Better edge grip and last all day when you're out on the mountain.
So what exactly is too far forward in your ski stance, and what is too far back.
Well, today I'd like to help you find that sweet spot in your ski stance that will help you get
better edge grip and last all day when you're out on the mountain.
I'm Tom Gellie from Big Picture Skiing and you're tuned in to Carv's Technique Teardown.
To help us with this topic of stance and the sweet spot, Paula has sent in some skiing footage
from Heavenly ski resort, Lake Tahoe. Now Paula is a self-professed intermediate
trying to break through to that upper intermediate-advanced level and she's just
gotten back into skiing in the last two years. Now her goal, and this is a great goal,
she wants to ski in Avories France this winter with her best friend Natalie, and Natalie's an
expert, so she knows there's a difference in their ability level, and she's frustrated,
Paula is frustrated with her edging ability. She finds she can't get that much grip, as well as
when she's using Carv she's finding that Carv is telling him that her stance is often too far back,
so let's take a look at Paula's skiing now to get a little bit more of an idea of what's going on.
A couple of things that really stick out is the skidding through the end of the turn, so right
there. And a good way to be able to identify this, is i'm going to draw in her skis, so two sets of
skis here. As I scrub forward in slow motion, what you notice is her body is not going across
the hill very much. Okay it's actually drifting down the hill. Now your ski edges are there,
when they're biting, we should see Paula move across the screen in this direction, but it's
it's more down the hill, so gravity's kind of winning and she's not able to find that grip.
We can also see that like her stance like doesn't look totally comfortable, okay,
so there's not really a platform there, her hands sort of held in this position,
is a pretty good giveaway to me that the stance is not really feeling great for her.
We can also see on the other side here, this is a really good one to look at
the fact that she looks to be leveraging a lot on the front of the boot and we heard
Paula say that she's really, you know, she's hearing feedback on her stance not being right
and not far enough forward, so her, how, or how she's trying to get forward is her whole body
is really leveraging forward and it's really giving away to me that the cuff of the boot is
being kind of crushed, and that's what she's I guess intuitively trying to do to get forward.
So I mentioned that, when I ski i'm more feeling the soles of my feet, okay, so let's contrast this
shin pressure with sole of foot pressure. So i've got a bone, my lower lower leg bone here and my
boot, and i'm just going to show you that if at the end of the turn, your focus is on trying to
drive forward like this, you can see that the back of the boot lifts up, so if you just extended your
sort of imagination here to there being a ski along here, as soon as you do too much of this
you're actually going to lose contact back here with the ski.
So even if you have got a lot of edge angle you actually might be losing the contact and pressure
along the edge from the foot back so this shin is a lever you got to be sort of careful with
it. As opposed to thinking about the soles of your feet, the sensitivity you want to practice
Paula is actually feeling the ball your foot and the front of the heel so the whole sort of
length of the foot here simultaneously, so the ball the foot is kind of your contact with
the tip of the ski, the heel with the back of the ski. So together evenly you've got both.
Now, second, the shin, instead of pushing it forward and kind of focusing on crushing
the boot and shin pressure here. You could actually just have some light shin pressure
and focus on the shin moving, this direction which is again going to help you concentrate
the sensitivity and awareness and pressure of your feet being felt under here, and so with your
Carv inserts, you could actually do a monitor mode of fore/aft balance and just test this
out so you'll be able to get feedback in real-time about whether you know what the difference is
between pushing this way, and the soles of the feet sensitivity sweet spot being in here moving,
the shin moving more just laterally. Let's have a look at some skiing of myself compared with Paula
just to get an even better idea of how this sweet spot looks and the difference in the two stances
So the first place I want to look at when comparing, is just the
start of the turn. So it's really rushed, and the rushing could be down to the fact that Paula is
really focused on trying to get forward and throw the knee in really quickly. So she's got
these two things going on, and again, I think that's going to take away from being patient
and focusing on feeling under the soles of her feet to begin with. So back and forth
back and forth here, you can sort of see this intention of like 'I gotta get forward'.
Now we contrast that with the start of some basic carve turns of mine here, and you can see the
start of the turn is quite patient, and there's not an excessive forward movement, In fact you see
a lot more change going on in the shins laterally, and i can tell you at this moment I'm trying to
sense, I would have you know, finished the turn a little bit more sort of like on the on the back
of my arch, so there's a little bit of forward movement but remember your foot is not that long
so i've moved from the heel to the ball of the foot just slightly, but not so much that i create
this leverage again you know, we're not we're not going that far. So fore and a aft balance
is really like a subtle thing. So it's at this moment i'm trying to sense through my feet,
that those those contact points, so ball the foot and heel at the same time
and then as i go around i'm just trying to for a carve turn anyway maintain that feeling so
my fore and a aft adjustments are always sensed through my feet and in this small sweet spot zone.
Now if we come around to the end of the turn where Paula and I are together here, and if I
overlay the two, this should help to show the difference in the stance, and also that the skis
are not gripping because of where the stance is, so you can sort of see when they're side by side
that there is a look of Paula trying to really drive forward here, whereas at this moment I'm
telling you I'm really focused on staying in the center of that ski so it grips and the cool thing
is, so now you can see this idea that when the ski grips and the skis are pointed across the hill,
I go, across the hill, whereas Paula is not really making as much of a move there especially this
phase here so she's moving more down the mountain even with the skis pointed across the hill.
So let's look at an indoor exercise for you Paula and for everyone else out there to see
if we can fine tune that sensitivity in the feet and not overpower that leverage with the shin.
Okay Paula and crew you can put a ski board on if you want it's going to really help but
not necessary. The first thing i want you to feel is the difference between driving all your
pressure into the cuff of the boot and focusing on that, and i want you to be aware that that changes
the pressure under your foot to being just all the ball of the foot and even beyond that, especially
without skis on, see how my boot lifts. Okay so this is not going to help our quest to try and
get the skis to grip. Contrast this with allowing your body weight to drop down slightly through
your legs into the ball of the foot and the heel more evenly, so creating a sort of an even
distribution of weight here. Don't need to go too low, once you've got the pressure there that's it.
Now notice from this angle if i'm there sunk down i can tip my legs far more easily across when i
uh have the pressure even, if i now drive and crush the boot and really try and be forward and
do it i automatically feel that my legs need to start A-framing to give me support, as opposed to
the even pressure the even pressure is much easier to maintain symmetry in my legs. Crushing the boot
tends to give me the A-frame, you're going to lose the tail of the ski it is going to
slide out even when you're trying to really drive the knee over to a higher edge angle.
Now we really do also need to cover like shin contact because it is an important cue to feel,
but this is what i want you to take away. When you feel shin contact this is a cue a sign
that you have an athletic flex in your ankle, and enough. So once the contact is there you're done,
focus on the soles of the feet. So your brain is in two places, the shin contact tells you
that you're not losing your ankle flexion that it's there but then the sole the feet tells you
you've got control over the entire length of the ski for when you need to create grip and edge it.
In summary, fore and aft balance and skiing is quite a small subtle adjustment,
okay our feet are not very big so remember when you really want that ski to bite and grip, too
much shifting of fore and aft is going to actually be a detriment and make the ski skid more.
So Paula and intermediates out there be a little more patient feel through the soles of your feet
more, and if you're going to be feeling the shin against the front of the boot remember
this is just your cue this is some feedback to tell you that you have got your ankle flexed.
I hope you enjoyed this series of technique teardowns from Carv,
I hope to see you on the next one.