santacruz skier
Angel Diva
That’s what I was thinking and tried it out today on a huge bowl at Breckenridge at 12,500 ft. Not groomed but the most beautiful long bowl run.. and I mean long. Perfect snow!
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This Deb Armstrong Video Transformed my Skiing!
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mustski
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I definitely notice differences in gear and it does affect my skiing. I am in Big Bear right now and I am skiing my old boots which are not canted. My first 2 or 3 runs, I couldn't figure out what was going on until I remembered that these boots aren't canted. I adjusted my skiing and everything worked fine. It's the same as when I ski a binding with a large delta angle. I have trouble getting forward at first, but figure it out. When it's us ... it is true across all gear and/or at all times in certain terrain. When it's gear, it goes away when we change gear.
I know ladies who hate being canted. I suspect they are just used to skiing without the canting assist. Philpug canted my new boots and, at first, it was strange. Now I like it. It makes it easier for me to make J turns in both directions. I used to only be able to make them to the right.
@liquidfeet thanks for explaining "open hips" for me. You are an excellent communicator!
MissySki
Angel Diva
Yes, I can certainly relate to those ideas and think most people who have skied for a while will have figured these preferences and/or needs out over time. Or if they are lucky and without wonky anatomy.. maybe not haha. I'm thinking about more obscure gear issues than the norm when I was inquiring here I guess.
I know I prefer a negative delta binding ramp angle, but that I can get by with a low delta and have more trouble with a higher delta. I know I can ski with uncanted boots but a little canting does make certain things easier. I know I absolutely cannot deal with high heel lifts but that apparently, I am currently liking very small ones in these specific boots. I know I always need extra stuff added to my instep area because no boot has a low enough instep height for me. I know what a bad and great ski tune feels like and I know what type of ski I like and don't in general. I know too much forward lean in my boots is bad for me, and spoilers as well. I know exactly where my boots need to be stretched to begin with now, versus how 99% of bootfitters would treat my issues if I didn't and that they would take the opposite approach of what I actually need and that opposite approach absolutely doesn't work. I know how ski boots should actually feel and that Booster straps are awesome additions. I know I need custom footbeds and that I need heating in my boots. I know I am like the princess and the pea, I can absolutely discern when something is different and that any tiny changes can make a big impact both positive or negative in many cases for me.. which is another reason I am wary of doing too many things that are irreversible especially.
After skiing for the better part of 17 years now and having wonky foot and leg bone ratio anatomy, it is not overly surprising to me that I found a lot of this out years ago, and that a lot of it was through a lot of trial and error that was absolutely miserable at the time. Often with the things I was trying not making things better unfortunately. And yet, even with all of these things I know and can feel, I still wonder about gear stuff at times and whether that is a cause of an issue I am seeing or not. And it sounds like other advanced skiers have things like that pop up as well. So, I am curious where that line is drawn for those who do know a lot about their gear needs and preferences already and have gone through lots of these trials and tribulations. Is it ever somewhat done? Or is it always an ever-lingering question? And if we can work through some of the issues with technique anyway, is that sometimes not the better approach or what our focus should actually be on versus forever searching for the magic silver bullet fix in equipment? Barring new technology anyway. I don't really know; I can only go by my own experience and current thoughts on it, but I do still have curiosity about the way others think about it, especially those who might be further along on the journey than I am.
tartegnin
Certified Ski Diva
Yes this! I was also confused by the concept but it started to make sense on the snow when I squared my hips to my skis and provided counter from the waist - it was a small difference but I realized I’ve been rotating using my hips in the mix and there is definitely a difference when you take them out of the equation. It’s small but makes a difference centering over your skis through the turn.
I’ve also looked at how I do rotations at the gym to exercise the obliques - I was definitely rotating with my hips and even thighs and there is a real difference rotating just from the waist. You don’t get as far around but you feel it more!
