How to stop crouching while skiing?

[marzNC]

My Alta instructor takes video and shows the lines for someone's back, upper legs, and lower legs whenever they crouch too much (that was me) or stand up too straight (my friends who skied well on straight skis long ago). I got very familiar with the matched angles concept.

Have since had several other instructors work on the idea during semi-private lessons. I think having friends in the same lesson. Then I can see exactly what they look like before and after they try something suggested by the instructor.

When I start crouching the wrong way, I can hear my first instructor at my home hill saying "up, Up, UP, UP" in my head. That was when I would luck out and get a solo lesson for a group rate.

 

[Pequenita]

5. (Ouch) The often-forgotten 4th hinge in alignment -- our pelvic tilt, which will affect how upright our torso is, and how "closed" and restricted our hip joints are (with lordosis/arching worsening that) . It's much harder to initiate rotary motion or even apply edging pressure with "closed" hips, and can lead to lower back soreness.

That’s what I see in the screenshots, too, slightly too much anterior tilt, which would also make it difficult to engage the core to stay stable. Which may then circle back to assuming a lower crouch to achieve stability that way. But I don’t even teach, so who knows.

 

[santacruz skier]

My Alta instructor takes video and shows the lines for someone's back, upper legs, and lower legs whenever they crouch too much (that was me) or stand up too straight (my friends who skied well on straight skis long ago). I got very familiar with the matched angles concept.

Have since had several other instructors work on the idea during semi-private lessons. I think having friends in the same lesson. Then I can see exactly what they look like before and after they try something suggested by the instructor.

When I start crouching the wrong way, I can hear my first instructor at my home hill saying "up, Up, UP, UP" in my head. That was when I would luck out and get a solo lesson for a group rate.

View attachment 15444

Remember "chin up" at Taos 2020?

 

[marzNC]

Remember "chin up" at Taos 2020?

Yep . . . and that was advice from an instructor teaching the advanced/expert Women's Ski Week.

Really made a difference when we were working on 360s (flat skis on blue groomer). I was having trouble in one direction. She reminded me about "chin up" and that was a big help.

 

[fgor]

@fgor, is this the crouch you are worried about? If yes, look at your two videos you posted above in slow motion. You can hit pause and use the period and comma to run the video forward and backward one frame at a time. No, this is not overthinking it. It's precision thinking.

First question: See if you can figure out where in the turns you do the lowest crouching: end of old turn, between turns, start of new turn, (all of these three tend to run together and it's great if you can figure out which is which), or middle of turn.

Second question: When are you the most extended (body is longest)? Same options as in the first question.

Third question: What is it about the crouch that you don't like?

Fourth question: Is there any point in these turns when more of your body weight consistently hovers over the rear half of the skis? Be sure to use the comma and period to check, so you can be precise in examining your fore-aft balance. A lot of people are talking about balance in this thread, so I think we need to be precise about how you are actually handling your balance.

Fifth question: When in the turns do you see yourself consistently hover most of your body over the front half of your skis?

Report back and we can talk.
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First of all - I can't believe I didn't know about being able to use the period/comma to go through the videos a frame at a time! That's incredibly useful.

Q1: It looks like the end of the old turn to me/I stay crouched between turns after that. Actually the lowest crouching might be between turns, when I'm facing acros the hill. Then I seem to sort of spring up so that I'm a lot more upright going into the new turn, then I sink down into another crouch....

Q2: Either start of new turn of middle of turn - I'm leaning towards the middle of the turn, when I'm most facing downhill.

Q3: It looks like an unbalanced position because I don't have any more room for compression - like a spring that's already squished and can't absorb any more impact. When I ski on choppier snow I often don't even make it to the next turn, I end up traversing across the hill until I'm stopped, and I feel like my knee is going to punch me in the face sometimes I'm sure it's not helping my leg stamina either, staying in that very low position, especially given my ongoing patellar tendonitis (which overall is improving, yay). It also kinda looks like a vulnerable position for potential knee injuries though that may be excessive paranoia!
I also just think it looks kinda awkward, ahah.

