It's not about being back (in fact we can argue that she's not back, even while appearing to be so: back is in relation to the force but there is no force at that point)... it's about being low and more importantly, in balance, without any negative impulse transmitted to the body. In physics terms, being low allows big edge angles quickly, it's true, because the hips are already low, so all you do is to tip the skis onto the new edges and, as the new outside leg gets long, voila: you get big angles, very quickly.
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Drill Deconstructing Mikaela Shiffrin slalom turns
- Thread starter 1chris5
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I agree. Very good timing. She is not stressed into creating pressure, instead she has patience to wait for it.
I think a good analogy is a trampoline. If you extend your legs as soon as you touch the surface you will not create any energy. Same with SL turns, if you extend too soon you will mess up the turn finish.
One factor could be that the other skiers improve more on the spring snow which is normally easier to ski on.
Thread Starter
TS
Ah timing, that is another important factor that I can add to my technical quiver I am developing from this thread. I really like the trampoline analogy. @Bob Barnes uses that analogy in his discussions (x move).
& the fact that she is getting tired. Not that the others aren't but the pressure of being #1 at the end of a long season & back on home soil took its toll.
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agreed with all of the above, especially the subtle "avalement"......which helps facilitate the strong "cross under" move she is employing tactically for those gates...its uber efficient and quick. The concept (and IMHO, fact) that moving the feet and legs as opposed to moving the torso and upper body is much quicker and easier to do is evident here. The magic with M.S. is that it does not throw her into the back seat at all. The skis do tend to "jett" (another French term) when you do this. She manages that beautifully, allowing just enough "jett" in transition to set her up for the next quick turn. (imagine these now in real time....pretty quick)
The jett does not put her in the back seat because she knows whats coming up, it is a very anticipatory move she uses tactically and is very very well timed and performed......Think of the jett and avalement moves happening below the hips, using the range of motion in her boots but never getting off balance or maxing out that range of motion because her center of mass is always moving forward and she is perpendicular to the hill....
I also noticed in at least one frame that her hips were moving in conjunction, progressively, in the opposite direction with the cross under...adding to the magic of her amazing finesse...
pole touches did not seem necessary (or present) in this clip as she got what she needed from the stabilizing force of hitting the gates through transition/initiation.
JP
PS I used "very" too much....
The jett does not put her in the back seat because she knows whats coming up, it is a very anticipatory move she uses tactically and is very very well timed and performed......Think of the jett and avalement moves happening below the hips, using the range of motion in her boots but never getting off balance or maxing out that range of motion because her center of mass is always moving forward and she is perpendicular to the hill....
I also noticed in at least one frame that her hips were moving in conjunction, progressively, in the opposite direction with the cross under...adding to the magic of her amazing finesse...
pole touches did not seem necessary (or present) in this clip as she got what she needed from the stabilizing force of hitting the gates through transition/initiation.
JP
PS I used "very" too much....
The gap probably closed a little from that end too. But something happened to her skiing compared to previous season. Still undisputably the best, but not winning Stenmark-style anymore. Perhaps more focus on GS and speed?
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This early movement of the decoupled upper body stores rotation which can be transferred to the legs by stopping (with core muscles) in the NEXT turn. Without resorting to tai chi explanations, is this what the (ahem) "tummy turners" were mumbling about?
In a flush there is not a pole plant but there is a block. You do not change hands for the block going through the flush, you use the same hand all the way through, normally the hand that will set you up for the block on the first direction gate at the exit of the flush. If you look at the OPs montage you will see that here she is using her left hand to block all the way through.
WRT her greater speed than most in slalom, if you overlay her with her closest competitors, you will see that she gets her ski back in the fall-line much more quickly than anyone else, she is already headed downhill wile the others are still coming across the hill. To me this is being achieved by basically nixing the last 25% of the turn. Instead of the ski completing 180degrees she is basically chopping it off at 135 degrees and pointing them down to start the new direction change.
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Some of us had the pleasure of watching Mikaela ski at (edit out: Loveland, edit in: ) A-Basin over the weekend. She was out early with two coaches. She started with some drills and then proceeded to some nice GS turns in the ever softening snow. Early in the day I didn't realize she was behind me and it was fun to see her zoom by at close range as she passed me.
Her skiing is simply incredibly smooth. No wasted movement and seemingly perfect pressure throughout the turn.
Her skiing is simply incredibly smooth. No wasted movement and seemingly perfect pressure throughout the turn.
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I suspect this was a significant influence on it. As she worked more on her GS, it bled across to her slalom turns where she started completing the turn across the hill in a more conventional manner more often rather than moving earlier to the next turn
Agree with @ScotsSkier. We've discussed this a fair amount here, though not in the Ski School forum. More in the context of what makes her dominate in SL, and to some degree why have her winning margins come down.
