Now that Heluva's birthday is over, let me return to the topic of the OP. When I first opened the thread, I had not skied and was doing dryland drills. In the 4 days on snow, I've been spending much time working fore-aft balance, and, wanted to share some thoughts.
When talking about balance I say that you should feel the whole of your foot on the floor of the boot and be able to feel your weight move from front to back of your foot during different parts of the turn. I think that people often fall into the trap of standing on their toes in an effort to get forward. Really get forward means don't get back.
I've used Epic's suggestion of feeling the whole foot while skiing. I do a small translation and think about skiing with all my weight on the arch of the foot and make runs just concentrating on maintaining feeling this pressure. It's effective as a means of getting out of backseat habits. I do find that to stay in this position, I need to leave it and get forward at the start of a turn, but, the consensus seems to be that being forward in the upper part of the turn is needed. I do like the concept as a positive, achievable thought. It may not present the whole picture of what we need to progress, but, it is a step forward for those standing on our heels.
I found that staying on the arches, then, just thinking about rolling off the stance foot, through neutral, then back in edged positions created some pretty good skiing.
I also do, or attempt, the drill Liam introduced - Flappers. I don't have the strength to pull the rear portion of the skis off the snow, but, activating the chain of muscles required in the attempt is a great way to get forward.
Still, it's so easy to slip back into old habits. Will this damn January thaw end, first decent day to ski looks like Wednesday.
Home
Login
Register