Would someone be willing to share how Harb determines the in-shop basic allignment? I know the acid test is on slope, but, my understanding is they get pretty close.
Things I remember from a camp alignment.
On the snow assessments of the things in the previous post. I think they were looking for out of balance that would be evidenced by a tendency to turn one way or the other.
Balance on one leg and ski
straight on a gentle slope.
Traverse
straight across the slope on one ski from big toe edge.
Maybe the same on the Little Toe edge. Can you go straight across or do you turn against your will.
Indoors.
Assess the range of motion of the ankle (not a problem for me, don't remember much about it).
Kneel in a chair so they can look at the rear of the foot with the ankle (actually the sub-talar) in a neutral position (problem for me).
Stand on a platform in natural stance. Used a framing square to determine where the center of the mass of the knee was relative to the foot (static alignment?). For me, repeated this standing on foot beds, eventually repeated this in boots.
My focus: Both of my feet have compensated forefoot varus (see the link at the bottom), a twist of the foot to the outside which the body has compensated with by allowing the heel and ankle to collapse to the inside (this is the only way to get the ball of the foot back down to the floor). In street shoes I always felt I walked mostly on the outside of my feet. This was noticed by their inspection of the unloaded foot after manipulating the heel/ankle into a neutral position. Prior molded footbeds I had bought I came to understand as being ineffective because they had me stand on the footbed -- so my ankle and foot were in the compensated position when the footbed was being molded.
Rather than selling me a new footbed, they built up the inside front of the existing footbed to get my heel neutral and still allow the ball of the foot to pressure the boot (imagine skiing without any big toe pressure?). I did appreciate the cost savings at the time.
This also had the side effect of moving my mass ever so slightly to the outside and into very good alignment. Minor cuff alignment, no other canting required.
http://wefixfeet.ca/images/pdf/footdeformities.pdf
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