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Your "Aha!" moment

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Matro. I hope some others with better explanatory skills chime in on dorsiflexion. As I think of it, dorsiflexion is an active movement of the foot. If I was hanging with feet and skis suspended in the air this would bring my ski tips up. I prefer to think of the goal as moving my hips, belky button, center of mass, bidy, however you define it, over the center of the foot from where it may have fallen behind as a result of acceleration and body not keeping up. The dorsiflexion movement is somewhat limited to my lower extremity and I am often seeking to readjust my whole body. Personally, thinking of getting the front half of my lower leg to maintain contact with tongue of boot by moving the entirety of my body forward works better. For some thinking of sliding feet back under the body from out front works better. I do think the goal is the same, a balanced and centered stance, and how we activate muscles similar but we each may use different muscle and thought triggers to get there.
 

Matro

Angel Diva
Thanks so much snoWY monkey!! Do you try and keep this sensation of lower leg to tongue of boot the whole time you are skiing? Just during part of the turn? Weight in heels as well as forefeet? I just love thinking about skiing!!
 

snoWYmonkey

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Matro. I too love to think about the techy part of skiing.

In answer to your question I would say that it depends
.
I try not to live with my body weight resting on the tongue. I spent a lot of time there and for a few years it did help me trust the process of driving the skis and my body down the hill. It helps with speed control in many cases.

The skis work best skied from the center bit we often end up a tad behind. To get the most out of the ski i now allow myself to drive dofferent parts of it at different stages of the turn by constantly readjusting the pressure and flexion. I am also more comfortable with speed and carving amd that took me years as I am a slow learner

As for the foot, i personally think of neutral as right behind the ball of the foot. Ideally, toes, ball and heel are all engaged in feeling amd pressuring down. Of course skiing is not static so it will change as our balance is continuously challenged. I like to start by relaxing the whole foot. If I am lucky and terrain is smooth it stays that way. A comfortably and evenly snug boot helps a lot.
 

Matro

Angel Diva
Those are amazing reminders! I went to ski camp last winter at Snowbird and the concept of an evenly snug boot was a very big deal. I also learned that I had been sloshing around too much, so learned how to snug up with my current boots. I think that I will take a trip to a boot fitter and get some additional tips of the right amount of "snug". Thanks!!!
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
@Matro,
What a skier does with dorsiflexion is all about getting the best possible performance from the skis. What's needed in order to get that best performance varies. How you need to dorsiflex, and when in the turns you need to do it, depends on a lot of factors, including the following:

-where your bindings are mounted on your skis
-where your body carries most of its weight (hips, chest)
-the type of turns you are intent upon making, long high speed turns, or super short ones, or something else altogether
-the kind of snow your are on/in: freshly groomed or skied off icy groomed or last night's storm snow now freshly groomed
-whether the the snow is soft and slightly deep, soft and really deep, or sticky and gloppy
-how wide the skis are
-in bumps whether the turns are round turns meandering down or zipper line straight down the bump field at high speed

For my own skiing, I determine how much to dorsiflex by paying attention to how well the shovel and tail grips the snow, and whether the resulting turn takes me where I want to go. If I'm getting the results I want, then my dorsiflexion must be working. Paying attention to this is a work in progress.

I may be hanging out on the front of the cuffs and applying serious leverage to the shovels at the start of every turn, and those turns may be coming so fast that I never get off the cuffs. Or, I may be rocking from shovel to tail with each turn, and as a result the tips and tails are giving me the grip I need to stay on the line I'm choosing. My skis may be maintaining grip on hard icy snow through the entire turn sending me into surprised pleasure where I thought I'd be skidding out.

So I pay attention to the grip tip and tail to see whether my dorsiflexion is working or not.

Skiers disagree on where "neutral" is. Some focus on ball of foot, others on the arch, others on the back of the arch/front of the heel, just below the seat of the tibia where body weight is carried. I belong to this last camp. With advanced/expert skiers, I haven't seen any huge difference in performance from one of these camps to the other. There are mysteries in skiing and this is one of them.

