Well, I worked on skiing frozen formica this last Friday. Had some good moments at last. Before reporting on what did work, I want to clarify what I was not trying to do. I did not want to ski this stuff standing straight up and performing what I think of as controlled skids. I can do that, but feel quite vulnerable. I want control. I want to feel my skis engaged solidly in the snow from the beginning to the end of each turn. In other words, this woman wants to do race turns.
When I felt it working right, I felt the following:
1. femurs rotating in the hip socket (I wondered all summer what this meant - now I know - legs dramatically pivot but torso doesn't)
2. weight resting on the head of the femur (another way of saying the same thing)
3. hips lowered way inside the turn (maybe not as far as I thought since no video)
4. torso staying upright, with lower body angulated at the hip (it felt that way; maybe didn't look that way - you know how that goes)
5. weight so far forward at initiation that the skis begin the turn from uphill-back-behind the body (finally!!)
6. weight on balls of feet inside the boots at initiation; felt like I was on tippytoe (the turn didn't work for me without this happening)
7. weight on heels at end of turn, or not (both happened)
8. skis curve from up-back-behind, around to the side, then down-in-front where the turn ends (turn feels round, and feels like most of it happens with skis way out to the side - a very nice feeling)
9. most or all of the weight on outside ski (I even lifted the inside ski up off the snow sometimes)
10. cross-under happens, not cross-over (legs cross from left to right under the body with knees really flexed as they do that so the torso doesn't have to go "up" at all)
11. skis move under the torso in a sideways figure 8 (this is really pronounced)
12. the body shifts fore-aft while those skis are doing that (may be unnecessary, but my body did it anyway; racers don't look like they are doing the fore-aft thing to me....)
13. builds up a sweat (calories burned!)
14. makes noise (as in race turns!)
15. shovels of skis really grip the ice at the beginning of the turn (nice! totally secure!!)
Most of my turns were poor mangled attempts at the doing all of the previous 15 points. They were also uneven, with the left side working while the right side flubbed, or vice versa. But enough of them worked that I can aim for more of the same in the future, and hope that it kicks into muscle memory by the end of the season.
Now all this happened spasmodically in the afternoon on Friday, after I did a drill that I'd forgotten to try this season. If anyone doesn't know how to do these things and wants to try, I recommend trying this drill.
Pivot Slips: You station yourself at the top of a frozen slope. Stand with skis across fall line, 90 degrees. Slip downhill, with torso facing downhill and both hands with poles out front, but keep the skis at 90 degrees to the fall line as you slide slowly downhill. Then pivot skis to straight down the fall line, go a LITTLE way, then pivot them to the other side, 90 degrees across the fall line. Keep hands and torso facing straight down the hill. Skis facing left, facing forward, facing right, facing forward, repeat (torso and hands facing forward the whole time). Over and over and over again. You will be pivot-slipping straight down the hill along a corridor about as wide as your skis, without traveling left or right, if you do it right. It's not easy.
Once you can do it, you can speed up the whole thing, make it flow, and voila you are skiing short turns down the ice. Helps if skis are sharp; absolutely necessary, actually.
Why does this drill work? Well, to do the pivot slips, you have to be able to keep your skis parallel (not as easy as it sounds), pivot them (requires unexpected coordination), control their edges (everything is awkward until this kicks in), and move your body fore and aft to get the straight-skiing part to connect to the side-slipping part (feels good once you figure this out - it gets you on your toes/balls of feet at initiation). Shifting from doing this as a drill to turning it into skiing happens when you get tired of the choppiness of the whole thing and add rhythm. I worked on this last year, and totally forgot how useful it had been, so when I went back to it on Friday it didn't take too long to get it back.
They say people who learn to ski in the East develop stronger skills because the conditions are more challenging, and I believe it. Personally, that's my comfort zone, and for the most part I'm OK on ice. In fact, the thought of deep powder scares the crap out of me because I am used to something solid underfoot.
I haven't even started yet, although I hope to this weekend, as Snowbird is finally open enough to justify buying a ticket. But we really need some snow out here.:(
Techniques be damned)