This sounds amazing! I would love to ski with Deb one day, and have been toying with the idea of one of her clinics as a 40th birthday present to myself next year. I'm curious about the
This sounds amazing! And I really hope that Deb starts posting on here!
I've been toying with the idea of a Deb clinic as a 40th birthday present to myself next year. Can you share a bit more about the make-up of the clinic participants in terms of age range, skiing ability/style, etc.? You mentioned that there were five women in your group, but was that the entire clinic, or were there multiple groups that Deb then cycled between (if it was just the five of you and you had Deb as your full-time instructor every day, that's amazing!)? Thanks for sharing your experience!
mustski
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I tried squaring my hios today, but I just wasn’t feeling it. I think part of it is that I prefer short or medium turn to long turns. It threw off my rhythm. Probably if I stuck with it, I would have found a sweet spot but, overall, I found it awkward and it made my skiing stiff.
santacruz skier
Angel Diva
It actually worked for me while skiing in Breckenridge IF I thought about it. Kept me more upright as I tend to ski old school with lots of up/down movement. Taos instructor indicated “we no longer ski like that “…. You don’t need to expend that much energy…..
BlizzardBabe
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
It was amazing, @MaryVA .
The max number in the group was set at six, but due to a ski school snafu we only had five ("Mysterious Steve" was our invisible number six). Yes, the five of us spent the entire clinic w/Deb. There was a terrific amount of individualized instruction. I swear the woman has eyes in the back of her helmet. I don't know how she managed to observe us all when she was leading, but she did. She also did a good bit of skiing one-on-one with each of us - whether it was us following her, or her skiing behind us giving instruction while we progressed down the hill.
We also had a session at lunch on the second day where Deb diagrammed what I'd call the "architecture" of a turn. She had no problem w/us recording it, so I have a video of that discussion. It is like watching a private screening of one of her vids! Another instructor from the ski school, Lizzie Forman, accompanied us the entire time as well. Lizzie was super & was able to provide great input and analysis to everyone.
Our group probably ranged in age from late 30's or early 40's to me, at age 64. There was one woman, Paula, who may have been a bit older than me, but I was definitely near the top of the heap as far as age goes.
Deb apparently does a beginner, intermediate, and advanced clinic each year. The ski school is planning to expand "Ski Strong" next season - both at Taos and Steamboat, so there will be more opportunity to find a good date and location. We were all fairly comparable skiers, so there was no issue w/anyone lagging. Each of us had skills in different areas, e.g., I'm good with ice and edging (think mid-Atlantic ice rink), and steeper pitches, but I'm awful in bumps and trees. Others had more proficiency in those areas but had difficulty with super-firm conditions and steeper trails. Nevertheless, I feel pretty confident that Deb and Lizzie would've been able to handle a wider disparity in skills than what our group had.
I hope you get to do a clinic next season, @MaryVA . I'm definitely going to try and do one again if it works out w/my schedule.
Thanks for the feedback! I'm definitely going to try to do a clinic with her next year, assuming the available weeks work with my schedule. It sounds like you and I are pretty similar skiers, actually. I grew up skiing in Western NY and my home mountain these days is in Northern Virginia, so I have no problem with steep and icy conditions and am solid on my edges, but have a lot less experience in bumps, powder, trees, heavy crud and all the other conditions that you're less likely to see back east. Until an instructor at Alta a few years back critiqued my skiing as being "too edge-dominant," I don't think it had ever even occurred to me to think about actively utilizing any other part of my skis, but it's something I've been trying to work on (with mixed success) in the years since. Getting personalized feedback from Deb on how I'm doing would be incredible.
BlizzardBabe
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
flowwithheart
Certified Ski Diva
Thank you for sharing this!
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Re: Deb's approach to turning the hips with the feet separate from the upper body...
When I first started teaching, I was assigned beginner adult groups. The big deal for first day beginners is to learn to stop and to slow down. Turning is the key, and starting a turn to the left and to the right is a major thing they needed to learn in my 1.5 hour beginner lessons. There are numerous ways to get the skis to take you left then right. I've read heated discussions about how best to do this.