I get my info from two of her former coaches, and two others who spend about 20 days on snow working with her. SS nails it. She gets into the fall line sooner than anybody, and says in it longer. Couple that with having probably the most effortless, yet fastest switch in the business. And add to it that she tends to always be just perfect in terms of how much she is on edge. She is almost never "grinding" and some of her key completion is. A few races last year where MS won big runs over somebody like ZuZu, who was real hard and dug in on the bottom flats.
MS's fitness is also trenendous, so she executes pretty perfectly from the start through the finish line.
One of the real challenges in having her move into skiing every GS start, and more SG...according to people close to it...is that it's fundamentally very different. So when she was almost entirely focused on SL, and when the had her setup dialed in, the margins were insane. Start training more GS, and even SG, and the movements differ. Some think even switching to her GS and SG boots is a factor. I'm not thinking that part is huge. She only skis on her SL boots with SL skis.
As it's been explained to me, skiing the other disciplines generally involves more time across the hill and out of the fall line, and the timing is such that while she still may have the fastest switch going, she just can't use it to as big an advantage.
Last point. Her muscle memory is off the charts. I have no idea if one can measure it, or quantify it. She has done more drills, and continues to, than anybody in the sport. She loves it. She loves free skiing with a specific purpose, most often with her mother and coaches. She has been following this rountine for about 15 years.
She is the type who would pass up a powder day to sleep in, and would wait to have Gold Peak at Vail groomed, and then would do her drilling and skiing. I had assumed when she was about 15-16 that she had some supernatural sense of touch. Nope. That's not it. She has amazing control over her body and movements, and can make such subtle changes.
She is used as an example by hundreds of coaches, as her technique, particularly in SL, results in her pulling time on the field on every direction change. Say it's a tenth of a second. That is what has created some of those huge margins. Or so her coaches say.
One interesting anecdote. Her real guru is Kirk Dwyer, the former head of Burke Mountain Academy. KD is now the Exec Director at Ski Club Vail. He is changing their programming, particularly as U-14s and more so as U16's so that SL is going to be the fundamental base of their skiing. All built off SL, and increasing the relative percentage of SL skiing. Much less speed skiing. Some say close to none. Quite a bit less GS than SL. BTW, they are going to train less, rest more, and race less. With a goal of producing very, very fast FIS level skis.
Clearly he feels that SL is critical. My take is that he feels it develops the body awareness and muscle memory. A hunch.
But yeah. Fall line, fast switch, perfect edge angle, no digging in a grinding. To keep it simple.
Pretty sure that when she retires, her free skiing will look like her GS skiing.
Just saw @Doug Briggs post. Agree. Very smooth, and efficient. Sneaky quick. No wasted motion. No grinding.
I have a daughter who was always hard on her edges. At least a half dozen turns a run. Very hard habit to break. Probably the difference between her being a 45pt skier and a 25pt skier. May have originated with a whole lot of demanding steep freeskiing when she was young.
MS sure is fun to watch. Have witnessed some of that training.
I get my info from two of her former coaches, and two others who spend about 20 days on snow working with her. SS nails it. She gets into the fall line sooner than anybody, and says in it longer. Couple that with having probably the most effortless, yet fastest switch in the business. And add to it that she tends to always be just perfect in terms of how much she is on edge. She is almost never "grinding" and some of her key completion is. A few races last year where MS won big runs over somebody like ZuZu, who was real hard and dug in on the bottom flats.
MS's fitness is also trenendous, so she executes pretty perfectly from the start through the finish line.
One of the real challenges in having her move into skiing every GS start, and more SG...according to people close to it...is that it's fundamentally very different. So when she was almost entirely focused on SL, and when the had her setup dialed in, the margins were insane. Start training more GS, and even SG, and the movements differ. Some think even switching to her GS and SG boots is a factor. I'm not thinking that part is huge. She only skis on her SL boots with SL skis.
As it's been explained to me, skiing the other disciplines generally involves more time across the hill and out of the fall line, and the timing is such that while she still may have the fastest switch going, she just can't use it to as big an advantage.
Last point. Her muscle memory is off the charts. I have no idea if one can measure it, or quantify it. She has done more drills, and continues to, than anybody in the sport. She loves it. She loves free skiing with a specific purpose, most often with her mother and coaches. She has been following this rountine for about 15 years.
She is the type who would pass up a powder day to sleep in, and would wait to have Gold Peak at Vail groomed, and then would do her drilling and skiing. I had assumed when she was about 15-16 that she had some supernatural sense of touch. Nope. That's not it. She has amazing control over her body and movements, and can make such subtle changes.
She is used as an example by hundreds of coaches, as her technique, particularly in SL, results in her pulling time on the field on every direction change. Say it's a tenth of a second. That is what has created some of those huge margins. Or so her coaches say.
