[Jon Sulzer]

Just saw this go up a few minutes ago.

Skier 4 it looks like you have some good fundamentals going on there, here's my suggestion though, try rounding off your turns more. You seem to be throwing your skis across the fall line in an effort to check your speed. You can get away with it on the groomed runs but its holding you back on the steeper, ungroomed. Let the skis flow around each turn, trust your carving edges to control your speed.

[CaptnPea]

skier 4....

I'm with ya man... got on tele end of last season, now finishing up my first full season.

I can crank turns on the groomers (gs style or short snappy ones), but have a hell of a time in bumps.

Interested in hearing the feedback from the tele-god (godesses) around here.
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[vtRat]

I'd like to see a tightened up stance (pull that rear foot further forward) and weight that back foot more! Some of your turns on the groomer looked to suffer from the lack of weight, but you were able to compensate with your front foot. When you get into the bumps, your rear foot gets much more important; without weight you lose control and wash around a lot, as the video shows.

Really concentrate on weighting the ball of that back foot. You're looking good, just a little refinement and you'll be ripping.

That's my uneducated $.02

[coloskier]

skier 4 looking good. You have lots of great parts to your skiing, you are arching your body well, your stance is not too spread out and you seam to have nice pace to your pole plants. If you round your turns out more like Jon said. It will add a better feel to the skiing and it will feel more natural.

In the bumps, start on a gradual pitch, with widely spaced bumps and just start working them. I find the trick to skiing bumps on teles is timing the lead change. Roll off one bump and sink into a tele turn. Than use the next bump to roll off of and change leads. Make sure that you are changing leads between the bumps and not on them. As you get better you can ski bumps faster and steeper. Keep up the good work

[cesare]

If you do what vtRat says, the great benefit will be that you will be able to engage your edges much earlier in the turn and will not slide our so much.

What I see is that every transition there is a long period where your edges are not engaged at all, then suddenly they are and that's when the skid starts. By the time you get on your edges, it's too late to carve at all and you feel the need to slide sideways to finish the turn and control your speed so you can go weightless again for that long period on the next transition.

Hook up those edges as soon as you decide to turn and ride them around. Don't always worry about finishing your turns if you have room to run. Speed is your friend.

Try not to drop your inside hand on the steeps. This pulls your uppor body away from the fall line and you lose all your power. It makes initiating the next turn a lot more difficult than it has to be.
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[ewong_kaizen]

the groomed looks pretty good, the moguls less so..

It would appear that
- you arent weighing the skis evenly
- you tend to "poodle" a tad in the bumps (see not weighing the skis)
- you "lean uphill"
- you wedge start your turns in the bumps (not necessarily a bad thing)
- you dont keep the chest facing the fall line in the bumps
- you uphill hand (and therefore shoulder and center of gravity) drop back at the end of the turn - causing ya to make an up hill pole plant to save it

Two areas of I woudl concentrate on
- weighing the rear ski.
- hands in FRONT and shouldes down the fall line

While these "faults" are not that evident in the grommer clip - on second view they are visible. The groomers allow ya to "cover up" the front foot weight bias - and since the shoulder doesnt drop back you dont do the pole plant save...

For even weighing - monomarks

For shoulders and fall line issues - ski groomers WITHOUT poles. You'll get the shoulders in front so you can drive the tips...

Be careful with the no poles thing. If your "uphill arm behind ya" habis is real bad you might be tempted to stick yer arm out uphill to break yer fall.... ouch and no no no... Learn to FALL uphill first by comming down on yer thighs and hip (the infamous hip check turn on steep terrain)...

One can practice the "hip check" by following some boarders and "hip checking" behind them every time they stop in a line across the run.... you'll get lots of practice (if they dont gang up on ya)

Then again... Im not so sure Im any better a skier

[climbhoser]

As per the "rounding the turns" posts:

Well, the word is "carving" if we're to get into proper tele terminology. While you're skiing would look pretty good were you on old, skinn straight skis, you're now on shaped skis and you need to get those shaped radii to carve for you.

to do this I think about it a little differently. If you mountain bike, dirt bike or BMX at all it would help, because I like to think of my turns as berms. When I put the edge into the snow I'm basically creating a wee li'l berm for my ski to ride along in the snow. So, lots of people get stuck because they don't begin their carve until their edge is below them on the slope. I start my carve, using my G-forces, when my skis are actually up and to the side of me. And then I ride that carve all the way around. I find it really helps to think of it as starting the turn when the skis are "above" you on the slope. And, well, they kind of are!

If you can get your edge laid in using G-forces (because you'll be working against gravity with your weight) while you skis are still uphill from you, and carve them around until they're below you, then you will be arcing like a madman.

Bumps, well, the dude before me covered how to ski those damned blasted things....PM me if you want me to elaborate on what I mean.

[Mountain Legionnaire]

Comments w/o reading above posts:

Good angulation, good hand position, good aiming of body down fall line.

Tempo of pole plant good, but disturbed during tougher piste. Outside person "reminding" would remedy (coaching).

Washing of tails serving to scrub speed but could be removed by more fall line oriented course, replaced instead by carving edges to a semi-finished turn.

I admire your style very much.

[christian :?)]

tighter stance;
edge set and ride the rail (carve), don't quickly swish back and forth like a snowboarder;
be patient with the ski, it wants to carve, but your not giving it a chance;
feel the scrunch in your waist on the bumps and let your tight stance legs take the compressions; and
keep skiing and having fun!

- Christian :?)

