Author Topic: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.  (Read 3696 times)

epic

  • Instructor
  • <100 Posts
  • **
  • Posts: 85
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #60 on: January 14, 2013, 04:38:44 pm »
She was falling forward to get onto the tongues. In order to be in balance, she had to be "hanging" from her quads instead of stacked on her bones. So she could be in balance to ski, but not for very long.

ToddW

  • 4-6 Year Member
  • 200 Posts
  • ****
  • Posts: 320
  • Location: Westchester, NY
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #61 on: January 14, 2013, 06:48:02 pm »
I also think that intermediates fiddling with ramp and binding delta is mostly an internet phenomenon ......  I'm not going to magically start getting world cup starts just because my binding delta is fixed by a degree or two, or even my lateral alignment.  I still need to learn how to ski..

Dan,

Once you learn how to ski, please teach me.  And then cure me of bad habits like fiddling with gear and coveting my neighbor's skis.

Since you mentioned divergent definitions of forward, let me post my all-time single favorite sentence from EpicSki.  I'd buy the author a beer any time.  I think there's no doubt about who wrote this ...

Quote
No, it supports the idea that short of a select few skiers and FIS racers, no one on the mountain is ever truly forward or even knows what it feels like to be skiing in a hips forward position - let alone how to teach it.

In the same thread, a well-known Summit County instructor posted a different view:
Quote
Depending on the posture of the skier, the hips may never appear directly above, much less forward of, the feet!

dan.boisvert

  • 100 Posts
  • *
  • Posts: 102
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #62 on: January 15, 2013, 04:49:07 am »
My wife went from basically not skiing, to "hey let's go skiing" when I changed her bindings from toes down to flat. Her Tyrolia bindings were 8mm toes down and her quads would be burning within minutes of putting her skis on. With her KTi bindings which are darn close to flat, she is good to go. Huge difference, and there is no amount of coaching that could have made that change for her. She isn't the only one.

This sounds like it was certainly a win for her (and you!).

Did you consider a more upright boot that wouldn't require her to be so far forward, and perhaps a stiffer one, that would support her better when she got there?

I have a pair of touring boots with two settings for forward lean.  If I put them in the less upright one, I feel similarly to how you described your wife, because the boot pulls my knee way forward, and then provides no support for me when I'm there.  It's a pretty bad combo.  They're much better in the more upright setting, though still much softer than I'd like.  Dynafit TLT 5P's are on my list for Santa next year.. :D


Don't worry, Todd.  If I ever get it figured out, you'll be the first to know, and I'll be happy to share.  I figure most good racers are skiing really well by the time they're 20, having started skiing at 3.  I've been skiing for about 7 years, I think, so another 10 and I should have no excuse!

epic

  • Instructor
  • <100 Posts
  • **
  • Posts: 85
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #63 on: January 15, 2013, 05:06:30 am »
The boot is a Nordica Beast 10 which seems pretty straight and is reasonably stiff. She was pretty ambivalent about skiing anyway, and I probably couldn't have gotten her to go to a bootfitter, but it was easy enough to just hand her a pair of skis with less delta.

jim-ratliff

  • 6+ Year Member
  • 1000 Posts
  • ******
  • Posts: 2739
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #64 on: January 15, 2013, 08:06:24 am »

At least for me, I get my skis mounted wherever the shop or guy I bought them from had them, and then I go ski.  I don't think I've ever run into an intermediate in person who spends time fiddling with binding delta or mount location.
I just don't feel like a degree here or there makes that much of a difference.
....... by a degree or two, or even my lateral alignment.  I still need to learn how to ski..
Dan:
Yes you have (run into an intermediate in person who fiddles with that stuff).  Lynn is adamant about BOF over CRS for her bindings, and requested that we convert to Tyrolia Railflex so she could further experiment with ski control, and is seriously considering converting to HA's new way.  And me too.
A degree in lateral alignment can be a lot.  If you need it, there is night and day difference when they stick a shim under your boots to validate what their eyes are seeing.  My guess is that Glenn long ago looked at your skiing and felt that your alignment wasn't a problem.
I think you ought to make time for a Harb camp -- I think you would love it.
I wonder if there are still openings in the "Bushwacka private with Harald" group?
"If you're gonna play the game boy, ya gotta learn to play it right."

