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markojp

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To the original post, this is the progression we went through with the U10s yesterday. Granted, it was a NH powder day (i.e. wet and about 5-6"), but we have athletes that 6" is shin deep and look like they weigh less than 60#. Many admitted that they struggle with powder and prefer not to ski it but by the end of the day, were having fun and enjoying it.

Deb Armstrong is awesome!


We went through many of the myths (i.e. leaning back), tactics, line, and some does and don'ts (no hockey stops!).

It's helpful if you have seen her other videos to because she references them, but even without it, you'll get the idea.

Have fun,
Ken


What comes around, goes around. :roflmao:

( see page 1, post #3 )
 

mister moose

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I've been away from this thread for a while, but I like a lot of what has been written on the last page.

Exactly. The fundamentals and physics do not change. Being a "good" skier (in quotations because I do not use that term with students) is about efficiencies). A skier is either efficient or inefficient.

As I have said before.... The technique advise that you will receive on-line costs about what it is worth. You may have a very experienced instructor chatting with you. However the human interaction if leading you down a progression, helping you unlock sensations, and taking you down that path is missing.

FYI at 88 underfoot you have plenty of ski under you.

YES on the bolded items. But I find sometimes skiing less efficiently can be more fun, ie take the high energy line. And 88 is more than plenty. I ski 80, 85, routinely, and sometimes 66 in powder when it's one of those day after, oh what the hell, I'll just take this little patch kind of days.

Push on that snow and it pushes back. It causes the skier to recruit large muscle groups to maintain balance. That, and recovering from falls in powder, make it exhausting.
Pressuring the ski is pushing on the snow. Unless you're talking about a skidded push here, Downward vs outward. There's a difference.

I am not at all a fan of wide skis. Tim Petrick penned a letter to the industry a few years ago that helped the industry pull its collective head out of its ass (wide skis also created the illusion to inefficient skiers that they were better than they are - creating sales, but cannibalizing sales of more reasonably dimensioned skis - basically the industry is in a place where it needs to reinvent to sell more shit to the same people). I will say this for wide skis.... When avy danger is high I get on something stupid wide to ski 15 degree slopes with no objective hazards. Wider skis allow me to mitigate avy danger with appropriate terrain selection - and still have a blast. For that average vacation goer out West, this is a total no factor though.
I'm a fan of wide skis, for a certain purpose. Breakable crust being an excellent example. However, fat skis often are marketed and defended as a panacea, the reason you should buy this ski, and ski it every day. I see the same thing with excessive rocker. And fat plus big rocker = clown shoes in my book.

it is still a journey, and the journey is the point.

One of the common threads that I have seen in skill acquisition as it applies to skiing, kayaking, entrepreneurship, finance, etc. is that people want a quick fix. They want the quick sound bite that will change their situation. No quick fix exists. A person has to do the time and the work to be proficient at their craft.

Enjoy the journey.

Agree. I also think there is the aha moment. And while we can't effectively provide quick fixes, we can provide the lesson plan for the necessary work, and we can strive to provide insight, the aha.

And then there's the third, better possibility... Simple and correct.
Yes. Much of the complex is complex only because it is so well shrouded in noise. And complex is often a structure of simple things in a larger assembly.

when he asked me why I was majoring in physics since all I was going to do was get married and have kids
It is still a worthy goal to understand how the world works.

My point: it's a worthy goal for teachers of any subject to seek ways to make difficult material digestible, memorable, and even inspiring -- for the ordinary student.
More than a worthy goal, this is the essence of effective teaching.

When the snow is deep enough, one can NOT bounce off the bottom, rather, one must bounce off the snow compaction under foot...
Yes. And herein lies the (one of the) difference between powder and firm surface skiing - and yet it is the same. Which is why some are saying powder exposes the weak fundamentals.
What is the same: We must be able to effectively manage the center of pressure fore and aft along the length of the ski.
What is different: In powder, the pitch of the ski can change, with the accompanying consequences. In powder, pressure management yields vertical changes. Firm snow does not yield vertical changes, no bounce, no spring, no 3D.


Hint:
Ski with enough enthusiasm to assure that the ski tips show out from the the depths from time to time.
Not so much. This might be a result on any given day, but seeing your tips is never a goal, and often isn't the case.

I will comment that fresh snow that does not bury even the boot tops can be skied like any groomed trail. Keep yourself following the tips. Thin fresh snow is much like "ego snow" with an added hazard of ski tips being deflected.
Until that flotation moment. Easily achievable in top buckle deep. First buckle top deep? That's frosting, if light.
 
