This foundational content will be of interest for any ski enthusiast interested in the mechanics of skiing. Video features Taos's Technical Director Alain Veth. Video #2 of 3 SkiStrong.org
I’ve bought my last 3 pairs of skis from Alain! He’s amazing and has even taken me and my wife out on the mountain, which was amazing. He’s kind, patient, and an expert in every sense of skiing. Thanks for this Deb! We no longer live in NM but I still go back to Le Ski Mastery for all my gear and tuning!
Thanks Deb. I like Alain's style - efficient use of words, feedback and demo. We covered this subject in pre-season clinics with similar emphasis. I'm returning to instructing this season along with my son David who is joining the same ski school for his first season of teaching (he was a student starting at 4).
I’ve had the pleasure and privilege of doing many race clinics with both Deb and Alain at Taos Sk Valley, such fun, love you guys!! And of course seeing Deb holding little Nilo is precious! 💕👣🥰⛷❄️
Thank you again. I'm back on skis after my achillies injury. No need for great speed. Practicing the techniques I have learned from your videos including finishing the turn. I am noticing the "straight down" speed skiers much more than I did before, many of who are out of control. Didn't notice them so much before! Have a lovely Christmas.
Amazing video. Our boot and ski tech has moved on and so we may have different options but Alain just shows us the the basic movements of skiing remain the same. What a great coach! Thamks Deb for.this video.
I've been looking out for a new video from you every day Deb but know that Nilo is in charge of this season's filming schedule! Not disappointed with Alain's wonderfully simple, clear and calm description of transition; I'll take his wisdom with me when I get to the snow in a few weeks time. Happy baby-days by the fireside!
"If we can be centered, if we can be balanced, with the little bit of strength that we have, because we're all getting older..." Alain... At 63 you're Killin me! I can't wipe the smile off my face watching this footage Deb. Give me more because I'm eating this stuff UP! And yes, effortlessness is a word. Also, are you kidding me? McKinney's world cup skis lasted 3 days to 24 runs? Dang! Still dyin to ski with you one day Deb.
Love the video and the focus. Just spent the past week @ Pro Jam in Killington skiing and working on transitions w/PSIA. Looking forward to another good season of teaching and skiing!
Thanks for that, Deb! Was just talking about this in our new hire and re-hire clinics and level 1 prep clinics. I like to use the term "Finishiation". Don't remember from whom I stole that term. But works for me as it suggest fluidity in a strong moving and stacking finish (stacked is not static, as you demonstrate in your vids with sideways pictures), into a proactive and efficient initiation that can be adapted from a wedge turn with efficiency where the terrain and gear does most of the work for you in starting the turn, to a powerful transfer of power from turn to turn in a high performance turn. Love you stuff! Thank you!
Also, the inside leg focus is key. For myself, that focus helped me change how I transferred weight and pressure and stack to the outside ski more effectively rather than trying to use my body to stomp on that outside ski, a habit I developed trying to bend stiffer racing straight skis back in the 80s and early 90s.
alain ... great observation that "matching" applies equally to the body as the skis. that equal engagement in both legs, i.e. 'neutral' in the body, is literally the same thing as matching skis ... because the skis are attached to your feet, which are at the end of your legs! i'm a dog-with-a-bone about returning to neutral before beginning the next turn, but i've never before had the language to so directly connect this idea to ski performance at the christie-to-parallel level.
Wow, so two take aways that I want to highlight please. 1. "Parallel" is holistic, not specific and continuing in real time. Invaluable. 2. Presupposing parallel is simply feet together is less than ideal.
Very interesting concept I hadn’t heard before, to concentrate on the legs being matched in between the turns as the emphasis is always on weighting the outside foot. Just thinking about the concept, it seems obvious this should lead to more elegant turns, and also when you’re matching both legs you’re more able to adjust to any emergency measures you might need to take.