Q4: *ten minutes of tapping through skiing video frames later* It looks like pretty much the whole transition period, but especially when i'm turning toward skiers right/left leg is the outside leg. It looks like as I pass through the middle of the turn, I start to sit back/down as the skis get ahead of me a bit.

Q5: I think sometimes at the start of the new turn.

But not consistently, some turns I only really get to being over the middle of the ski.

 

[fgor]

5. (Ouch) The often-forgotten 4th hinge in alignment -- our pelvic tilt, which will affect how upright our torso is, and how "closed" and restricted our hip joints are (with lordosis/arching worsening that) . It's much harder to initiate rotary motion or even apply edging pressure with "closed" hips, and can lead to lower back soreness.
I miss snow!

That’s what I see in the screenshots, too, slightly too much anterior tilt, which would also make it difficult to engage the core to stay stable. Which may then circle back to assuming a lower crouch to achieve stability that way. But I don’t even teach, so who knows.

That sounds about right, too. :( I do have mild lordosis as per my physio. Allegedly it is "fixable" (not easily apparently, though it's better than it was! however my physio focuses have been on other joints lately.) My lower back likes to act as a spring to absorb impacts sometimes. It's not very comfortable when that happens!

 

[liquidfeet]

....Q3: It looks like an unbalanced position because I don't have any more room for compression - like a spring that's already squished and can't absorb any more impact. When I ski on choppier snow I often don't even make it to the next turn, I end up traversing across the hill until I'm stopped, and I feel like my knee is going to punch me in the face sometimes ....
I also just think it looks kinda awkward, ahah.....

@fgor, thanks for getting back. This conversation is fun for me because I like to think about skiing so much. I hope it is for you too.

Balance and imbalance for a skier can be evaluated from three perspectives, fore-aft, lateral, and rotational. In these descriptions below I'll use "torso" for "center of mass." I think torso makes more sense.

out of balance fore-aft
--The torso is too far forward over the length of the skis to get any use out of the tail (it is left too lightly weighted).
--The torso is too far back over the length of the skis to get any use out of the front of the ski (it is left too lightly weighted).

out of balance laterally
--The torso is too far to the inside of the turn when the skis are pointing downhill to get full use out of the outside ski (it is left too lightly weighted).
--The torso is leaning too far uphill when the skis are pointing across the hill to get full use out of the outside ski (it is left too lightly weighted).

out of balance rotationally
--The torso rotates in the direction of the turn too much compared to the skis, yanking them around (skis are twisting across the snow, not gripping it). This rotation undermines precise directional control of where the skis go.

If one is out of balance in any of these ways, the skis are not fully controlled. They won't take the skier where the skier wants to go, turn by turn. There will be unwanted traverses and annoying downhill skidding. This lack of control eats away at skier confidence because it makes unexpected consequences more likely.

But that doesn't say anything about a crouch. I think I've experienced an involuntary, surprising, and unwanted crouch just like yours in my past.

My involuntary crouch appeared when a trainer had me trying to do a side-slip on one ski --- not the downhill ski, the uphill ski. Whoah! That's slipping downhill on the little-toe-edge of the uphill ski. I definitely couldn't do anything close to a one-footed side-slip on that little-toe-edge; my ski kept taking me forward and/or refusing to slip at all. The ski was definitely out of my control. But the more concerning frustration was that my body dropped so low as I struggled that I was thigh-to-chest.... in front of my trainer. So embarrassing! I couldn't stand up no matter how hard I tried. My body did that crouch without my permission; it went rogue. I didn't do it.

I have since managed to get good control over that uphill-ski side-slip. I can now do the little-toe-edge one-ski side-slip. And my body no longer drops low. It took some time to get the side-slip working, but as it got better the involuntary crouch began to disappear. The crouch was totally gone when I was able to get that uphill ski to do what my head told it to do.

Has anybody reading here experienced this involuntary crouch? I am very curious about what specific things cause its emergence in people. For me it was a particular one-foot drill on the uphill ski.

@fgor, is this similar to what you are experiencing when you traverse and find your knee close to your face? Although such a deep crouch is not what's showing in your video, you mention it in the quote above, so I think you see the deep crouch as related to the shallower crouch in the video.

