If you are knock-kneed then you should already have plenty of edge. Knock kneed people have the center of mass of the knee inside (of ideal) and therefore get too much weight on the edge and have trouble releasing the edge. In fact, wider skis can actually help a knock kneed skier by getting the edge of the ski even farther inside than their center of mass. (HH ACBAES book 1, I think)
Jim and I have had this discussion before. I have recently added more canting to my dodge boots on my right boot (the one where my ankle is set wrong from a displaced fracture years ago at 13 degrees out). Now I am already at 3 degrees on that boot and I essentially ramped it up to 4 degrees. The change is significant. Now the idea that someone is knock kneed has too much edge is can be prhaps clarified more distinctly. When I am canted at 3 degrees there is a pretty substantial delay between when I start to tip my feet and when the ski actually gets engaged. Adding an additional degree creates a situation where as soon as I tip, I get immediate edge (Big toe edge, we are talking turns to the left with the stance leg being the right one). Now when we go to LTE tipping, it is also significant. It is very hard for me to get to the LTE if I am skiing on one leg at 3 degrees. My balance on the LTE on one ski is poor. Much of this goes away or is less noticable with two skis on the snow. As soon as we put in the additional degree I can immedaitely tip more to the LTE, balance on one ski on the LTE and I can carve instead of brush skiing one legged on the LTE.
The idea that the LTE is alreday engaged may be correct in theory but it isn't what is actually happening with me. What really is ocurring is that with the skis flat my knee is inside of my foot and because of this it must go much further inside my foot to actually engage the BTE. Now it is possible that with my slightly deformed anatomy (with the leg set wrong) that what occurs with my right leg is different than what others experience. But I do have experience with being overcanted on the left side. If I had my choice I would take undercanted instead of overcanted any day. When my left leg was overcanted (meaning too far out creatiing slight bowleggedness while I skied, I could not get away from my BTE (it felt almost permanently engaged) but perhaos to Jim's point because it is so there it is actually hard to fully engage it (it's so present you don't want more of it).
The only other thing that I will say is that I have never seen HH be that wrong when he looks at Video. Sure he can be wrong saying 2 degrees when it really should be 3 or 1.5. But I have never seen him be wrong in that the canting needed to be in the opposite direction. There is a school of canters that actually do the opposite of what Harald espouses by canting bowlegged people further out and canting knock kneeed skiers further in. I am beyong skeptical of this approach because I have huge experience playing with my own canting.
If you are indeed knock kneed and he canted you in it will not only not help your skiing, it will make it a lot worse. Of course it's possible that you are bowlegged and that he canted you in the right direction. Again, I have never seem HH get this wrong on video. I also have no reason to beleive that Billy Kaplan is incorrect other than what you said about HH when he saw your video. Put it in the FWIW category.
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