My skiing is in the crapper

Hey all you instructors out there..I need help..My skiing has gone to shit..
I need to change my old ways .. by the way these were taken yesterday at Platt

are u on a mono board

Hey I'm looking for Help not some wise ass remark!!

that was the help

You got your legs squeezed tighter together than the chick you took to prom

I'm no expert, but that lean is so far over and off of the skis, I wonder how you keep an edge.  

Move to Roxbury. Nothing an extra 30 days on the hill wouldn't fix (true for us all)

Jason

you have a stance issue.  Your feet should be under your hips.  Try imagining skiing with a basketball between your legs for a few hours

hands need to be in front and to the side
Try keeping your hands out side your elbows and in your pheriphal vision

Also look a bit aft in balance so keep some ankle flex and shin pressure on you boot cuffs

Is that really you? Because yeah, skimore is right. Your legs are too close together and it's not allowing you to use the skis as they were designed.

Just as a little experiment, stick you skis together like that, tilt onto your edges, and figure out the highest edge angle you can achieve. Then separate your skis, and do the same thing. Notice anything.

While standing, jump up as high as you can on your skis and land. Where you land is where your skis should be for most of your skiing. I'll allow you to be a little narrower on bumps and pow, but not on those easy groomers. You should be tearing those up like Ligety.

first thanks for all the advise..I might run up to placid this sunday ..

Coach Z wrote

Jason
Also look a bit aft in balance so keep some ankle flex and shin pressure on you boot cuffs

First day on new boots and it was bellow zero..yeah I know  excuses..

mattchuck2 wrote

While standing, jump up as high as you can on your skis and land. Where you land is where your skis should be for most of your skiing. I'll allow you to be a little narrower on bumps and pow, but not on those easy groomers.

I'm not an instructor.  However, being an old dog who had done things the same way for close to 30 years, I figured it was time to learn some new tricks, up my carving game.  Over the past two seasons I've spent some time with Bill Fisher, an excellent PSIA Level III instructor at Whiteface.

The first thing I needed to do, and I still need to do better, is widen my stance.  It's the first thing I thought looking at your pictures.  The tip MC2 had above is what Bill used to give my kids a sense of what their stance should be like.  You want to be in a natural position, and when you use that tip your body will end up where it naturally wants to be.  Widening the stance is one thing.  Good luck keeping it there.....I'm struggling with that a little.  Old habits die hard!

Second thing I noticed was what Coach said about your lean.  Looks like you are using the lean to get your skis on edge, with your only angulation being at the hip.  Widening your stance will correct that some, as leaning will be more difficult with the feet apart.  However, as Coach said....hips need to be over the feet. Only way that happens is if you get your angulation at the knees, as opposed to the hips.  Think 'roll the knees', both equally to put both skis on edge, to achieve that angulation.

Not easy to be critical of yourself and, even though you can ski just about anything, anywhere, conclude that you need to get better.  I'm glad I did that, as my skiing time is so much more fun now than it was before, when I was already having a good time skiing well.  Laying down a Ligety set of rails is an absolute blast.  I've gotten there on blues and stuff like Mountain Run.....but those old habits creep back in on things like Skyward.  Props to you for looking at your skiing, and looking for tips!

If you are going to be at Whiteface, think about a lesson.  I'm pretty comfortable calling myself an expert skier, as weekend warriors go.  Even so, taking a lesson last season was the best thing I've done for my skiing in 30 years.  I took a group lesson the Monday of MLK weekend.  Not many experts take lessons, so my group lesson ended up being a private with Bill.  I don't know if you'd be lucky enough to end up with Bill in a group lesson, but WF doesn't have many Level III instructors, so on a Sunday.....who knows.

My experience with that lesson was so good that I booked Bill for an all day private this year, to get instruction for the kids (private wasn't that much more than putting the 3 kiddos in an all day program), with some additional work for myself.  

The lessons have been well worth the money and time invested.  A two hour group lesson with an expert instructor might be just what you need.

Slightly off topic, but yet still on topic....kind of

Had a conversation with a long time GP skier / racer / ripper / local professional photographer-video guy Sunday at GP. GP used to have a FREE video "station" on skiers right of Illiad, it was half way down the trail and was aprox  300 vert long. Anyone could stop and get video'd with free critique by an instructor and the end of the "course". It was such a great tool to improve one's skiing. I've been involved with PSIA and have attended many a clinic, but I learned almost as much about my personal skiing from that little video shack as anything.


Back on topic ---- Coach and MC obviously are spot on about your stance. Correct that and it will feel so much better for you. Best skiing tip I ever got was to point your pecker down the hill and eff your way into the next one.

WOW you look like you are right out of the 80's.

Think linebacker stance.  Feet should be at your shoulders.  Fists out in front of you.   Go to relatively flat spot and do the proper turn as many times as you can to the point you are not even moving.  Then move up to something steeper and do the same thing.  Make so many proper turns you are barely moving.  Then go steeper until you can go on the steepest trail and do the drill.  Then you can start to let you skis run keeping the same position.

You are going to be skidding you turns at low speed with the proper form.  

All that said if you are having fun does what you look like really matter?

tjf1967 wrote

WOW you look like you are right out of the 80's.

Think linebacker stance.  Feet should be at your shoulders.  Fists out in front of you.   Go to relatively flat spot and do the proper turn as many times as you can to the point you are not even moving.  Then move up to something steeper and do the same thing.  Make so many proper turns you are barely moving.  Then go steeper until you can go on the steepest trail and do the drill.  Then you can start to let you skis run keeping the same position.

You are going to be skidding you turns at low speed with the proper form.  

All that said if you are having fun does what you look like really matter?

This sounds like good advice..I'm off next week..I'm going to park myself on a green trail...

Yeah I have fun, but I know I look and ski like a shamo ...

tjf1967 wrote

All that said if you are having fun does what you look like really matter?

Yes

At least my equipment and fashion is up to date

tjf1967 wrote

All that said if you are having fun does what you look like really matter?

Fair question, but wouldn't you agree that proper form and technique, that best puts today's shaped skis to work for you, can make what used to be fun....even more fun?  

Yeah, I guess I want to look good going down the mountain, but more so than that, when you really hit the carving sweet spot it feels like you are floating down the mountain, upper body not moving much, as you carve rails down the hill.  It's a great feeling, and one that will be hard to achieve without proper technique.

I was having fun skiing my whole life but I lacked that pure carve, and now that I have it (not everywhere yet) I'm having even more fun.  Also makes skiing less of an effort, which is nice.

On the subject of looking good, I'm always looking at people coming down the hill.  One, to appreciate a pure carve, and two, to see if there is anything I can take away and add to my turns.  Was kind of gratifying for my daughter earlier this year.  Her cousin was taking a lesson.  On the lift the instructor, not knowing the girls were related, pointed my daughter out as she skied, noting her good technique.

I have a dead quite upper body, but I'm not carving properly..It's time to learn..

As both Matt and I said we would start with your stance and work from there

I'm not available this weekend since my son is racing at West.  I recommend taking a lesson with Bill Fischer.  Tell him I sent ya.

I taught an x and current wife to ski.  Both can rip.  My wife is a little lax on her form but I and confident I can take her most places...and have for that matter.  When a person learns to set an edge they can ski just about anything.  That wiggle turn you got going on does come in handy so don't forget it.