One of the seasoned instructors told me to hold a ski pole horizontal, point it straight ahead with the end of the grip level with my belly button. Show my students how to turn the hips and the ski pole together while standing around on the flats in front of the lodge. Make it clear to them that they needed to turn their hips, along with the ski pole, to the left to turn left, and turn them to the right to turn right. This was a simple solution for starting first turns. Nothing was said about the upper body; by default, when I tried this with my students they turned the upper body with the hips.
This worked. It was easy to teach. But it went STRONGLY against everything PSIA promoted as far as turn initiation went.
I asked the lead trainer about this approach, since it was very unorthodox from PSIA's point of view. His response? When you're teaching, you aren't in a certification exam. No one is judging you by PSIA standards. Do whatever you like as long as your clients are happy with the results.
What do people here think?
snoWYmonkey
Angel Diva
@liquidfeet first of all I love your trainers approach. I have learned to be very careful judging another lesson without knowing where they've been and where they're going, and that goes both for the student and the instructor. It is funny to me that there is still quite a bit of debate within the industry as to where the upper body begins. I don't profess to having an answer but I have watched Racers very very carefully and there is usually a tiny bit of spine rotation Beyond just the femurs twisting and rotating within the hip sockets. When I taught mountain biking, which is a totally different sport, I found that rotating the pelvis and pointing it in the direction that the bike needs to go was extremely powerful for the students. I think personally, that turning the pelvis and perhaps even the upper body simultaneously with the legs and skis is totally okay. I have mostly seen new skiers get into trouble when they rotate the upper body more and before the rest of the body as the weight distribution from ski to ski works against them and makes it difficult for them to complete their turn. I hope what I said makes a little bit of sense. I have been known to make students do the opposite of what they think and what the industry thinks they should be doing and sometimes it works in magical ways. It's all showcase specific even if there are some generalizations that are probably pretty correct when describing and analyzing what high level skiers are doing. But even there there are so many different turns that require so many different movements.
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Thanks for that insightful response.
Yes, there's the issue of beginners using the upper body to yank the skis (mostly flat) around so they point in the new direction. This is, in my list of no-no's, called "upper body rotation." The shoulders rotate first, and the hips, legs, feet, boots and skis follow. A no-no. Three reasons I'm familiar with: First, once the skis catch up with the turning shoulders, the turn is over because the student doesn't know how to get the skis to continue to turn. As teachers, we want to teach our beginners to complete their turns, to get their skis to almost point uphill so that they can slow to a crawl between turns. This is the essence of speed control without using braking. UBR makes completed turns pretty much impossible. Second, the skier gets shoulders and chest and hips to point left for a left turn, then needs to unwind and get shoulders/chest/hips to point left. That's a lot of rotation, and it takes time to accomplish between turns. This time suck makes short radius turns impossible, and as teachers we want to teach our students as early in their progress as possible to vary the radius of their turns. Short radius turns offer more speed control than long radius turns, so learning to do them is a speed control issue. Third reason UBR is a no-no is that rotating the upper body, with all its weight, has a high potential for throwing a skier off balance. When a novice skier finds themselves on/in intimidating terrain/conditions, if their initiation process involves rotating the shoulders and upper body first, they are surely going to fall as they find they can't unwind in a timely manner. However, if a skier is backseat, UBR is so powerful that it will start one turn after another. So beginners stuck in the back seat like using it. It's powerful.
I don't think Deb is promoting upper body rotation to aide in initiation when she says rotate the hips. Also, she is teaching a high level skier in the video we are discussing.