Do you think the shallower crouch in your video is a slightly less dramatic version of the lower knee-to-face crouch? If so, my best suggestion for getting rid of both is to eliminate whatever technical issue might be causing a sense of insecurity in your turns. It could relate to your fore-aft balance, or lateral balance, or rotational balance, or a combination.

Figuring out which of these things is at work is the challenge. Do you have thoughts about that, especially after looking frame by frame at your video?

 

[fgor]

@liquidfeet Yes! I really enjoy thinking about skiing, both in the off season and the on season... if only it was easier to apply my thoughts to my own skiing though

With regards to feeling like I'm about to knee myself in the face or chest - this happens on choppier terrain/snow than shown in the videos, as I end up in that crouched position and then the choppiness of the snow sort of bounces my ski/leg/knee up towards me. I feel out of control in the chop and I think it causes me to crouch even lower. I just seem to have very little control over my skis (or my body?) which is why I end up traversing endlessly and stopping between turns!

So it sounds like when you've experienced that very deep knee-to-chest crouch, it was when you felt generally not in control of your skis. I think that's similar to how I feel on this sort of terrain where I feel like my skis are just doing their own thing. I agree that the shallower crouch is a less dramatic version of the knee-to-face crouch, especially now that I notice that it's happening at the same time of the turn (toward the end of the turn when I'm starting to be in-between turns, or in harder snow, traversing haha).

From looking at the videos, I think there's an element of both lateral and fore-aft imbalance, and although the rotation doesn't look too bad to me in the videos, I suspect I do struggle with this in more challenging snow. It looks like I end each turn aft, then sort of "pull" myself forward into starting the next turn in a more centered or forward position. I seem to look like I have my weight on the inside ski a bit at some points in those turns, maybe at the same time as being a bit crouched?

Here's another data point - good groomers, 4pm, very end of last season, practicing plain medium radius parallel turns. I had been told that I start the turns fine but let the weight drift back to my inside ski toward the end of the turn. I'm not good enough at ski analysis to say whether this is true or not based on the video, but I personally felt that I had no weight on the inside ski (then was proven wrong when I was asked to just lift the inside ski slightly throughout the entire turn, and then was told my turn completion was better - that was the following day though). I'd forgotten about this video until now!

My observations is that although my balance looks good throughout the entire turn and not back, I do still crouch a little at the ends of the turns, though not nearly as much as in the videos I posted earlier in this thread - I never felt out of control or anything in these groomer turns - but interesting that the overall body position is similar to in the other videos, but less exaggerated. I.e. starting the turn quite upright, sinking into a slight crouch throughout the turn, then standing up at the end of the turn to start the next one. I know that the turn completion in those turns isn't great, too much skidding etc, and I wonder if it's all tied together somehow.

 

[EffortlessSkiing]

You are making a common mistake - not focusing on generation of torsion within the body. This is the main problem that causes all other errors. Instructors do not talk about this but if you use my two-step technique, skiing becomes very easy. Skiing is simple if you know what to do. You look fit and coordinated. I am sure it will take you just one hour or less to start skiing right. Since you have this tendency to crouch, a specific recommendation for you is: Generate the torsion while keeping the upper body upright and then push the whole body forward as a solid bar. Or push the pelvis forward. If you have questions, you are welcome to send me a private message. Natalia

 

[AJM]

You are making a common mistake - not focusing on generation of torsion within the body. This is the main problem that causes all other errors. Instructors do not talk about this but if you use my two-step technique, skiing becomes very easy. Look up my book Effortless Skiing on Amazon. Skiing is simple if you know what to do. You look fit and coordinated. I am sure it will take you just one hour or less to start skiing right. Since you have this tendency to crouch, a specific recommendation for you is: Generate the torsion while keeping the upper body upright and then push the whole body forward as a solid bar. Or, as I say in the book, push the pelvis forward.

We used to do an exercise called "pushing the wardrobe" which sounds very similar.

 

[EffortlessSkiing]

This sounds like a great instruction for performing step 2 of my two-step technique. But step 1, generation of torsion in the body through slanted rotation of the shoulders, is the most important. I have never heard that instructors mention this. In contrast, they all say "keep your upper body motionless". Which is a big mistake on my opinion. We first generate the torsion and then push the body weight forward to let the torsion release and rotate the legs.

