....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?