Then there's allowing the upper body, including hips, to rotate along with the skis. This is usually referred to as "upper body follows the skis." I've never heard of this being proclaimed as an awful thing to do in all cases, as I have heard "upper body rotation" described. It has its pros and cons, and I think they depend on whether one is making long, medium, or short radius turns. Short radius turns require the hips, chest, and shoulders to rotate the least, with femurs rotating in hip sockets. This is mostly because it takes less time to rotate the femurs and below than it does to rotate heavy body parts above the hip sockets. Plus there's the balance issue of whole-body-wind-up and release happening so fast. Rotational momentum does not get stopped easily.
I can't remember if it's in this video or another where she promotes rotating the hips along with the skis, somewhat, not entirely, while keeping the upper body above the pelvis more pointed downhill. She does divide the body into three parts when she promotes this. I am not sure what the benefit is.
And I've written so much that I now forgot if I had a single point to make.
Responses????
BlizzardBabe
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Many years ago I was at Snowbird taking a full day private lesson (they were much more affordable back then). The instructor had me doing a crazy drill that would probably be illegal now. He had me leave my poles at the top and he handed me two bamboo poles, probably 8 feet long. He grabbed one end of the poles in each hand and skied straight down the fall line in front of me. My job was to turn, turn, turn, turn, turn to keep his speed in check. It was exhausting but man did it open my eyes to the why, when, and how of short radius turns. I'll never forget that lesson and the skills it taught me - principally, initiation using isolated hip rotation.
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Interesting. Fascinating exercise.
I know short radius turns will slow one down and in this instance would slow the instructor down as well as he skis downhill in front of you, hanging onto those bamboo poles, pulling you with him.
But I'm curious why you rotated your hips to create your short turns. The "orthodox" way to do super short turns of that sort (I'm assuming super shorts here, not just short turns) is to turn the legs but not the hips. There's less unwinding to do that way. But turning the hips will work as well.
Were you not familiar with turning the legs independently of the hips? Or did you try both, turning the hips and not turning the hips, and find that turning the hips made your ability to slow the instructor down easier?
Additional question: Did you lean back and brake as you made these short turns? Was the friction from braking an important part of slowing him (and you) down?
BlizzardBabe
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Hi @liquidfeet,
I should reiterate that this was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. In fact, it was just as "parabolic" skis were being introduced. I think I was skiing the red, wood, and blue striped K2 Four at the time - to give you some idea of the era (I still have those skis in the garage).
At any rate, part of the lesson was turn initiation by leading with the hip. Femur rotation played the larger role, as you'd imagine, but I was learning to start the turn by raising the inside hip as if getting on a bar stool and then leading with it (moving it forward) as the femur rotation began. The two were almost simultaneous but it was easier to think of the move by separating it into two parts in my mind.
Part of the lesson was learning not to lean back, but to use angulation to attain the position of strength needed to slow us down.
It could well have been that the drill was a way of teaching someone coming from straight skis how to take advantage of the new ski shape and construction.
I should reiterate that this was a long time ago in a galaxy far away. In fact, it was just as "parabolic" skis were being introduced. I think I was skiing the red, wood, and blue striped K2 Four at the time - to give you some idea of the era (I still have those skis in the garage).
At any rate, part of the lesson was turn initiation by leading with the hip. Femur rotation played the larger role, as you'd imagine, but I was learning to start the turn by raising the inside hip as if getting on a bar stool and then leading with it (moving it forward) as the femur rotation began. The two were almost simultaneous but it was easier to think of the move by separating it into two parts in my mind.
Part of the lesson was learning not to lean back, but to use angulation to attain the position of strength needed to slow us down.
It could well have been that the drill was a way of teaching someone coming from straight skis how to take advantage of the new ski shape and construction.
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Ah, that kind of "leading with the hip." You meant the inside hip; I thought you were talking about the outside hip and was responding to that. Excellent instruction you got there.
liquidfeet
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Summer, which I think is what we are in now, is the perfect time to discuss issues of ski technique and teaching. Armchair philosophy, so to speak.
BlizzardBabe
Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I completely agree. I'll talk skiing all year long, but a vigorous discussion or two or three will always get me through the dog days of summer.
