Advanced technique videos

[karlo]

Project Hintertux is not for the unfocused mind. In my first effort to watch it, I figured I would just sit back in my massage chair and watch. Granted, I already had a mild headache, but not bad enough to dissuade me from 1-1/2 hours of skiing entertainment. What I discovered was that the attention and focus demanded of me resulted in a progressively greater headache and the music became progressively more grating. In my second effort, I gave it much greater focus and I became completely absorbed. This is an instructional video; treat it as such. What is your goal, to ski better? Watch and listen to three elite-instructors, Nadine Grunenfelder, Andreas Spettel, and JF Beaulieu and you will be instructed, inspired, and most of all be convinced that you have a path forward towards highly advanced skiing. Is your goal to be a better instructor? You will witness three elite-instructors practicing their fine art; having a goal, having a lesson plan with exercises whose objectives remain consistent with the goal. They demonstrate. They explain reasons. They share what they feel and when. They provide a clear description of what is excellent. For me, that meant a 1-1/2 hour video became a 2-1/2 hour video as I swiped back and forth to watch and re-watch, listen and re-listen, developing greater understanding. There are four learning goals in this video, high performance long turns, given by Grunenfelder, high performance short turns, given by each Grunenfelder and Spittel, an "Overall Focus" to be used in both long and short turns, given by Beaulieu, and, finally, a "Lesson" on offpiste short turns given by Spettel.

LONG TURNS:
Grunenfelder starts with describing in detail what she likes to see, the kind of initiation, levelness of shoulders, counter-rotation and gives the reasons why. She shares what is felt by the legs and feet throughout the turn. All this is accompanied by her perfect video-demonstrations. Then, she shares exercises that she likes doing, explaining how they are done, what awareness they build, detailing cues for both good things happening and for less-than-ideal things happening, going to extraordinary effort to share what she gets from these exercises in terms of motions and feelings.

SHORT TURNS:
Spettel discusses high performance short turns made with GS skis (30-meter). He presents what he thinks are critically important, early pressure and initiation, upper body stability, active ankles and knees for powerful movements. Then, he shares exercises for developing ankle movements and quickness on GS skis, which are two variants on jump turns. Reasons are given. The viewer (student) is urged to focus on movements and to push to "find our limits".

Grunenfelder, in a later segment of the video also discusses short turns. Again, she describes what she wants to see - parallel skis; rhythm from top to bottom of run; all the steering phases, including initiation, fall line, nice closing, as carved as possible; and upper body stillness and stability. She demonstrates it beautifully and powerfully. Again, two exercises that she thinks are terrific are shared, with all the details of how-to, what is needed, what is felt.

OVERALL FOCUS:
This segment has to do with a concept that Beaulieu describes as the "gravity drop". The idea is to not force the edges onto angle, rather the goal is to laterally relax while building edge angle, to maximize propulsion and to better control line, speed, and direction. How this is achieved is described in detail. A great analogy using a playground swing set is given. Beaulieu then presents a couple of exercises that help the skier understand and develop the gravity drop for long turns, then a couple of exercises for short turns. All exercises are presented in a manner commensurate with the skill and artfulness of an elite-instructor.

OFFPISTE SHORT TURNS:
Let's be more clear. Offpiste short turns on 30-meter GS skis. To Spettel, a good powerful (he likes the word "powerful") short turn in the offpiste consists of: early pressure, early edging, narrow stance, and stable, balanced upper body. Why work on this with GS skis? It's harder, and makes the skier move faster. Then, once rhythm is achieved, the longer skis provide a good platform. He wants to see ankle movement. He wants rhythm for the stability and power it imparts. To achieve the rhythm, "balance in the middle position" must be attained (don't lean back); he details what is needed to achieve that balance. Then, he presents drills that he likes, all without poles, all on 30-m GS skis! His demonstrations are amazing. And then, thepièce de résistance, Spettel skis down an incredible vertical drop, down offpiste terrain, in bumps and crud, on his GS skis, non-stop, with uninterrupted rhythm. It can be viewed for free at 3:10 of this video,


Most Memorable Ski Runs is free. Project Hintertux will set you back $25. But, if you, as I do, believe that there is much that can be learned from three instructors at the top of their profession, and if you are willing to invest the time and mental focus required to understand every facet of what they have to share, then the cost is incidental. Me, I am now ready for my PSIA Level 2 exam's teaching segment . Project Hintertux, and Kitz before it, are ambitious work; I will even venture to say seminal. Next up on my list, sorry, @razie 's list, is The Zillertal Project.