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PisteOff

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Let me tell a little (true) story. It was a perfect Colorado powder day at Aspen Highlands a few years ago, with maybe 8 inches of fresh new snow. As I rode up the lift with the lady who had signed up for a private lesson, I asked her what was on her mind for today. "Well," she said, "I feel like I ski pretty well on groomed corduroy, with a lot of confidence even on the steeper blue pitches. But when we get powder like this..."

"Let me guess," I interrupted her, "your skis feel 'stuck' when you ski powder, like you can't turn them, right?"

"YES!" she replied. "Yes! That's exactly it!" She looked so relieved and excited, like she'd finally found the magician who could unlock the secrets of skiing powder for her. "Is there a cure for that?"

"No, there is no cure for that," I said. And the air went completely out of her, and all her enthusiasm vanished as she realized that she'd probably just completely wasted her money. I thought maybe she was going to hit me, or push me off the chair, or jump off herself!

"The only difference between you and me," I continued, "is that I LIKE my skis to feel 'stuck.'"

'Stuck' is the sensation of skis not skidding sideways, but holding the road, gliding forward and shaping my turn. 'Stuck' is what I almost always want my skis to do when I tip them on edge. 'Stuck' and gripping is what it is so hard to get our skis to do on ice sometimes. It was clear from this brief conversation, without even seeing her ski yet, that my student was a defensive braker, that on those groomed runs, she felt confident only because it is easy to twist the skis sideways into a skid on groomed snow, and once skidding, that skid is predictable and easy to control. But it is, indeed, hard to twist those skis sideways in powder (which is why they feel 'stuck'), and if you work hard enough and succeed, skis moving sideways in powder are very UNpredictable--especially if the powder is at all heavy, or if it has a few tracks in it already. As I described earlier (post #52 on page 3 of this thread), skiing powder is much easier if you keep your skis moving forward through it, moving the direction they're pointed, rather than sideways.

But if your habit is to ski defensively, using your skis and edges primarily as brakes to scrub off speed by skidding sideways, you will quickly find that those habits and techniques don't work well in powder. Groomed "hero snow" forgives these defensive habits. Powder (and moreso, crud) does not! Expert skiers habitually glide, slice, and carve turns when they can, keeping their skis moving the direction they're pointed as much as possible (although they certainly brake when they need to). It's why their skiing can appear so effortless and elegant, and it is why so many here in this thread advocate skiing the "same way" in powder as on groomed snow. If you ski offensively, using tactics and line to minimize the need to brake, using your edges to grip (to keep your skis 'stuck' to the road and not skidding sideways), your technique will work at least as well in powder. As several have suggested above, when skis are slicing through the snow and carving turns, there is little need to "bounce" or unweight them (unweighting makes it easier to twist your skis sideways into a skid--if you aren't trying to do that, there is no need to unweight or "bounce").

However, for the majority of recreational skiers whose habits are defensive, powder snow will, indeed, reveal the deficiencies in your technique. It isn't that you should do the "same thing" in powder that you do on groomed snow, it is that you may need to transform your groomer technique to one that will work in powder! (And powder's opposite--ice--which also benefits from not pushing or twisting skis into a braking skid.) So the advice simply to "not bounce" is questionable or, at least, perhaps oversimplified. You may need to transform your defensive technique and tactics (where unweighting may be helpful, and bouncing in powder may actually be the only thing that works) into offensive technique and tactics. It is a fundamental paradigm shift to the expert skier's way of thinking that may not be easy to accomplish in new and challenging conditions. But once you make this shift--to "wanting" your skis to 'stick'--you will find that powder suddenly gets easy, ice becomes possible and even enjoyable, and even your groomed snow skiing gets more fun, more effortless, with the intoxicating sensations of gliding and floating and flying. It's a whole new world!

And so, as the chairlift ride continued, we started discussing what I have long described as the expert skier's paradigm of "skiing the slow line fast," of thinking of turns not as "slow" thoughts but as "GO!" thoughts--turning to "go that way," not to "stop going this way," and of using turns not to control speed, but to eliminate the need to control speed. She was intrigued. Intent dictates technique, so it was not that her technique or skills were "wrong"--it was just that they were solutions to the wrong problem. Changing the intent brought out the offensive movements and ski performance of gliding, slicing, and carving--and skiing powder got suddenly easy, almost a foregone conclusion as soon as she realized that 'stuck' skis holding the line and slicing forward through the snow were actually a good thing. We did not need so much to learn new skills as simply to re-purpose the skills she already possessed. She didn't learn to get her skis "unstuck" from the deep snow, or to get better at what she was trying to do--she learned to do something entirely different.