LivingProof

  • Global Moderator
  • 400 Posts
  • *
  • Posts: 892
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #65 on: January 15, 2013, 08:33:50 am »

Since you mentioned divergent definitions of forward, let me post my all-time single favorite sentence from EpicSki.  I'd buy the author a beer any time.  I think there's no doubt about who wrote this ...
Quote
No, it supports the idea that short of a select few skiers and FIS racers, no one on the mountain is ever truly forward or even knows what it feels like to be skiing in a hips forward position - let alone how to teach it.

Todd,

I would be willing to buy the author of the first post a beer anytime, and, I think I get to ski with him in 2 weeks! Can I charge the beer to your account?

You've a great memory. Hmm, please don't ever do a collection of LP misstatements! And, there are many!

ToddW

  • 4-6 Year Member
  • 200 Posts
  • ****
  • Posts: 320
  • Location: Westchester, NY
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #66 on: January 15, 2013, 09:20:44 am »
Todd,

I would be willing to buy the author of the first post a beer anytime, and, I think I get to ski with him in 2 weeks! Can I charge the beer to your account?

Please do.  Use my credit card ending in the digit 8.

HighAngles

  • 1 Year Member
  • 200 Posts
  • *
  • Posts: 208
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #67 on: January 15, 2013, 05:49:34 pm »
What I have learned in my past 3 seasons with PMTS is that there's "feeling" like you're skiing well and "actually" skiing well.  It's incredibly difficult to self-assess until you spend time with either a coach or lots of video (with immediate review of the footage) to get the biofeedback in place.  The revelation that many of the PMTS faithful have is that good skiing will sometimes (really quite often) feel "bad".  This is because the movements and the sensory feedback you get from your body is so different than your normal way of skiing feels.

So on the topic of fore/aft balance, what Heluva is so clearly pointing out is that tweaking is fine as long as it's done with some kind of outside guidance or verification that the result is what you're truly intending.  It's quite difficult to judge the tweaks merely by sensing if it "feels" right.  That doesn't mean though that you can never reach the point where you can trust your own feelings.  You can get there, but it takes a lot of direct biofeedback with verification to truly understand how the sensations actually match your real skiing movements.

dan.boisvert

  • 100 Posts
  • *
  • Posts: 102
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #68 on: January 15, 2013, 07:38:43 pm »
Sounds like a great quick fix, epic!  It's nice to be aware of options like that, especially when dealing with casual skiers.

Dan:
Yes you have (run into an intermediate in person who fiddles with that stuff).  Lynn is adamant about BOF over CRS for her bindings, and requested that we convert to Tyrolia Railflex so she could further experiment with ski control, and is seriously considering converting to HA's new way.  And me too.
A degree in lateral alignment can be a lot.  If you need it, there is night and day difference when they stick a shim under your boots to validate what their eyes are seeing.  My guess is that Glenn long ago looked at your skiing and felt that your alignment wasn't a problem.
I think you ought to make time for a Harb camp -- I think you would love it.
I wonder if there are still openings in the "Bushwacka private with Harald" group?

Huh.  I stand corrected.  I didn't know you guys spent time on that stuff.

If I remember right, I have 2 degrees under one foot and 1.5 under the other.  I've switched boots to ones that haven't been aligned for me though, and they skied fine (touring boots, demos, etc).  Sure, I like ones that have been aligned for me best, and will continue to have my setups aligned, but I don't think it's that huge a deal when compared with the ocean of technique improvements I still need to make.  The only time I've felt an alignment was really a problem is when a shop had set up the inside of the boots wrong, was aligning me backwards, and had me off by about 4-5 degrees on each foot, as well as having the cuffs set backwards.  That setup was pretty rough.

Glen's been skiing unaligned for the past several years, and he still seems to ski okay, too.

I'm not saying that all this equipment setup is irrelevant or anything--it just seems that people spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over their gear, when it seems to me that spending that energy obsessing over technique would yield far greater improvement.

Clearly folks who have serious alignment issues are in a different category, as are people running gates and chasing tenths.  Yes, it makes it easier to do things even as simple as sideslipping when your edges release at exactly the same moment.  It just seems like people obsess over this stuff in a way that seems out of proportion to its importance, in my view.

Maybe it's just what people talk about on the internet.  I don't remember Lynn or Jim talking about gear at all while skiing with them!