Project Hintertux closes with Andreas Spettel giving words of encouragement to the viewer,

"Have fun, go out there, and give your best"

 

[razie]

Doby - of course we have to manage the extension force while tipping, show the bases to the top of the hill and all that good stuff, that's the point.

BTS is right. If you push at the top, there's nothing when you need it.

Newton - he likes to get in the way here, when he proposes the third law: any action has a reaction, equal in magnitude but opposite direction. What that means is that if you pressure the ski before establishing sufficient inclination of COM, your COM will be pushed up, resulting in less angles, just when you'd actually like them. And that's an important bit, when looking at performance skiing.

So, of course we can push while extending, but that has nothing to do with high-performance skiing, where we'd like big angles.

The skier is not extending off the base of the ski but rather from the inside BTE edge that is in contact with the surface. Any half decent skier (wearing a ski boot) can push directly off a tipped ski at any vector they choose. An extension vector balanced equitably over the tipped edge will not produce tipping forces in either direction.

Also, even if you plantar flex and evert and direct as much of the force from the tibia towards the BTE, as tiring as that is, the boot will still distribute it over the sole. Even if we consider a skinny 65mm race ski, the boot soles and the plates that actually transmit the force, are never on top of the edge, they are less wide than the ski. So the force at the surface of the ski is transmitted away from the edge and it always torques the ski to flatten it - we need the lateral stiff cuff for this, to oppose it and keep the ski at the angle we need.

An extension vector balanced equitably over the tipped edge will not produce tipping forces in either direction.

Anyways, to keep this short, the above can never actually occur - the physics to support it it's just not there, they're common misconceptions though, because many skiers focus on what they feel happens.

If a skier feels the need to push the BTE at the top of the turn consistently, it's is likely that he/she is in the "back seat". We could diagnose that with video

resist that flexion towards the end of the turn with extension forces,

That sounds to me like you mean extending on the old edges there, pushing the skier back up the hill and never actually releasing the edge?

 

[oldschoolskier]

In reading this and the concepts being thrown back and forth more or less correctly on all sides. I might suggest you employ a little bit of sailing concepts to describe how forces are working.

Actual Wind Direction and Apparent Wind Direction.

Actual is the direction the wind comes from cause by weather conditions.

Apparent is the direction it appears to come from as you move.

Most understand this concept.

To turn “Wind” into “Force” and now it applies to anything. What we end up is a force vector diagram (which can be 2D or 3D depending on your level of complexity in understanding). ADDED What is the result is the NET or RESULTANT Force which is what we experience and must deal with.

In some cases of this this discussion actual and apparent are being exchanged causing misunderstanding and confusion.

NEWTON does rule in both, just understand which one you are in and how they relate to each other.

Hopefully, this may clear up a couple of concepts being thrown around.

 

[razie]

Right... Same reason @oldschoolskier 's sailboat needs a keel .

I think RLM has a discussion of this natural imbalance, drawing a parallel the ice skates?

 

[Pete in Idaho]

Most of the stuff I was able to google up (and I've looked occasionally for the last few years) are more jump turns than pedal turns, but here's one that comes closer than most.
I have a fairly good old memory of these turns, even though I have not used them all that much (and not at all the last few decades).