 

[EffortlessSkiing]

Fair enough! the whole video looks like so:

The snow conditions were very rare, lightweight ~4" of powder (on top of ice). We rarely have fluffy pow like this, normally it's denser and I struggle to turn at all, so this was as easy as it gets for ungroomed snow! Very fun!

Things I like:
* my skiing looks fluid
* not traversing between turns
* arms/hands mostly held in front of me

Things I dislike:
* crouching in each turn
* the knowledge that I cannot ski like this if the snow is any choppier/cruddier or any steeper ungroomed pitch, because I constantly feel offbalance to the back and nearly knee myself in the chest from hinging to try to get forward, I feel that maybe I'd maintain better balance if I was less bent?

Same day:

I am sure I do not need to be doing this in the turns ;) maybe it's ok? It just looks quite awkward to me, and I think it slows me being able to get into the next turn.

View attachment 15411

Additional things I like from that video: how thrilled I look at the end!! I just wish I could ski anything like this fluidly in non-perfect snow!

I see some crouching but I also see that the entire technique needs to be corrected. Use the simple two-step "effortless skiing" technique. Step 1 is active rotation of the shoulders in the direction opposite to the direction of the skis. Step 2 is pushing the pelvis forward by extending both legs. Look at my other threads to get more information.

 

[fgor]

At this point I might as well update this thread with some newer videos. The skiing is basically the same in terms of being permanently crouched, except these videos are taken around a year after that last video and are on groomers instead.

The thing that mainly intrigues me about both those shots is actually how stark the difference between my left and right turns are; one is much better than the other and I can't understand why or how to fix it, especially as the worse turn actually feels stronger on snow! (clearly overly rotating the skis somehow feels strong and solid on snow!! )

I see some crouching but I also see that the entire technique needs to be corrected. Use the simple two-step "effortless skiing" technique. Step 1 is active rotation of the shoulders in the direction opposite to the direction of the skis. Step 2 is pushing the pelvis forward by extending both legs. Look at my other threads to get more information.

So the important parts here are the twist-untwist of the shoulders, twisting the shoulders away from the skis at the end of the turn so that the skis turn by themselves into the next turn?

I'll be skiing again tomorrow but may not be able to get any videos.

 

[fgor]

I feel compelled to point out that I haven't had any instructors tell me to keep my upper body motionless (in fact I was told off for trying to do this in earlier ski lessons), though I've certainly had well-meaning but ill-informed friends tell me to!!

 

[marzNC]

The thing that mainly intrigues me about both those shots is actually how stark the difference between my left and right turns are; one is much better than the other and I can't understand why or how to fix it, especially as the worse turn actually feels stronger on snow! (clearly overly rotating the skis somehow feels strong and solid on snow!! )

That's a common problem. Took me two seasons of focusing on the issue after I was a fairly solid advanced skier to fix it. Or at least so that my less organized turn is actually done correctly 90% of the time. More importantly when I mess up, I know what I've done wrong. Sometimes I can even fix it with the next set of turns without stopping.

The key was the difference in my hip movement between the two sides. Working on hip flexibility during the off-season definitely helped.

The Aha! moment came during a private lesson with the PSIA Examiner at my home hill. We worked on the harder green, then the easier blue. Both are very short trails. He'd started working on the issue with me the season before. During the followup lesson, he tried 2-3 different approaches. One finally clicked. Once I could feel the difference, then we just did some runs on the blue with him following. I'd been taking lessons pretty regularly for 5 seasons by then at my home hill and at destination resorts.

I'm a visual learner. Reading about technique, or even videos doesn't help that much. YMMV.

 

[EffortlessSkiing]

At this point I might as well update this thread with some newer videos. The skiing is basically the same in terms of being permanently crouched, except these videos are taken around a year after that last video and are on groomers instead.

The thing that mainly intrigues me about both those shots is actually how stark the difference between my left and right turns are; one is much better than the other and I can't understand why or how to fix it, especially as the worse turn actually feels stronger on snow! (clearly overly rotating the skis somehow feels strong and solid on snow!! )



So the important parts here are the twist-untwist of the shoulders, twisting the shoulders away from the skis at the end of the turn so that the skis turn by themselves into the next turn?

