Yes, I miss winter too, at least a little, too busy with summer activities.
I watched the movie above now a couple of times and read the comments. Could not help (with a little push from skisailor ;)) but give my 2 cents worth.
JF IS a very strong skier - there is NO doubt. And if I would be in my 20s I might be tempted to want to ski like him. After all, he is in the demo team..... Not being in my 20s anymore and having done a lot of movement analysis in a lot of sport besides skiing, knowing that my knees would not take the pressure anymore, he puts on his knees, and looking overall for a more efficient style of skiing, I thought I will share a few ideas about JF skiing with you.
I know some of you will not agree with me and that is OK. So, here we go.
On this picture we can see his hips way behind the heels and his shoulders about over his heels. With that much mass on his body behind the center of the ski, were do YOU think is his weight centered over his skis?
This is a picture were he transition with the little leap that got mentioned earlier. (I left the time stamp on so you can find the transition on the video) He actually is trying to pull the legs up underneath him for the edge change. Which part of the ski is further off the snow? What does that mean for his weight on his skis?
Here is a transition he uses some extension to change edge, but even with the extension his shoulders never come further forward than about his heels. In the moment he will be touching down on the snow again, his quads will have to carry all the weight of his body that is from the knees up! It's great to be young and athletic!!! I personally probably could handle it for one run, then I would have to make a few phone calls. ;o)
After the extension, here comes the flexing.
Now this picture gets me also a little side tracked. One of the comments mentioned his pole swing.
My eyes tell me this: either he should cut his poles 2 inches shorter so he could drop his hands down - OR he should work on standing taller.
If you watch the video and specifically look for some of the short radii turns where he DOES use a pole touch, you can see how his hands get jerked up by every pole usage. Guess what happens to you when your hand gets jerked up while you are going into the next turn? You probably guessed right: it will through you more in the back seat.
(Side note: way back when I competed in all kinds of skiing events, I had different poles for the different events: I am 5'6" - 44" poles for bumps, 46" for teaching and normal skiing and slalom, 48" for GS and downhill, 54" for ballet. If you have time, find some videos of the mogul skiing in the last Olympics. Then compare runs that look really smooth and some that don't. More likely you will see that the racers with the smooth runs had their poles exactly in the correct length and they had NO problems keeping their hands where they belong. )
Back to the topic on hand:
This is a picture of JF just starting down the slopes, he IS tall!
Couple of seconds later in his usual position.......
One more thought. About his transitions. (or edge change)
In most of his longer radii turns, he is using some extension of his legs to change edge, (he really never comes forward into the turn, he moves only lateral,) and then drops his hip to the inside.
In his short radii turns, he flexes his legs more to get the skis to the other side.
For this kind of turn, there are a lot of different terms out there: absorption turns, crossing under turns, retraction turns, etc. For me it is an easy question: what are the joints doing to get to the edge change? Are all, (or most) joints extending? are the flexing, or is one leg doing the extension and the other leg the flexion?
These are the three ways to change edge.
In his short turns, he is using the flexing of his legs and hips to get the skis to the other side. (Which by the way is the quicker method to get the edge change accomplished.)
Please don't get me wrong, I am not here to say that this is bad skiing, I just want to say that we should be careful wishing what we want to do. I can ski all day long non-stop runs that have more than 4000' in one descent, I could not do that in JF's style.
Let me know if you have questions. Time permitting, I will answer.
Ursula