Everything depends on which phase of the turn we talk about. Until apex of the turn you should have much more ski forces on your outside ski. But during the transition, after the apex, the ski forces must become completely equal until you get flattened skis and this time you must have unloaded skis, zero edge angles, very low ski-pressures and as much boot-tongue pressures you can create. An optimal turn has only 2 phases, you increase the ski forces until apex and you decrease all ski forces until from apex till you flatten your skis. In optimal turns your body must move forwards and backwards over your skis and also simultaneously to the sides of the skis (inclination). The forwards and backwards movements are just as important that the side movements. This starts by a backward body movement during the transition by knee flexion of both legs. Your torso should end up over your ski-tales, when the skis get flattened. Before your skis start to run in the new turn, you should let your torso to move ahead of your skis into the turn and you should do this partly by your edgings. You should feel, that your torso pulls your skis into the next turn.
@@JanosKoranyi If during the transition when the skis are unloaded, how will you have as much pressure as possible against the tongue of the boot if your torso is over the tails of the skis? Also if your knees are flexed at transition, you’re thinking of a carved turn?
@@ewallt The answer is active ankle flex, you press your feet and toes upwards inside your ski boots. This creates a boot tongue pressure. You can do this during the whole transition. Many skiers do not use active ankle flex, they pass the middle point of the edge change as fast as possible, without pressures on their boot tongues. Yes I am talking about carved turns in the first place.
Deb, there is a video on carving where they advocate unweighting DOWN instead of unweighting UP before starting a new turn, could you make a video on this concept pls
Everything depends on which phase of the turn we talk about. Until apex of the turn you should have much more ski forces on your outside ski. But during the transition, after the apex, the ski forces must become completely equal until you get flattened skis and this time you must have unloaded skis, zero edge angles, very low ski-pressures and as much boot-tongue pressures you can create. An optimal turn has only 2 phases, you increase the ski forces until apex and you decrease all ski forces from apex till you flatten your skis. In an optimal transition you should feel, that you end up over your ski-tales, that your skis continue to move closer to the same slope edge and your torso must ahead closer to the other opposite slope edge, you cross over your skis. In optimal turns your body must move forwards and backwards over your skis and also simultaneously to the sides of the skis (inclinations). The forwards and backwards movements are just as important that the side movements and these start by a backward body movement during the transition by knee flexion of both legs. Your torso should end up over your ski-tales, when the skis get flattened. This is a "cross under" optimal turn preparation. Before your skis start to run in the new turn, you should let your torso to move ahead of your skis into the turn and you should do this partly by your edgings. You should feel, that your torso pulls your skis into the next turn.
Hi Deb, Any chance there is a ski tuning video coming with this gentleman? I'm happy with my waxing, But I'm scarred to venture into the world of tuning edges.
The transition is the most important part of the turn, I work on the transition by working on the super phantom transition taught by Harald Harb. The drill consists of having the uphill ski on the little toe edge in a traverse, learning to balance on this edge is key to the movement and needs to be learned with the the downhill foot lifted slightly off the snow. Once this is learned the downhill boot is brought close to the uphill boot and tipped to its new little toe edge this will cause an parallel engagement of both edges with the new outside ski on the big toe edge and the new turn started. When I am skiing I think flex and flatten the outside ski to start the new turn.
This didn’t make sense to me except the last sentence. You flex and flatten the outside ski, and then do the phantom little toe movement as the weight gets transferred to the new outside ski, correct? I didn’t follow learning to balance on the little toe edge of the inside ski. My understanding of HH’s method is the phantom move of the little toe edge is not weight bearing. So the weight would go all on the downhill ski to on both skis when they’re flat to gradually more and more to the big toe edge of the new downhill ski as the phantom little toe move is being done on the old downhill ski. To tie in with this video, the suggestion, as I understand it, is to concentrate on both legs being matched during the transition.
