realskiers

Nice skiing for sure...but what do you guys think of his drills?  They're fine by me, but I must say, they don't look like the sort of moves you guys typically cotton to.

Drill-wise, not necessarily. The Japanese system is more of a work in process. From I understand from colleagues who attended interki last year is that the Japanese skiers are great, but their system is behind that of their Korean counter parts for example. It is still lightyears beyond what is being done in the US though.

Also,   are those truly 'dolphin turns"  Even on the groomer practice his tips never come off the snow, it looks like more of an aggressive heel lift and foot retraction (like just doing the back half of a dolphin turn)-whatever it is, it looks great when he takes it into the bumps.

You're right - not really a true dolphin turn - but I think you're right about the goal of teaching heel lift and retraction. The only bit I would add is that it is aimed at foot pullback and retraction - the heel lift is the means to an end in this case.

I hope somebody puts out some English language voice overs on all these great Japanese instructional videos.

Interestingly, they are saying the same thing about what "we typically cotton to" - but in reverse... they want a Japanese translation.

Another interesting note is a lot of Japanese ski instruction verbiage has no english translation - I think a lot of it is derived from martial arts training and is therefore a bit abscure to the typical western mind.

Regardless - the guys collectively rip.