Being able to hold onto dorsiflexion for an entire run is good. Being able to hold onto dorsiflexion while moving upper body weight fore and aft is good too. Being able to lighten up on the tongue at will, then go back onto it at will, while thinking of all the other stuff needed is excellent. Recognizing that one set of skis needs more dorsiflexion than another to get the same good effects is another thing that's good to be able to do. All this comes with time, mileage, and paying attention. Losing focus is inevitable as one works on gaining the versatility I'm describing. It's a work in progress for many skiers. Those who have risen to supernatural skill levels do it all intuitively (not me).

Getting good at working with dorsiflexion is for most of us a moving target. And getting reliable results from dorsiflexion depends on boot fit. If boot fit is sloppy, controlling for desired results will be out of reach.
 
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Matro

Angel Diva
Thanks so much for nerding out with me over dorsiflexion!! And that pleasure feeling is so great--although I usually have no idea what just happened when it does
 
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Elizabeth.I

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
My biggest one was figuring out that I could bend my ankles :laughter:

Second one was re. Skiing powder. From standing, I was turning too soon then getting bogged down in the snow. My boyfriend told me to just go straight until I feel my skis start to plane up in the snow (float) before making my first turn. Helped a lot!
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
Second one was re. Skiing powder. From standing, I was turning too soon then getting bogged down in the snow. My boyfriend told me to just go straight until I feel my skis start to plane up in the snow (float) before making my first turn. Helped a lot!
I definitely do the thing where I try to turn too quickly and get bogged down. I'll have to remember to try and see if my skis come up before I turn.
 

Iwannaski

Angel Diva
Had an aha moment of sorts this morning on the slopes, thought I’d park it here for my fellow learners…many of you will read this and think DUH, but hopefully it will also help someone newer to the sport. :smile:

First, let’s start with the fact that due to an ABNORMALLY tight situation in my IT band, I had had TWO rough outings and then had taken myself to our PT. I’d had pain in my right knee and it was making that whole leg tentative and wobbly/weak. She told me that the situation was a mess and helped me fix it. Today was the first outing since then, preceded by about 10 days of religious stretching, rolling, and plunging. Yes. With a sink plunger. My leg. Yes. Super weird and yet miraculously effective.

I already have a lesson scheduled for later this week, but I went out today anyway, hoping to work on some stuff and really try to observe my body while skiing.

In the meantime, I knew what one of my problems was, which was releasing the old inner edge so my
2—> 4 was stuck, so getting 4–>2 wasn’t happening. Does that make sense? This was making me whip my tails around and put a lot of upper body into my turns and feeling really janky.

I knew I was doing something else wrong too, because my arches were KILLING me. So, down into the research bunny hole I went. Overthinking is both my greatest strength and greatest weakness. :smile:

Two things clicked.
1. I was trying out my weight shift in the shower in bare feet. Bare feet =/= ski boots. When I did the same thing in my slippers (Birkenstocks) I found that the movement required in my hips and knees was different. If I was pushing my feet and hoping that my knees and hips and all the muscles above my tiny foot muscles would follow, that was dumb.
2. I watched a BUNCH of Deb Armstrong videos. I love her videos so much. Even when she’s talking about skills that are a way off for me, her energy is so uplifting. I adore her. But then something about drive the knee (even though I’d heard it from her before) clicked with what I had figured out in #1.

Y’ALL. Game changer. The driving the knee and helping that little toe edge engage at first was creating a little acceleration, but if you don’t let the VROOM scare you, the turn is just so much more controlled. HOLY MOLY.

Today, I did the same run again and again, practicing different levels of little toe engagement, practicing different amounts of arc across the slope. At one point I had to go between a novice snowboarder on his blind side (after he had fished himself out of the trees) and a lesson of novice skiers and I was able to do it quickly but in control. HOLY MOLY.