Agree with @ewallt here. You don't balance on the uphill ski. See HH's video here... it is very obvious what is being explained. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-AUAOFTB4OBc.html
@@DebArmstrongSkiStrong absolutely, but doesn't that just mean that everyone goes through the stable position on their way to each turn? Maybe I'm over-thinking this and expecting a micro pause before each weight transfer
@@sheppy101 no pause necessary. watch folks, not everyone finds neutral between turns in fact 98% if folks enter the new turn not in balance, ankle flexion is off, they may be back, etc. it is easy to ski and enter turns out of balance, World cuppers do not or else they lose the race or worse, fall,
for sure, both skis should be flat and equally pressured at the transition, right? then, the skis will quickly rotate together towards the fall line, and the apex. once the skis rotate a little more across the fall line, its easy to pressure, and ski the new outside ski thru the turn. dont fight the edges of the old outside ski thru the transition ...wow its been dumping in steamboat, its going to be an epic ski season there, if this la nina storm track remains in place
If Tamra's race skis lasted all 24 runs of the season. And each run was 2 minutes (probably less) her race skis were on the snow for less than an hour before being replaced.
I don’t even think the immediate audience got it. I’m sorry but this isn’t my sort of instruction. What is one body action that has taken place on every ski turn ever. When you skate every step repeats the same action. At one moment your skis pressure the snow on your right side and a moment later your skis, or skates are pressuring from your left. THE TRANSITION at one moment your body moves over the skis this has to be a fundamental that you teach from not a ridiculous demonstration about ruining your knees.
In 3 minutes of roller blading I would demonstrate a weightless flat footed gliding moment with a critical rotation extension pressure and carve of both feet. Maybe ten ski instructors in the US understand the ability to be weightless bull legged edging on the inside edge while tipping and reaching with the outside edge you have about .1 seconds to get it right. Even in a snow plow you can appreciate a moment of weightless gliding but what it does for your freedom of the femur not the knees is critical.
It is no fun fighting gravity with the wedge. Ever wonder why most skiers that take a lesson never return to skiing ??? The most efficient transition can not be done fighting gravity. Skiers pay big bucks for ski lessons that produce bad habits of dead end movements that will not hold up when the conditions get tough. Very disappointing video when titled "The foundation of good skiing, The transition" when the instructor is teaching a transition that involves fighting gravity. Lets get serious how is a skier going to learn efficient movements when learning & practicing dead end movements??? The excuse that I cant get the student down the hill without getting them to snow plow does not cut it. Because there are a few lone wolfs out there that have broken away from teaching the traditional dead end movements & went straight to the easy to do efficient movements & have most of their students skiing parallel in a few hours while the rest of the herd are still taking the fun out of skiing having their students fight gravity. Then @ the end of the day the instructor often gets a tip $$ because the student did not understand he got ripped off by an instructor that did know how to teach efficient skiing. Though the tip will help pay for the useless instructor course the instructor took ROFLOL
Those that come back to skiing after lessons & progress further past pizza will almost always picked up bad movements from the lessons & will slide the outside ski out to start the turn instead of using tipping movements. Anyone who calls themselves a ski instructor & teaches the wedge turn is a fraud
It doesn’t sound like you’ve taught many ski lessons. It is a very rare student who can be trained to go directly to parallel. It is a stepping stone for nearly everyone. When taught well, all the same mechanics from wedge to full carve are similar, which Alain explains extremely well.
I don’t know of any experts skiers skiing the mountain all day in a wide stance, with conflicting edge angles doing the snow plow. Skiing parallel is easier and more efficient. If you don’t know how to teach balance on skis have the student ski with the stability and performance of a golf cart. Skiing is a balance sport so tech movements that keep skiers in balance instead of having the skiers make movements that push them off balance. It is not that there are few skiers that can go to straight to parellel by passing the snow plow. The fact is few instructors have any idea on how to teach skiing. Movements can be taught in doors without skis on progressing to standing on skis flat surface etc. No dead end movements need to be learned. Welch village ski area is having great success by passing the snow plow. It is cruel to be teaching first time skiers to snowplough. Putting the students on shape skis so the tips want to cross when teaching the snow plow just makes matters worse. Stop the cruelty in skiing teach the most efficient movements paying costumers deserve it.