One interesting anecdote. Her real guru is Kirk Dwyer, the former head of Burke Mountain Academy. KD is now the Exec Director at Ski Club Vail. He is changing their programming, particularly as U-14s and more so as U16's so that SL is going to be the fundamental base of their skiing. All built off SL, and increasing the relative percentage of SL skiing. Much less speed skiing. Some say close to none. Quite a bit less GS than SL. BTW, they are going to train less, rest more, and race less. With a goal of producing very, very fast FIS level skis.
Clearly he feels that SL is critical. My take is that he feels it develops the body awareness and muscle memory. A hunch.
But yeah. Fall line, fast switch, perfect edge angle, no digging in a grinding. To keep it simple.
Pretty sure that when she retires, her free skiing will look like her GS skiing.
Just saw @Doug Briggs post. Agree. Very smooth, and efficient. Sneaky quick. No wasted motion. No grinding.
I have a daughter who was always hard on her edges. At least a half dozen turns a run. Very hard habit to break. Probably the difference between her being a 45pt skier and a 25pt skier. May have originated with a whole lot of demanding steep freeskiing when she was young.
MS sure is fun to watch. Have witnessed some of that training.
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It was Arapahoe Basin and she was with her mom and dad. Mom was coaching, dad was watching (I went and looked at pics of her dad to see if it was him). What really impressed me was her stability, especially on refrozen crappily groomed snow with large boulder sized chunks of ice in places. A few of us followed her around for several runs just to watch how incredible her movements are. We stayed far away as to not encroach or disturb but close enough to watch the beauty.
I was thinking the 'Basin' as I typed loveland. So silly of me.
I just figured you had a North Conway Manhattan in your hand...
Not this early on a (ugh) work day. ;-)
Muleski:
Kindly tell me if what I see in her technical skiing is correct or if I'm looking at this all wrong. My uneducated eye sees something besides her having better balance than the rest of the skiing world, and it seems a byproduct (I suppose) of balance: less movement. Specifically, she seems to stay in her skiing position with less need to extend or move up and down, just letting that stuff come naturally. I guess what I see is her head moving less up and down than others while she is bending/staying in balance. From that position, if she becomes off-balanced and is on the inside ski, she can recover easier, almost effortless for her on one ski. From that position, it also seems she can engage her edges faster. It is kinda like the flush shown at the beginning of the thread where she is just rolling her knees, but on steroids throughout the entire course.
She is incredibly smooth; this term refers to the lack of unnecessary movements, especially in the upper body.
This is a testament to her balance. Movement, outside of the essentials, is often a result of adjusting your COM to maintain balance over your skis. Her COM is right where it needs to be all the time so she doesn't have to continuously adjust to remain in balance, she is simply balanced from the get go.
Additionally, smoothness comes from keeping the largest portion of your mass (the torso) steady so that you can use it as a platform for the rest of the body. Her smooth touch on the snow results from her micro-adjusting the ski's pressure on the snow and is effective because only small actions are necessary when you have a stable platform from which to extend and retract your limbs.
This is a testament to her balance. Movement, outside of the essentials, is often a result of adjusting your COM to maintain balance over your skis. Her COM is right where it needs to be all the time so she doesn't have to continuously adjust to remain in balance, she is simply balanced from the get go.
Additionally, smoothness comes from keeping the largest portion of your mass (the torso) steady so that you can use it as a platform for the rest of the body. Her smooth touch on the snow results from her micro-adjusting the ski's pressure on the snow and is effective because only small actions are necessary when you have a stable platform from which to extend and retract your limbs.
Yep. Agree, 100%. She's almost always in great balance. We have seen her get knocked out of balance for a few seconds, in situations where other women would likely crash, or at least ski out. And what I normally see is a quick poke plant to get re-centered, and then she is immediately reeling back time.
So much of what she does is basic, incredibly strong fundamental skiing that it's, IMO, almost impossible to think of things that one could "do" to ski like her. It's one of the reasons why the coaches who work with even the best U16's in the world are keeping in VERY simple, and working on simple things. And not clogging up heads with too many tactics.
I first saw Mikaela ski in NH when she was either eight or nine. She already looked, seriously, like a tiny version of her adult self. Her mom and dad had taught her, and spent hours with her, developing her whole ski skill set. Quiet body, subtle movements, etc.
Pretty sure that skiing deep powder, ripping down rock chutes, through tight trees, hucking off cornices, and other drops is NOT on her radar screen. Much like Vonn, and much unlike Julia Mancuso, who grew up doing that stuff.
Not that at some point she won't just "kill it" in any situation on skis. The fundamentals will work!
Clarification:
A blocking pole PLANT
Blocking/clearing the SL pole with the outside fist, or cross blocking
A pole touch
& a pole swing are all very different things.
Just in case some of the earlier posts created any confusion
Carry on
A blocking pole PLANT
Blocking/clearing the SL pole with the outside fist, or cross blocking
A pole touch
& a pole swing are all very different things.
Just in case some of the earlier posts created any confusion
Carry on
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