It is the best-kept secret in skiing, that turns are not for speed control but for direction control. But it takes powder, crud, ice, or other challenging conditions to discover how really important that secret is. Experts don't make it look so effortless just because they're so much more skilled at what they do--it's more because what they do is fundamentally different from what most skiers do. Discover that transformation--start thinking like an expert--and everything, including (especially) powder--will get much easier and even more fun!

Best regards,
Bob
Bob, that is one of the bests posts I've read in years of reading skiing forums. Very well stated. :beercheer::micdrop:
 

Rio

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Jeff -

I was ecstatic to see Bob's post. He posted wonderful threads on a previous forum and I missed his posts after its demise. Its great to see him here.
 

PisteOff

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Jeff -

I was ecstatic to see Bob's post. He posted wonderful threads on a previous forum and I missed his posts after its demise. Its great to see him here.
I was there.... I remember.
This one really strikes at the heart of the discussion in Bob's eloquent manner......great story teller.
 

Tricia

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This came up in my news feed, low angle trees and a little bit of fresh powder.
 

James

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Pretty bad skiing, at least the first sequence, I couldn't watch anymore.

There is absolutely no reason to ski that way, takes more energy plus you lose pressure and contact in the first half of the turn.

Don't do it.

It's been at least 25 years since good skiers skied like this.
Lol, judging by the skis that film is 20 yrs old. Not much difference in those 5 years except cap skis. And of course Soloman's "power" numbers.

This came up in my news feed, low angle trees and a little bit of fresh powder.
Are those trees near Sun Valley or is that Northstar?
 

Tricia

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Lol, judging by the skis that film is 20 yrs old. Not much difference in those 5 years except cap skis. And of course Soloman's "power" numbers.


Are those trees near Sun Valley or is that Northstar?
I'd love to ski SunValley. That is Northstar.
 

Tricia

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So that's you in the vid?
If so, "Look at our girl, they grow up so quickly!"
You're a huge part of my growth. I am proud to say you're my friend and much more.
 

tromano

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Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn!
 

SSSdave

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Wondered why this thread is still active so went through the later pages and note some don't seem to approve of skiers that bounce in powder versus stating there are different effective styles of doing so? My first post is on page 3 post #58 and very much liked the Deb Armstong bouncy video. Added on page 5 post #93 after reading some describing a bouncing technique as unnecessary tiring energy.

So again watched Deb Armstrong's beginning powder skiing video on markojp's post at page 1 post #3. She does such an excellent job at explaining to target novices in ways novice powder skiers can understand. And obviously what she says emphasizing bouncing has run counter to some on this board that don't ski with an easy relaxing bounce. That of course is nothing new as ever since fat skis appeared years ago, and expert skiers then took them to drop steep powder slopes, some have been critical of bouncing powder technique we old folk learned to love, preferring the fast powerful launching turns style one of course sees in so many ski movies.

Obviously there is not a single technique to ski fresh powder snow efficiently and enjoyably. Lots of skier body sizes, body shapes, weights, trained developed skiing muscles levels. And lots of different skis, lots of varying fresh snow qualities. Do I think the most fun, most exciting way, the most efficient way to ski most powder conditions is the bouncy way Deb and I and many others like or the newer less turny fast way some of you describe? Not at all. Though I personally tried the latter years ago, I personally preferred slower bouncing short powder turns mainly because decades ago learned to love the visceral feel of doing such and that is most important to this person that skis for the enjoyment.

On the other hand recognize that those skiing powder other ways are having a terrific experience too even though I may not understand why they feel so. Not a few of the latter may also prefer to ski groomed slopes fast with few turns versus lots of short slower turns this bump skier tends to prefer. Fast skiing with large forces has never appealed to this person though I can understand why such appeals to some others. I also am not interested in many of the challenging steep rocky all mountain slopes that excites many others. Just not my personal choice of playing the game for most fun. And I can obviously see they enjoy the way they choose to play just as they can see I also am enjoying my own style. Likewise on mogul slopes my own rec bump style is slower more relaxed than one will see in any pro mogul competitions of turns, speed, air. But hey I can see they really enjoy that style. And that again is fine too.
 
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