I recall visiting my uncle (deceased quite a while now) shortly after discovering steep runs when I flew out west. My uncle who was an avid skier, said to me (conversation was in french and long ago, so paraphrasing), "So you were making pedal turns?" No, I wasn't, and didn't even know what they were, so I asked. He explained it to me, "Just start sideways to the fall line on a hill and move your feet like your were pedaling a bicycle, and you will be making pedal turns down the hill." A few days later I was skiing at Tremblant and found the steepest bit of that hill, which was not all that steep, but it was steep enough. After several unsuccessful attempts (hey - give me a break; I was on fairlystraight 208 SG skis not rockered fat skis) to get my skis to turn by pedaling my feet in the snow on this semi-steep hill, I hit on the right combination. Looking back now I can explain to myself why it works. Starting with the downhill ski/foot at the bottom pedal position and the top ski/foot at the top pedal position, you pull the bottom (inside) ski back and unweight it, while weighting and pushing the top (outside) ski forward. This powers rotation, add a bit of push to the outside with the top (outside) ski and it comes around. Perhaps it helped that I was I also strongly intending to turn. Keep pedaling and you go around the other way. If the hill is steep enough the push down get's you off the slope too and the turn can easily merge into a (one-legged?) jump turn. After learning this turn I found it very useful for a few years, scouting out steep lines, that I would later charge down. Then I had kids, expenses, and didn't get to travel anywhere that the turns would be of any use. Still remember them though.

Several years later I saw a TV show with a Frenchman explaining how he had invented this pedal turn because jump turns were too exhausting for his long descents. Can't recall his name, but he was some famous "extreme" skier. I still can't figure out how my uncle knew all about these turns years before they were invented, but the turns I saw on that TV show were the same ones my uncle had me doing.

Thank you, I will get out on some steeper stuff and see what happens. NOLO (epic) showed me this years ago and couldn't remember to clues. Thankyou from an old guy still skiing.

 

[Mike King]

Before edge change I think Juris makes a very interesting point that pushing your CoM "will move" uphill. Away from the skis. Note that he points out that the CoM will "move" when its pushed. I'll get back to that in a minute, but the point to note that is the CoM will actually be impeded from crossing over or releasing out of the turn. What also happens is that balance is interrupted this way, and the CoM can catapult up and over to get out of the turn. As the skier's edges approach flat, their ongoing extension/push will be moving the CoM even more up. This results ultimately in unweighting. That may or may not be desirable. Following the unweighting, CoM will eventually settle back down onto weighted skis. Sometime after flat, the process of developing edge angles begins. More on that also in a minute.

Now lets see what happens with extension after the edge change...

Just like the above scenario, pushing against an engaged or semi-engaged ski after edge change will cause the CoM to "move" away from the skis. If the skis are mostly flat it will move up. If the skis are already engaged into the new turn then it will cause the CoM to be moved downhill toward gravity and away from the skis. In some ways this seems more desirable then the scenario above, since at least the skier is pushing their CoM in the direction they want to go. The problem, however is that they are also pushing their CoM away from their skis and the only thing that is going to save them from falling horribly out of balance is some other force coming along to push the CoM and BoS back together again. In the above scenario of pushing before edge change, the skier unweights through flat skis, and gravity is the new force that pushes the CoM and BoS back together again.

.

BTS, I don't think this is quite right -- if you are in very steep terrain, edge change is a long way away. I think it depends on the relationship of your hip to the downhill ski -- if it is down hill of the ski (e.g. CoM is inside the new turn) you can still be on the old edges but an extension move of the new outside ski/old inside ski is going to send your CoM down the hill, not up, and, depending on the rate of extension of the new outside ski and flexion of the new inside ski, either towards the skis or away from them. Of course, you will most probably want the outside ski to move away from the CoM at the apex of the turn, so it may not be an issue of the relationship of the CoM to the distance of the skis depending on where the CoM is moving.

That being said, a lot of this has to do with the mechanism to initiate the turn. If it is an extension move, then I agree with what you are saying. If instead the mechanism is a retraction turn, then the mechanism may be different.

Mike

 

[BornToSki683]

You said a lot there that lines up with what i said but I’m not following what you think i said is not correct.

No matter the important point, in very steep terrain if you extend after the edge change you are REALLY going to unweight through the apex but I don’t think most people would. In very steep terrain most people would probably extend and unweight before the edge change and execute some kind of pivot or pedal turn or something to get back across the fall line ASAP. This is not the only way though, retraction can absolutely be used in the steeps.

