am not an expert and these are very minor in my opinion, but since we all want to ski like Harald I figured I'd post them for you. These observations might also be due to the angle of the photos (which are terrific).

Frame 9: It looks like the skier has weighted the new downhill ski without enough LTE tilting of the new inside ski. The inside ski still looks flat rather than tipped.

Frame 10: Looks like the begining of a slight A frame

Frame 11: Very slight wedge, perhaps caused by stepping onto new downhill ski in frame 9.

[Ott Gangl]

Tommy, in the first few shots the skier 'looks' banked, almost as if he is riding his inside ski, in the transition he looks somewhat back, and in the lower ones he looks terrific. I emphasise that he LOOKS to me like that but I know from expirience that camera angle can play tricks...the float stage can be an iffy feeling for a second until the new edge is established and the tendency is to break forward at the hip but the skier establishes authority right after, so that may just be his style of skiing. Specifically in frame 10 it looks like contanct with the boot tongues has been lost.

If he never has a bigger a-frame, convergence or balance problem that in these pictures I would not worry about that and discount it completely.

Slo-mo video or sequences like that can be brutal and show momentary corrections which would not be seen by the naked eye.

Taken totally, I find no problem with this skiers performance.

(this is not saying that we all couldn't improve)

I just saw the frames on page 2 and 3, the skier is definitly skiing in the backseat and banking the left turns.

....Ott

[Bluey]

Tommy,

As everyone here knows, I'm a relatively new hack at this thing called skiing........but I love the sport and I love finding opportunities to improve........so my comments below are based on what a newbie sees.........and I will of course defer to those in the 'elder'-statesman category of this site.....

My initial obersations are based on the premise that this skier was not practising anything in particular but simply just being photograhed " having a bit of a ski down the hill " l...... correct me, if I'm wrong about this intial premise.......

The sequence shows a skier on a wide open, relatively "easy"/green slope and also an uncrowded slope which looks to be free of bumps/moguls etc ......


I think the upper body actions need attention especially the actions of the shoulders/arms/hands/poles ( ...Strong arm has aleady been mentioned ...). This skier is not using his poles/upper body effieciently........even, if he doesn't need to plant them, the poor pole use is putting the upper body into a position which made tranfer and the proper use of the free foot difficult during the turn....hence the jamming of the turn causing the need to traverse before re-gaining control......


The transfer doesn't look clean.....I'm not sure how to describe this but it looks to me as if the feet foot is not being kept free throughout ALL of the turn and as has already been mentioned this maybe is why it doesn't look like its not being pulled back under the body........which leads to .......

Is the skier balanced correctly over the skies throughout the turn....my impression is that there is too much too early in the "front seat" in the upper part of the turn and too much in the back seat towards the end of the turn.....so it looks either a little rushed or else, as I would call it ...it gives the impression of a cramped style.....I think comment has already been made about the need to get more of the "float" into this skiers repertoire.....


Assuming correct alignment, then I suggest the skier needs to work on feeling balanced over the skis throughout the turn....so the 2 questions which I always ask myself and which I suggest this skier can ask of her/himself......What are my feet doing at each part of the turn and secondly how is my upper body/shoulders/arms /poles assisting to send a column of weight down the body to assist the release related to the use of the little toe edge then big toe edge of the stance foot.......


Anyway, that's my take on what I see...I appreciate Ott's comment about videos being deceptive .....and as such I'll leave it there........


Bluey

[tommy]

Thanks for all the feedback so far, I appreciate it! I will comment on your comments later - my computer is currently out of order, and the one I'mtyping on is a pain....!

FYI: the stills were extracted from a Quicktime movie using Quicktime Pro, 29 USD.

Cheers,
Tommy

[Harald]

I was wondering why I had not received a response to my e-mail.

[tommy]

Harald,

I'm still without decent access to the net, but can occationally read mail and surf. However, I have not received any email from you recently... in case you have several email addresses to me, please use the work adress.... you know, " at the BIG" company....

All,

maybe I should have added something regarding the slope and conditions:

Contrary to Blueys observation, the slope is "red" which I believe corresponds to blue/dark blue in the american system, and about 25 deg pitch. The snow is entirely machine made, very hard, with patches of ice, even though there is maybe a quarter of an inch of machine made old fluff on top of it.

The skier was not doing any particular practice, just trying to apply the PMTS techiques learned, in medium radius, brushed turns.

I'm currently sitting at the airport, so I don't have much time to write nor analyzing your comments, but just a few comments to get started:

- currently (this season) the skier focuses mainly on flexing in the transition (trying to avoid "up & around") , and counter rotation (to create high angles), by pointing the inner shoulder and ribs forward & down. The skier is sometimes "sloppy" with tipping the LTE enough, to match the stance ski. The skier often "rushes" the transitions in more difficult conditions (steeps, ice), whenever he's not able to do "pure carved turns".

My own observations after studying the stills, and before reading your comments, were:
- occationally a slight A-frame
- inside ski sometimes not matching outside ski angle
- pole handling timing off (too late)
- "rushed" transitions - no float
- sometimes a slight wedge entry

JC,

your comments appear to me very similar to mine!

Ott, both your comments (back seat, banking) are good observations, i.e. I wasn't aware of that potential problem. Thanks!

Everybody else: thanks, keep those comments coming!

-_T

[Ott Gangl]

Tommy, please let me elaborate of what I call ' in the back seat'. A skier may be bending forward and have his hands forward and still be leaning on the back of his boots or just not having firm contact with any side in the boots, as when sitting in the lodge with the boots on.

Anytime a firm contact with the tongue of the boot is lost, not meaning that the tongue has to be pressured, just a good contact, the skier is in the back seat or at least not where he should be for both control of the skis and feedback from the skis.

Moving the hip bones two or three inches forward usually does it, keeping them there is the trick. Many people counter by pulling the outside hip back instead of pushing the inside hip forward.

....Ott