Iwannaski
Angel Diva
Personal observation, YMMV, but wanted to share this b/c I thought it might help other beginners/returners.
I spend an obnoxious amount of time obsessively reading ski tips. My son saw me watching the Ski School YouTube (this is a child who watches people playing video games on YouTube ... zzzzzz) and said, “mom, you’re spending too much time looking at skiing stuff.”
We don’t have big hills here in the midwest, and the surface is INCREDIBLY unforgiving, so I feel like I want to make my time on skis really count. So, in synthesizing all of this, I was trying to do some of the SkiPT exercises to build better muscle memory and working on my ankle flex. The following are my observations.
1) SNUG boots with underfoot support matter.... try the foot rotation/edging feel she recommends and you can feel your foot bones shift in bare feet... you can feel the power you would lose if all that flop was happening in your boot, as would likely happen without an insole or with a packed out liner. Do it in bare/sock feet vs. hard soled boots ... Feel it! (I tried doing this in my ski boots not on snow/skis and almost broke myself, do not recommend) For beginners, many of us ski in rental equipment. Think about the consequences of having a different, packed out boot every time if you’re trying to progress in your skiing. If you think you want to commit to the sport, that’s the value of getting boots fitted.
2) Dryland barefoot exercise: If you do that foot edge/rotation exercise and you have not done the hip rotation she highlights, note where your weight goes. ... That’s right, it goes to your pinky toe edge/inside ski. I’d bet that a lot of us who struggle with balance (even/especially at slow speed) are moving our weight without the corresponding hip socket rotation - even if we think we’re forward. But I don’t think we can get the results we want if our weight is on the wrong ski.
I haven’t purposely tried this the wrong way, but I’m guessing an instructor knows the answer.... but I think this is also part of that upper/lower body separation?
3) Speaking of hip socket rotation, that rotating the inside ski hip socket component has REALLY helped me feel fluid in my parallel turns - especially when I’m working on slow turns. Every time I forget, I end up having to pick up my ski to get it to parallel, but if I do it simultaneously with my outside ski weighting, it really feels pretty smooth.
4) Funnily enough, it’s easier to feel fluid when I got “faster” ... faster being a relative term. Both my kids now think I’m pokey. I think it’s because you can’t be too theoretical/analytical when you’re going faster, so you can’t mess yourself up.
Just a few thoughts for any people who have *not* been stuck inside for too long because cold weather is cramping their style and COVID is cramping their business.
I spend an obnoxious amount of time obsessively reading ski tips. My son saw me watching the Ski School YouTube (this is a child who watches people playing video games on YouTube ... zzzzzz) and said, “mom, you’re spending too much time looking at skiing stuff.”
We don’t have big hills here in the midwest, and the surface is INCREDIBLY unforgiving, so I feel like I want to make my time on skis really count. So, in synthesizing all of this, I was trying to do some of the SkiPT exercises to build better muscle memory and working on my ankle flex. The following are my observations.
1) SNUG boots with underfoot support matter.... try the foot rotation/edging feel she recommends and you can feel your foot bones shift in bare feet... you can feel the power you would lose if all that flop was happening in your boot, as would likely happen without an insole or with a packed out liner. Do it in bare/sock feet vs. hard soled boots ... Feel it! (I tried doing this in my ski boots not on snow/skis and almost broke myself, do not recommend) For beginners, many of us ski in rental equipment. Think about the consequences of having a different, packed out boot every time if you’re trying to progress in your skiing. If you think you want to commit to the sport, that’s the value of getting boots fitted.
2) Dryland barefoot exercise: If you do that foot edge/rotation exercise and you have not done the hip rotation she highlights, note where your weight goes. ... That’s right, it goes to your pinky toe edge/inside ski. I’d bet that a lot of us who struggle with balance (even/especially at slow speed) are moving our weight without the corresponding hip socket rotation - even if we think we’re forward. But I don’t think we can get the results we want if our weight is on the wrong ski.
I haven’t purposely tried this the wrong way, but I’m guessing an instructor knows the answer.... but I think this is also part of that upper/lower body separation?
3) Speaking of hip socket rotation, that rotating the inside ski hip socket component has REALLY helped me feel fluid in my parallel turns - especially when I’m working on slow turns. Every time I forget, I end up having to pick up my ski to get it to parallel, but if I do it simultaneously with my outside ski weighting, it really feels pretty smooth.
4) Funnily enough, it’s easier to feel fluid when I got “faster” ... faster being a relative term. Both my kids now think I’m pokey. I think it’s because you can’t be too theoretical/analytical when you’re going faster, so you can’t mess yourself up.
Just a few thoughts for any people who have *not* been stuck inside for too long because cold weather is cramping their style and COVID is cramping their business.