Now I’m even more excited for my lesson, because I feel like we can refine even further, instead of her having to first overcome my brain!!!
 

chasinghorizons

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
On a recent poor visibility day, someone commented it was "skiing by braille" conditions. This marinated in my head for awhile until I realized my best skiing was done when I really just put my mind in my feet. I stopped concentrating on what the rest of my body was doing, and just focused on what my feet were feeling and reacted to that. Everything else then fell into place and my early season form got way better :smile:
 

AJM

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
I have a new AHA moment!
I've been trying to focus on weighting the downhill ski with limited success esp when turning right as my left leg is the one that got injured.
While skiing with a couple of instructors the other day one of them mentioned that perhaps I wasnt giving the injured leg a chance and that I was subconsciously trying to protect it .... enter the Phantom Drill and wow was that a game changer :thumbsup:
She was right, I hadnt been giving it a chance and by opening up the pathway I can now successfully weight the downhill ski with equal strength on both sides.
It felt so much better and both the instructors were Whoop Whooping from the sidelines ... sometimes its just the little things that make a huge difference :ski:
 

Rashika

Certified Ski Diva
Had one of these with the lesson I recently had. Coming back to skiing after a fairly long break ( lol decades really!) and lots to keep in my head, but this one thing that really clicked with me as I don’t think I’ve ever been told it before.
She said try to keep your shins touching the front of your boots, that will help keep your weight more forward and centred on the skis… and ok Yeap kinda like wow!
So ever few seconds I’m thinking, touch the front, weight moves forward and feels more stable,
There were a few other things, but that one in particular stick with me.
 

liquidfeet

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
Had one of these with the lesson I recently had. Coming back to skiing after a fairly long break ( lol decades really!) and lots to keep in my head, but this one thing that really clicked with me as I don’t think I’ve ever been told it before.
She said try to keep your shins touching the front of your boots, that will help keep your weight more forward and centred on the skis… and ok Yeap kinda like wow!
So ever few seconds I’m thinking, touch the front, weight moves forward and feels more stable,
There were a few other things, but that one in particular stick with me.
This is a wonderful breakthrough. So important.

In the world where I've taught (New England), the mantra that people repeat to themselves is "tongue-shin."
Or "more tongue-shin."

Additional info: Keep the heels firmly down when you do this. That keeps the tails of the skis from swishing across the snow ("washing out"), because it weights the tails. Doing tongue-shin with heels down allows the skier to use the whole ski, both the front half and the back.

The whole ski can then grip, not just the front or the back. This is essential for maintaining good balance while in motion.
 

BlizzardBabe

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
This is a wonderful breakthrough. So important.

In the world where I've taught (New England), the mantra that people repeat to themselves is "tongue-shin."
Or "more tongue-shin."
I had a Chinese-American instructor once who told us she was going to teach us the ancient Chinese method of skiing well. "Tungshin."
 

MissySki

Angel Diva
I have a new AHA moment!
I've been trying to focus on weighting the downhill ski with limited success esp when turning right as my left leg is the one that got injured.
While skiing with a couple of instructors the other day one of them mentioned that perhaps I wasnt giving the injured leg a chance and that I was subconsciously trying to protect it .... enter the Phantom Drill and wow was that a game changer :thumbsup:
She was right, I hadnt been giving it a chance and by opening up the pathway I can now successfully weight the downhill ski with equal strength on both sides.
It felt so much better and both the instructors were Whoop Whooping from the sidelines ... sometimes its just the little things that make a huge difference :ski:
This sounds like a great breakthrough! :smile:

What is the phantom drill?
 

AJM

Ski Diva Extraordinaire
This sounds like a great breakthrough! :smile:

What is the phantom drill?
Its when you lift the tails of your inside ski leaving the tip on the the snow, preferably tipping that inside tip on its outside edge .... think I've got that right.
Effectively lightening the inside leg and getting your weight onto the downhill ski.

I think there may be variations of it but that one worked for me, it was like a magic bullet !!
 

Jilly

Moderator
Staff member
I don't think we have a name for it. It's just lifting the inside ski as soon as you're around the turn, but leaving the tip on the snow. The sooner in the turn the better.

It works because there is no other choice but to weight the downhill ski.
 

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