Regarding the Harb camp, I might get there one of these years, but it's a tough sell for me.  I've got great coaching at home, and am fighting to keep up with that.  As long as I have more material than I can implement, I don't feel compelled to travel for coaching.  When I travel to ski, I want to go explore someplace fun, and don't really want to spend all week in class.  Maybe if there was a Chamonix or St Anton camp in February, I could be talked into it, though.  Anybody want to suggest it?  ;D

epic

  • Instructor
  • <100 Posts
  • **
  • Posts: 85
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #69 on: January 15, 2013, 08:51:10 pm »
You should use video to confirm the benefit of any of these changes. Feeling rarely works. HA's new method has a variety of flaws. To start the theory only works if the ski is a symmetrical design with exactly the same flex characteristics from tip to tail.

I'm sorry, who is HA (do you mean High Angles?) and what is his new method?

jim-ratliff

  • 6+ Year Member
  • 1000 Posts
  • ******
  • Posts: 2739
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #70 on: January 15, 2013, 09:19:14 pm »
.......
I'm not saying that all this equipment setup is irrelevant or anything--it just seems that people spend an inordinate amount of time obsessing over their gear, when it seems to me that spending that energy obsessing over technique would yield far greater improvement.

Maybe it's just what people talk about on the internet.  I don't remember Lynn or Jim talking about gear at all while skiing with them!
Correct! I only obsess about gear setup when I can't ski.
The only gear we were discussing was how much the Vist plates made Lynn's feet hurt. It was agony, and we had/have no idea why?
"If you're gonna play the game boy, ya gotta learn to play it right."

jim-ratliff

  • 6+ Year Member
  • 1000 Posts
  • ******
  • Posts: 2739
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #71 on: January 15, 2013, 09:30:02 pm »
I'm sorry, who is HA (do you mean High Angles?) and what is his new method?
Yes High Angles, and mounting center of the boot over the narrowest part of the ski. Sticky topic in the gear forum.
"If you're gonna play the game boy, ya gotta learn to play it right."

HeluvaSkier

  • Consider me the reason you should pay attention...
  • Instructor
  • 100 Posts
  • **
  • Posts: 156
  • Location: WNY
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #72 on: January 15, 2013, 09:36:32 pm »
Sticky topic in the gear forum.

A sticky topic indeed.
All-Mountain: A common descriptive term for boots or skis that are designed to perform equally poorly under a variety of conditions and over many different types of terrain.

epic

  • Instructor
  • <100 Posts
  • **
  • Posts: 85
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #73 on: January 16, 2013, 05:12:04 am »
Dan,

Once you learn how to ski, please teach me.  And then cure me of bad habits like fiddling with gear and coveting my neighbor's skis.

Since you mentioned divergent definitions of forward, let me post my all-time single favorite sentence from EpicSki.  I'd buy the author a beer any time.  I think there's no doubt about who wrote this ...

In the same thread, a well-known Summit County instructor posted a different view:

Regarding those two quotes, the first one is just another self-righteous insult to almost all skiers. It may be fact, or it may not, or maybe both quotes are correct. Maybe most skiers hips are not "forward" because they don't need to be. I'd say the second quote has been more helpful to me than the first. The last time I skied with BB he created an environment that allowed me to figure that out for myself. To figure out that I don't always need to be staying "forward". The first thing he'll tell you when you ski with him is "don't believe everything I say" that can be pretty valuable too. Go out and ski and figure out as much as you can for yourself. Sometimes you will have to reconcile conflicting advice for yourself - http://www.epicski.com/t/99527/reconciling-foot-squirt-with-foragonal-movements

Speaking of FIS and being forward, I am pretty sure that this guy is a FIS racer that won our race yesterday.


sorry, link doesn't work, maybe I can fix that tonight.

ToddW

  • 4-6 Year Member
  • 200 Posts
  • ****
  • Posts: 320
  • Location: Westchester, NY
Re: Fore Aft Balance and how to get there.
« Reply #74 on: January 16, 2013, 06:44:23 am »
Self-righteous?  More like self-denigrating.  And paying respect to Dan's efforts at improvement.  Because of his lifetime of fine balance and delicate neuromuscular control from his former profession, Dan may one day become quite the skier.  His eventual upper bound on performance vastly exceeds mine.

The verb to ski is in many ways like the human performance  verbs to sing or to dance.  Anyone can open his mouth or move a leg or two.  And yet we're unlikely to say "he can sing" or "he knows how to dance".  Similarly anyone can don ski boots, wedge glide around, and twist ze skis.  That doesn't merit the accolade skier. (A trophy and a 1st place prize for every kid?  Or a little bit of honesty?  Which is it to be?)

On your 2nd point, I've heard B say that too and seen him write it on Epic.  I take it at full face value and actively disbelieve his almost every word after years of paying attention to him just in case.  He makes a poor advocate for the Devil.