[Biff]

I'll throw in my 2 cents. I'll second all those that say you are doing great. Just need to tighten things up a bit. I'm pretty much a one trick pony when it comes to this stuff because I believe so much of it is just stance and early and strong inside ski turning. So I will go with what Vtrat, Cesare and others have said...work that inside ski early in the turn (which you are doing or your skis would be converging), keep weight on the ball of the foot from the moment it starts back and tighten up the stance. I would also think about flexing that front leg forward into your boot more. Your front leg tends to get very stiff and back. Also, do you notice how in the steeps you sometimes use that uphill pole, sort of pushing yourself along? Remember to face down the hill...go for that big pinch in your hip. Imagine your head is very heavy and is leading you down. Something else that might help is to be sure to plant your pole down the hill...not towards the side of the slope. This will also help you stay countered, flexed and keep you from leaning up the hill. Tele skiing is like a clock mechanism. Every thing has to work simultaneoulsy for things to go smoothly.
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[c rad]

Thanks for the input, I am planning to take a trip out tomorrow (Sunday). I will work on the monomarks a little, and the suggestions are very helpful. My next question is if I tighten my stance up does that mean I will also go lower? I am working on the carving, and I think tightening the stance will help. As for the bumps they were steep and icy, it didn't really represent my usual bump line, the fall line is usually my friend, but that's how it goes sometimes. Anyways thanks for the input and keep it coming, I need all of the help I can get

[granpa]

Great work – looking good. On the flats you have good body position, head looking down the hill, shoulders across the hill and a quiet upper body. You’ve got good rhythm and a consistent pole plant. (I don’t see you dropping the up-hill shoulder on the flats too much but its kinda hard to tell). The feet look good, perhaps you could tighten up your stance a little bit. [b][color=red]What you are doing is a single leg exchange. You’re taking your back leg and throwing it forward to initiate the turn. It’s a good intermediate approach that works well. A more advanced approach is to drop the hips straight down, bring the front leg back at the same time bringing the back leg forward. This facilitates a quicker exchange and tightens up the stance, and in the bumps gives you a spilt second more to absorb the next bump and keeps the center of gravity (hips) over the skis. [/b[/color]]This also agrees with Cesare’s suggestion. Practice on the flats before taking it to the bumps. I have less technique input on the bumps. On the bumps the head position is good, looking down the hill, but you appear to rotate the uphill arm back. Try planting your pole on the top of the downhill bump. I agree with coloskier, work on bumps on a shallower hill. Practice picking a line and just connect 2 or 3. I know this is tough work, but someone has to do it. Keep up the good work.

[aslas]

Well intended, but the other comments are WAY to specific and complicated to do you any good on the slopes. Everyone has their own style that works for them and there are only a few basic truths and even fewer that you can read and actually apply when you get back on the snow.

Your basics are VERY solid for a year 2 skier. You have one obvious flaw. (pointed out already by some but it cannot be stressed enough). HANDS HANDS HANDS. Keep your hands in front of you. Do not let them drop behind your body. This is why you lose control in harder terrain. You will always lose control when this happens.

Here some hints to help you with this:

Reach forward with your hands to pole plant and angle the basket ahead to make sure your hands are where they should be.

Pole plant and take the pole out of the snow....do not ski around your pole as you will be more likely to drop your hand to far behind.

'punch' your hands forward after your pole plant. To make sure they are infront of you always.

One other little hint; don't tuck your elbows into your body....ski with you elbows out. This will also help keep your hands in the right place and help with over all balance.

I read one comment that you should not unweight your skis as much in between turns....that is a shakey suggestion.....on the groomers and easy terrain, you can stay weighted more and ride out the turns with almost even pressure between turns....but in the really deep pow, thick stuff, slop, super steeps, bumps, unweighting your skis to initiate turns is critical. I would not change what you are doing on this subject....it looks pretty good.

Work on your hand problem and you will see steady improvement in the harder terrain.

[reptelean]

Skier 4 is looking good. I've been thinking for a while that it would be good to compare on groomers vs moguls because many of us lose our form when we get on the steep bumps. I know I do!

A couple have already been mentioned: Hands, Trying to keep the line. I've started trying to think about keeping my hips pointed down hill as well as my shoulders. I've noticed that the slide and then the cooresponding off balanced turn are sometimes associated with the hips turning to the side.

On the bumps, I've noticed some great bump skiers are positioned with only a small bend in the knee as they go into the bump so they have some absorbtion distance to keep the shoulders at the same level.

An exercise I've been told to do: go across the hill with the moguls and try to keep your shoulders at the same level as you go through the bump and trough...

The tendency is to emphasize the knee bend on the back ski in the bumps -- I think this tends to move the ankle back on the front ski which gets your weight in the wrong position. Think about absorbing the bump with the front ski (which hits the bump first) you can keep the pressure on the toungue of the front boot and keep your weight centered over both skis -- instead of having your weight thrown front and back.

Instead of a throwing of the rear foot back, you can get into a balanced "shuffle" of the feet, checking off of the shoulder of each mogul.

I generally will get into this rhythm for about 15 seconds and get a euphoric "I've got it! I've got it!" feeling, just before I get thrown on my butt.

But for 15 seconds,... it's just heaven.

Tom

[granpa]

I doubt that you'll be keeping up with this but... If you look carefully at the skier in "my ally" you'll see that he brings the front leg back at the same time he brings the back foot forward (hard to do in this light wind crust) and rotates the skis around under his hips. Its just not about throwing the back leg forward on each turn. He keeps the upper torso in the same place (front/back not up/down) and is very active with both feet/legs on the ski exchange.