I'll be skiing again tomorrow but may not be able to get any videos.

In these videos, you still need to rotate the shoulders more. Yes, you are right, by rotating the shoulders, you will get "counter-rotation". It causes torsion inside the body. Then you push the body weight forward. Lead this forward movement with the pelvis to avoid crouching. This releases the ski tails from the snow, and the skis pivot around the tips with no effort from your legs. Please see more detailed discussions of me with newboots .

 

[fgor]

Tha

In these videos, you still need to rotate the shoulders more. Yes, you are right, by rotating the shoulders, you will get "counter-rotation". It causes torsion inside the body. Then you push the body weight forward. Lead this forward movement with the pelvis to avoid crouching. This releases the ski tails from the snow, and the skis pivot around the tips with no effort from your legs. Please see more detailed discussions of me with newboots .

Thanks! Yeah, I've read that whole thread. It's really hard for me to visualise it without any videos to compare to ("this person is skiing using my technique/this person is not using my technique", sort of thing). The explanations of the technique by @newboots and @liquidfeet were quite useful though. I must read the book at some point.

 

[EffortlessSkiing]

In these videos, you still need to rotate the shoulders more. Yes, you are right, by rotating the shoulders, you will get "counter-rotation". It causes torsion inside the body. Then you push the body weight forward. Lead this forward movement with the pelvis to avoid crouching. This releases the ski tails from the snow, and the skis pivot around the tips with no effort from your legs. Please see more detailed discussions of me with newboots .

The difference between the right and left turns is indeed very common. It happens because we do not rotate the shoulders in one direction as well as in the other direction. But it is easy to fix it after getting the technique. Visual learning may not be very successful when it comes to skiing. The problem here that we do not see the shoulder rotation because we rotate the shoulder when the skis go to the opposite direction. As a result, the torso looks motionless. This is a misleading look. When people ask me to demonstrate the two-step technique on slopes, they complain that they do not see the shoulder rotation. They see that my upper body is motionless and the legs move.

 

[fgor]

That's a common problem. Took me two seasons of focusing on the issue after I was a fairly solid advanced skier to fix it. Or at least so that my less organized turn is actually done correctly 90% of the time. More importantly when I mess up, I know what I've done wrong. Sometimes I can even fix it with the next set of turns without stopping.

The key was the difference in my hip movement between the two sides. Working on hip flexibility during the off-season definitely helped.

The Aha! moment came during a private lesson with the PSIA Examiner at my home hill. We worked on the harder green, then the easier blue. Both are very short trails. He'd started working on the issue with me the season before. During the followup lesson, he tried 2-3 different approaches. One finally clicked. Once I could feel the difference, then we just did some runs on the blue with him following. I'd been taking lessons pretty regularly for 5 seasons by then at my home hill and at destination resorts.

I'm a visual learner. Reading about technique, or even videos doesn't help that much. YMMV.

Ah yeah I relate to the visual learning thing actually - I've been told before that I ski better while following closely behind someone and trying to copy them, than by skiing on my own while trying to think of instructions for what to do with my body, haha. I need some sort of combination of both. In lessons when shown good technique I tend to ask "well but so what am I doing then?" so I can see the good technique/bad technique and my brain can begin to build a bridge to get from one to the other!

Ah yes, I can definitely see that my hip movement is pretty different on one side than the other side. I seem to have no issues abducting my left leg/hip, but my right leg/hip remains stubbornly stiff and doesn't want to move out from my body at all, at least not without significant rotation. I know that I don't have any flexibility issues but probably have strength/movement issues. (Especially as my physio keeps telling me that recently my glutes are almost worthless in the amount of work they're actually doing, which is not much )

Looks like my upper body movement on that side is stiffer as well. I'll try the shoulder rotation that @EffortlessSkiing is talking about to see if I can loosen up that side more - @EffortlessSkiing , would you say that my shoulders are moving/rotating better to one side than the other, looking at the recent videos? Still trying to understand what I should be doing and what I'm currently doing right/wrong.

 

[fgor]

(also, I love that everyone is suddenly talking about skiing lately!! All this ski chat will keep me going over the NZ summer, which is just about to get underway )