Message #17148

[HeluvaSkier]

Here is my post from the PMTS forum.

After receiving requests for this video from members here, other forums... even a few members of other countries national demo teams... I decided to put this together for everyone, and yes, it is in HD and some slow motion. I also figured it was time we had some of our own content up here - hopefully take the load off Harald. All of the clips were filmed at my home mountain, Holimont, by my girlfriend Kathleen [yes, she's awesome; no, she's not available].

You may not immediately notice a ton of improvement from 2010 because most of my early improvements came in the way of boot setup and where I was standing on the ski. I didn't start to evolve my technique a lot until the end of the season. I kept feeling like I was almost onto something, but still falling short until the end of the season - after the video was taken of course. All runs were skied on my [new] Fischer SOMA 150 boots and either my 188cm 27m Fischer GS skis or my 165cm 12m Fischer SL skis.

My personal MA to-work-on list is [this is a stream of consciousness, so if it doesn't make sense... sorry, now at least you know some of what is going on in my head when I watch this]:
- Hold the free foot back more, especially in GS; trust the stance ski, even though it is hard to do on that snow at those angles
- Be patient with extending; don't rush it and create a push at the top of the turn; CB here as needed to stay balanced
- CA more, especially post fall line so you don't have to push to release the turn
- Flex more at times in order to be quicker and if you delay tipping, delay extension as well; timing is a ****, but it will make the turns snappier
- Don't push at the bottom of the turn; release aggressively but smoothly; keep those damn things on the snow
- Don't think about it, do it; move more than you ever thought about moving before. [interestingly, once I got over this last bit, everything fell into place].

A lot of the above I made great progress on after all of this video was shot. I'm hoping for some big improvements in 2012 now that my boots are dialed and I have some direction with my skiing. Bumps and powder also fell into place for me while I was in Colorado last spring. I didn't ski with Harald unfortunately, but talking to him in person was enough to make a lot of the above list click for me. Thanks Harald! 2012 will be a good season I hope.

In the mean time, you didn't come to read my babble, here is what you clicked for. Hope you like it. If you don't, well, you do the next one.