I've gotta see that film again.
It's "the bowl".
From what I have seen, JF often describes resulting sensations that he experiences and tries to attach analogies to them that will only make sense if you happen to execute whatever it is that he executes to experience those sensations. He is describing the sensation of the outcome and often even that is a little vague. Unfortunately he never seems to explain methodically what the movements are needed to be executed to get there.
He skis with incredible touch and intuition, but I'm not sure he even knows exactly what he himself is executing bio mechanically, much less how to teach it methodically. Instead he tries to describe the outcome which he has intuitively figured out how to experience.
An equivalent situation would be something like a world class quarterback trying to describe how he throws a Hail Mary touchdown pass, in a French Canadian accent: "you want to feeeeeeeel the ball leave your fingers hiiiigghhhhh and loooooooong".
That's great but when I try to throw a football my fingers don't wrap around the ball very well and it feels more like a shot put, and as for high and long....uhmmm ok.
This is not irrelevant! Watching a guy ski like that and hearing him describe what his sensations are is definitely relevant and can possibly contribute in some way. Most of us will not naturally intuit the movements needed without direct step by step instructions though and I often don't feel like I'm hearing that from JF, it's usually some kind of analogy about the outcome, a mental model that works for him. I always sort of have the impression that he learned how to ski without formal instruction or coaching, he just kind of figured it out intuitively on his own and has his own completely unique way of thinking about it, which is not a bad thing, But pay attention to how many times he uses the word "feel". His way of thinking about it is very intuitive and feel based. Its really hard to communicate those kinds of things methodically.
Funny, this past season, I was thinking the marble in the bowl is a great way to conceptualize skiing. But, using it to explain to someone else, I couldn't figure out how to make it non-nonsensical. JF makes a good stab at it in his instructional video, but I am unable to follow it. His guests have the benefit of having the context to the skiing they have been doing.
So unless you ski the same as Eric, you're not a good skier? Pretty harsh criteria..
I didn't watch the whole vid, but the guy in the purple jacket at around 3.30 is on the national demo team now.