[mball]

Hey Dana, I think you should come out to old S.V. and give me one of your famous two hour lessons, I know there aren't any threads about snow conditions in the Pioneer's,Smokies,White Clouds,Sawtooths,Soldiers or Boulder Mountain ranges (all within one hour of Ketchum) but it has been a year that will be remembered. Hell I've got a couch you could sleep on an great powder is literally out my front door, all I need is a one of your fine tuning lessons. By the way this ain't a joke, it's a proposition.

[wvfreeheels]

[dana]

[climbhoser]

Alright, so I see something here that is something I've been seeing in all of my alpine convert students this winter. It's all in the stance. I was having trouble figuring out what exactly was wrong with a few students' stances so I turned to Paul Parker's book on telemark skiing. since his book is the foundation for the PSIA stuff I thought it would be good.

Basically, what is happening with you and my other students is that while you're weighting the rear ski (and front one, probably pretty evenly) the problem is how you're transferring that weight into power and control. The reason that you're not able to drive that rear ski is because of where the center of your gravity is in relation. Here, I'll draw a pic:

------------------------------------->I
------------------------------------->I
------------------------------------->I
------------------------------------->I IIIIII
------------------------------------->I-------I
------------------------------------->I-------I
------------------------------->IIIIIIIII-------I

That is the lower half of your body. Notice how your knees are perfectly square in shape. Your back leg's thigh comes out of your torso at 0 degrees. What will make a marked improvement in stance will be when you learn to shift your center of weight OVER your rear foot! Sounds funny, but the basic idea is to bring your hips back in relation to your feet. Think of a line being drawn from your head to your hips to the ground. Staying perpendicular to the ground shift where this line intersects the ground BACK about 8 inches. It'll look more like this:

---------------------------------------->I
---------------------------------------->I
---------------------------------------->I
---------------------------------------->I
---------------------------------------->IIIIIIII
----------------------------------------->I------I
------------------------------------------->I----I
-------------------------------------------->I---I
------------------------------------>IIIIIIIIIIII---I

So now your back leg should be coming out of your torso at about a forward thirty degree angle. If your compare the two pictures you see how in the second pic the hips are more OVER the rear foot. This will turn your rear ski into the DRIVE ski instead of a rudder and your front ski will become more of the rudder. One thing to think about when your shift your hips back is your seperation at the feet. Your back knee should be as far forward as about your front foot's arch. This will give you a very compact stance and I bet will help you initiate your turns much sooner, giving you much more stability over your platform.

Tele skiing is kind of like snowboarding (carving board) with lead switches inbetween.

Another thing to think about is drving your hips from this stance. Parker describes a "cupping" of the navel to accomplish this. It kind of looks like a slouch. He also describes driving with your knees "headlight" style. Point your drive knee (uphill knee or back ski knee) where you want to go and think pinky toe to get the edge sunk.

I kid you not most people who are at about your point in tele skiing that I teach this two are executing near perfect tele turns on groomers by the end of the day. If you have any questions feel free to pm me or consult Paul Parker's free heel bible.

have fun!

[dana]

I have absolutely no idea what these alphanumeric graphics mean, NONE! Bear in mind it doesn't look the same in all fonts, but damn, I can't even figure out which is the fall line here- right to left? Up down? Diagonal? Do I need Joseph Smith's glasses?

Sometimes a picture is worth considerably LESS than 1000 words...

[Todd G]

For whatever reason, I actually got something out of climbhoser's ASCII art. You're on the right track. Summary: don't trail your rear foot way behind you (dogleg, poodle, sewing-machine foot); tighten the stance and bring that rear leg under your pelvis. Flex that rear ankle (something I learned from a day in lightweight xc boots that I hadn't experienced in two seasons in T1s).

[climbhoser]

well, for some reason (I'm no computer guy) I had to include those dashes and arrows. I wanted the pics to stand alone as just stick figures in the cap I's, but it kept collapsing the whole thing when I would submit it. However, this was meant for skier B, and when I found that out I found out other people had suggested the same thing over and over again!

Oh well, I was good intentioned (just like I hope dubya is)

[dana]

[bouyant]

Dana, Climbhoser has drawn a side view of a person. First, you have to completely ignore all the '-' and '>' characters. What you're left with is two side views of a skier. In the top view, the guy is proposing to his sweetie. Notice all his weight is on his rear knee, a comfortable position from which to pop the question. In the lower view, our guy has scooched his rear knee forward. It's a very awkward position for such a big moment. His discomfort will be visible on his face and his girl will interpret this as ambivilence. No woman wants a half hearted proposal - she will say no. Thus, our hero will be left heartbroken but with more time to ski, and he will eventually thank Climberhosen. Anyway, that bitch was cheating on our tele brother all along, she was shacked up with an AT skier.

[dana]

[skifreeK]

Lots of good advice already posted. I think loosing the poles for at least half a day would dial him in real quick.

[Eric O]

Wrong Skier "A", no? I think you meant to post about the 2006/07 Skier A, and not on last February's thread.

[Valdez Telehead]

[Eric O]

What did I just say?

You're lookin' for THIS THREAD