 

[BornToSki683]

BTS, I don't think this is quite right -- if you are in very steep terrain, edge change is a long way away. I think it depends on the relationship of your hip to the downhill ski -- if it is down hill of the ski (e.g. CoM is inside the new turn) you can still be on the old edges but an extension move of the new outside ski/old inside ski is going to send your CoM down the hill, not up,

Maybe this? If your hip is downhill of your downhill ski still in its uphill edge; it’s not gonna stay that way for very long. I’m trying to imagine how you could possibly have your hip down hill of the downhill ski and still be on the uphill edges. Not seeing it.

 

[karlo]

Project 2016 - the Gravity Drop

He has his own 3 part instructional video Project 2016 that I found to be very inspirational and valuable.

https://jfbeaulieu.vhx.tv

I took a little detour and, rather than watch the Zitteral Project next, I checked out what @Mike King wrote of, JF Beaulieu's Project 2016. As Mike says, it is a 3-part instructional video. They are described as presentations of concepts that JF has been working on the last few years. Each one has a synopsis.

Part 1 is Engage your Core. Type of turns is Short turns and Bumps

Part 2 is The Change in Direction, how to create more power and precision from our turns. Types of turns are mid and long turns, along with terrain adaption.

Part 3 is The Gravity Drop, a concept that JF presented in Project Hintertux. Types of turns is various

Having just been introduced to the gravity drop concept when watching Hintertux, I decided to watch Part 3, to learn more. The video is full of beautiful, graceful skiing demonstrating what gravity drop can accomplish, which is basically beautiful, graceful, powerful skiing. The format is very similar to what one would experience in a lesson - free skiing, pause for tech-talk, more skiing, more tech-talk, etc. Unlike Hintertux, JF goes further to discuss timing of foot-pressure, pressure on the outer edge of foot, pressure on soles of feet, pressure on inside edge of foot. The setting is Mont-Saint-Anne and Le Massif in Quebec Canada, with lovely views of the St. Lawrence River.

I thought I fully understood the concept of gravity drop after watching Project Hintertux. After watching Project 2016 Part 3, I now understand it far more. The analogy that comes to my mind is a spacecraft being sling-shot around the sun. It is a graceful, gradual entry into the arc. At closest approach, tremendous velocity and forces (pressure and edge-angle) are experienced. Then, there is release of the pressure, the spacecraft is redirected, at velocity, in another direction, all done in both a nice smooth arc and gradual changes of velocity and pressure. JF relates that concept to what is happening with and what is felt by the feet - a very nice addendum.

From the short YouTube videos I've seen, I kind of knew JF is a musical skier. Hintertux sealed it, with the segment in which he makes a series of rhythmic turns, alternating between long and short. Long-long-short-short-long-long-short-short... In Part 3, he demonstrates what gravity drop, along with his musicality, can accomplish, which is, as I said, beautiful and graceful skiing.

The video costs $12 and is about 25 minutes long. It is pleasant and easy to watch, as is the music to listen.

 

[karlo]

Actually just checked the Google

That explains the timing

In the newspaper article, PV says he lifts his downhill (left) ski and rotates it, that is what initiates the turn. I wonder if that is really what he means. In the video of him, I see substantial coiling (new word I learned here at Pugski) before the pedaling starts. Seems to me that, having pushed off with his uphill foot and lifting the downhill foot, he has unweighted ("jumping into the void") and he is uncoiling. He isn't actively rotating his downhill ski.

 

[oldschoolskier]

Gentle skiers, might I suggest you find a small dirt mound (yes I mean small, no more than a couple of feet high). Stand on the side and simulate the action. (Skis are repressed by you shoes and yes poles are required).

It will clarify the motions.

 

[Doby Man]

All good points regarding perceptual discrepancies between actual physics and actual feeling. In a developmental context, what the skier feels trumps the Newtonian physics involved. For me, any use of a physics based description of what is happening is a very last resort. And, even, then, only the most basic components of physics that anyone off the street will be able to understand. There is never time for a physics lesson on the side of the hill which is why I don't bother with it here.

