I latched on to Tommy's ideas about 5 years ago while trying to improve my ability to double carve. I just couldn't get the power I wanted on my inside ski. It drove me nuts. I was PSIA certified and a relatively strong skier but wanted more. I stumbled upon Tommy's ideas when I searched for who knows what on the internet. I wasn't looking to "steer" anything. I just wanted to carve the snot out of my inside ski, but what I read opened my mind to the simple idea of using my hips in a much different way. It was backwards from what everything I had learned. At least that's what I thought at first. But it gave me an idea, a possible solution to my problems. The simple act of advancing the outside half of the body moves the center of mass forward on the the inside half, i.e. inside ski. This is what I took away from the pages and pictures I had read. I had to try for myself. If this proved to be true then waist steering could be just what I was looking for. Visualize the pelvic girdle. If you rotate your pelvis around the top of your inside femur, you'll advance the outside femur and thus, the CM (located some where in between these two points) will also advance. This will move the balance to the center of the inside ski (whereas counter rotation puts you on the heal of the inside ski). This gives your the ability to have a very powerful inside ski as you ramp up edge angles. A byproduct of this hip rotation or waist steering is that it really drives the inside lower leg into the front the the inside ski boot. Some people with try to achieve this by pulling the inside foot back under the hips, but if the hips are countered too much, the CM will still lag behind the inside ski. I often describe this as a fulcrum turn where my inside foot and hip are a moving pivot point that I'm actively trying the pull the outside foot and hip around. The goal is to get the outside half to "keep up" with the inside half (which has a shorter distance/arc to travel.) You can still counter you hands and shoulders with upper/lower body separation occurring around the sternum while the hips and midsection are actively "steering". Furthermore, this internal pelvic rotation causes the outside hip flexor to extent or open. This hip extension creates a powerful outside ski. This is can be achieved by pulling the outside ski backwards in a turn, but that act by itself does nothing for the inside ski. Actively steering your waist is actually a very efficient movement that helps control dynamic balance and leverage. Iv'e found that by focusing on the inside half, the outside half pretty much works no matter what. Since first discovering the concept spent a lot of time working through some movement patterns to improve the transitions. And then realized that these movement patterns work anywhere in any condition. Short skidded turns, long skidded turns, double carved turns, bumps, powder or ice. Short skis, long skis, skinny skis and fat skis it works. Hell, I pull out 20yr old slalom skis and I feel like Marc Girardelli (who may have been waist steering himself). It's particularly awesome in the race course. Imagine going through an icy course knowing exactly where you inside ski and knee are at all times as it carves through the ice with nearly the same power and edge hold as the outside ski. Imagine confidently shinning every gate without fear of hooking a ski and blasting through flushes chanting "inside, inside, inside..." See where I;m going here? It works for me and the kids I coach. And it's so simple really. Simply point the pelvis (belly button for the kids) towards the new inside ski and tip the inside knee to initiate the turn (rotary steering works too!) Then use the waist steering to manage the balance on the inside ski throughout the turn. The pretty much turns into something very similar to the classic "counter into/counter out of" turn. The outside ski pretty much takes care of itself. Fine tune your turn with rolling of the ankles, dropping the inside knee or by using the leg/long leg concept. It works with up unweighted or down unweighted turns. But the key is start with the inside ski and trust the outside ski. START WITH THE INSIDE DAMMIT! (99.9% percent of adults can not do this!) So, I believe that waist steering is real. I believe it complements almost every skill you've ever learned. I believe in an open mind. I believe in trying things for myself. I believe the worlds most powerful skiers of the past might have been doing this. I don't care who invented the wheel I'm just happy to have wheels. I believe shaped skis revolutionized skiing. I believe shaped skis have allowed us to learn how ski a little bit more like our heroes, but we still have a lot to learn. I believe snowboards are responsible for shaped skis and I'm grateful for that. You can believe what you want. Tim Me? I coach racing, though I don't really race myself and I wouldn't call myself a racer. I'm just a coach. I'm there to help the kids. I've never met or talked to Tommy. I'm so grateful for his ideas. I took them and ran with them. Made them mine so to speak. If you are skeptical you should try it for a while. Maybe you can make them yours too.
This is a paradigm shift. You are not trying to bend the outside ski. The shovel does bend, and the ski bends slightly but the technique works differently than the old way (angulation leverage). I really try to focus ALL of my weight on the inside ski.
I think your timing is a little off. To balance against a lot of pressure on the outside ski, it is helpful to have our hips face the outside of the turn. If a skier is skilled enough to pressure the outside ski early in the turn, their hips will rotate toward the outside of the turn before the fall line. When you finish that turn, your hips will still be facing the outside of the turn. To speed up the transition, and transfer weight/pressure to the new outside ski, it may be helpful to think about rotating your hips. Some people think about pulling a foot back or pushing the other forward. An effort to rotate the hips to the inside of the turn only makes sense to me in the very bottom of a turn, approaching the transition. This would result in a stronger position to begin transferring weight to the new outside ski while it is still on its uphill edge. As an instructor, I have found very few athletes that would benefit from thinking about standing on their inside ski in the middle of a turn and trying to rotate that hip to the inside of the turn. The reason we rotate our hips is because it is required for powerful balance and stability over the outside ski. After thinking about this for many years, I have decided that teaching people good balance and stability under heavy weight will naturally solve hip rotation issues. What do you think? Are we trying to say the same thing?
Definitely not saying the same thing. You should first know that a "hip" is the joint between the femur and the pelvis; it is not the pelvis. Even so, I am prescribing rotation into the turn, not the opposite as you prescribe. My way carves both skis at the same time. Counter-rotation with outside ski weight bias will always skid the inside ski. Analyze your tracks. You will always be skidding.