I can see how my comment regarding using "extension forces" to end flexion can be a bit cloudy w/o more facts. Flexion and extension happens on the same vertical scale. Think of a vertical pogo stick. Even while the flexion may be the only "movement" we see, extension forces are applied to slow down and end flexion before we bottom out. In other words, flexion and extension forces can be happening at the same time but we will only see the one that is happening more than the other. While we may not see extension "movement", extension forces are still at play and is one of a good number of elements that can not be depicted and assessed in a video. While a still photo may be worth ten words, a video is only worth about a hundred. Not until we have a moving visual along with a real time conversation with the skier subject do we have info on focus, specific intent and what the skier is "feeling" do we have a thousand words.

 

[François Pugh]

All good points regarding perceptual discrepancies between actual physics and actual feeling. In a developmental context, what the skier feels trumps the Newtonian physics involved. For me, any use of a physics based description of what is happening is a very last resort. And, even, then, only the most basic components of physics that anyone off the street will be able to understand. There is never time for a physics lesson on the side of the hill which is why I don't bother with it here.

I can see how my comment regarding using "extension forces" to end flexion can be a bit cloudy w/o more facts. Flexion and extension happens on the same vertical scale. Think of a vertical pogo stick. Even while the flexion may be the only "movement" we see, extension forces are applied to slow down and end flexion before we bottom out. In other words, flexion and extension forces can be happening at the same time but we will only see the one that is happening more than the other. While we may not see extension "movement", extension forces are still at play and is one of a good number of elements that can not be depicted and assessed in a video. While a still photo may be worth ten words, a video is only worth about a hundred. Not until we have a moving visual along with a real time conversation with the skier subject do we have info on focus, specific intent and what the skier is "feeling" do we have a thousand words.

"components of physics that anyone off the street will be able to understand", i.e. no components of physics
"While we may not see extension "movement", extension forces are still at play " Quoted for truth. Most will see position, velocity, but few will see or consider acceleration.
"There is never time for a physics lesson on the side of the hill " Darned Right! Doby Man gets it! . A lot of instructors get it too, but I've lapped groups of skiers with an instructor on the side of the run (sub 750' hills). That shouldn't happen.

 

[karlo]

and, though not skiing, the follow-on video that appeared,


well, maybe it's an example of how one can more quickly load a tram with skiers. baaaa...

 

[DoryBreaux]

McGlashan is a god.

 

[mdf]

@karlo -- thanks for the detailed video reviews and price info.

 

[jzmtl]

well, maybe it's an example of how one can more quickly load a tram with skiers. baaaa...

"Could actually run into a snowboarder, oh I'm sorry was that annoying?"

 

[SpauldingSmails]

Question about drills in Project Hintertux:

I'm watching Project Hintertux, again (again). Again. The technical talk is a bit above my head but I still like listening to these skiers' insights. However, I am unclear on the basis of the drills. I have not used ski drills as extensively as I would like to so I am not clear on the training goal of some of the drills. For example, in JFB's segment regarding gravity drops he uses a skating drill. Is this skating drill supposed to only draw attention to something I should do and thus increase my awareness of something I should do more of or is there some mechanical element inherent in that sequence that will directly tranfer to non-skating drill skiing?

My plan was to watch this video (and the How Tos) while working around the house, then to sit down with one segment of one video at a time and take notes on it, develop the idea and the drill in my head, then go to the mountain and try it out. I need some more clarity along my way though...

 

[razie]

I didn't get the skating drill in that context - I think his idea was to look at how you move inside as you skate, but when skating, we tend to brace against a long new outside leg (the one we glide on), which is the opposite of the "gravity drop" idea of relaxation, so I didn't get that one either.

Some of the flexing drills are great tho!

 

[SpauldingSmails]

@razie , and I think he also said to start weight on the inside toe on the ski that would eventually slide to be weighted to the outside (? ... or something awkward sounding) at the beginning which I nearly fell on my arse anytime I tried before... But that drill aside, there are plenty others to work on.

In any case, if I can get a better idea of what any drill is supposed to do then i can program it better. I mean what kind of volume and frequency would anyone devote to a corrective or a 'teachable moment' once it's outlived or served it's purpose?