1998 PSIA-C Mini-Academy Report Fundamental Movement Patterns
That Make for Good Skiing |
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Day One The 1998 Mini-Academy at Afton Alps in early February brought together three separate events. A two day Race Camp, the two day Women’s Symposium, and the traditional two day Mini-Academy. The Mini-Academy and Women’s Symposium were held on Thursday and Friday, with the Race Camp on Saturday and Sunday. There were five present and former PSIA Demo-Team members there to lead the groups. Megan Harvey from Aspen, Carol Levine from Vail and De Burn from Vail. Megan, Carol and De worked with the Women’s Symposium, though Megan stayed for the Race Camp as well. Scott Mathers from Alta and Shawn Smith from Copper Mountain were present for the Mini-Academy, with Scott staying for the Race Camp. Dave Merriam from Stowe, Vermont was scheduled to be with us as well, but last winter’s notorious flu grounded him. I would estimate that about two-thirds of the participants for these four days had attended at least one these events in the past, a few do so every year. The overall skiing level and enthusiasm of the participants was very high. The snow and weather were exceptional. My report for this year will highlight Scott’s on-snow presentation. The first part of this report will cover our first day with Scott. The second part will be in our next issue of the Central Line, and will cover the second day. These articles are better suited to the “thinkers” and “feelers” in our organization. For the “watchers” and “doers”, find something else to do/watch. Scott has come to Afton for each year that he has been a member of the Demo-Team. I think this goes back to 1988, and I have skied with him for at least half of those times. Scott did have a few messages to impart to the group, but as always, he is a little hesitant to be quoted. When evaluating what is being written about a presentation to a group of skiers, it is easy to come to inaccurate conclusions. Scott’s comments were specific to the groups’ performance at their particular level of accomplishment. As our skills, understanding and equipment evolve, so will our technique. Scott’s presentation highlighted several fundamental moment patterns that make for good skiing. This was not to be taken as an “official PSIA” stance, but rather how Scott is currently organizing his views of skiing. I expect that these will evolve with time and experience. From Scott’s perspective, these fundamental moment patterns
that make for good skiing are: To make this article a bit easier to digest, I will place a “††” at the start and a “……” at the end of each mini-progression. Though each mini-progression is often linked to the next one, they may be a separate area for you or your students to explore. You may even consider developing some of these mini-sessions for your certification teaching presentations. But don’t expect to recreate them exactly as written. Different groups will give different results. We spent considerable time practicing each of the tasks,
and received lots of individual and group feedback from Scott. Often
each task was practiced over one to three runs—mileage! Remember this
as you read about each task. We started out by unbuckling at least our top two buckles, keeping the power strap attached. Optionally, we could loosen the bottom buckles as well. This was to allow us to make adjustments to stay centered over our whole foot, without veering too far forward or too far back. Statically, standing primarily over the unbuckled downhill foot, we slowly flexed very low to continuously feel the center of the arch and the whole foot. Next we extended slowly over the unbuckled downhill foot and made the necessary adjustments to stay centered over the whole foot. We repeated this several times, slowly extending and flexing over the same downhill unbuckled foot until we securely felt centered over this foot while flexing/extending. This is not a simple as you may think while reading. It takes time and deliberate effort to do it well. We repeated this static exercise by flexing and extending slowly over the uphill, unbuckled foot. As with the first task, both feet were on the ground, yet the majority of the weight was centered over the downhill and now the uphill foot. Staying centered over the uphill foot while continuously flexing and extending was more of a challenge. Even more of a challenge was to statically flex and extend over both feet at the same time. This was much more difficult, yet when we became more proficient, our stance became very solid. Most of us found that we had to maintain continuous light to firmer contact/connection against the tongues of our boots and across the heels of our feet. This balanced us across our whole foot. If we were too far forward, we were leveraging the tongues of our boots, often pressing on our toes with our heels raising up in our boots. When too far back, our weight was squarely on our heels and there was neither contact nor light pressure against the tongues of our boots. With boots still unbuckled, we performed these static tasks in a traverse. We did a straight traverse on an intermediate slope, weight primarily on the downhill foot, holding the track as we slowly flexed and extended. Both feet were on the snow as we tried to stay centered over the whole foot of the downhill ski. We skied an entire run of these traverses, slowly flexing and extending, remaining centered on the whole foot. We repeated this task with both feet on the snow, but slowly flexing and extending over the unbuckled uphill ski in an edged traverse. Again this was done slowly for an entire run. Lastly we did this over both feet together in an edged, very carved traverse. We were to ski on our whole foot, both feet as we flex and extend our ankles, knees, hips and spine to control pressure and flow with terrain. This was to be done slowly, deliberately so we could feel and react with all joints moving and adjusting together. By now the group was really dialing into their stance. Some of us ventured into a heavily moguled section of the run while doing our traverses. This helped us to flow with the changes in the terrain while remaining centered over our entire foot. When repeated often, and performed slowly and correctly, these tasks were very challenging and helpful. Scott would refer to our “home plate” as the ability to keep all of our joints working together and staying centered over the entire foot. It is a place that all movements are generated from and when we are on “home plate” we are in good dynamic balance. Scott feels that today’s equipment allows skiers to remain more centered. To make some of the past high-end skis perform, we often had to lunge forward at the start of the turn and rock back on our tails to finish, “whip the tip” and “wail the tail” was often proclaimed and displayed. That is one of the advantages of our better side-cut skis: it takes less exaggeration to get them to perform. We moved to medium radius parallel turns with our boots still unbuckled. We were to still exaggerate extending to start and complete the majority of the turn, while flexing to accentuate the finish. When we extended we were to retain some connection and light pressure against the tongues of both boots, especially the new inside boot at the turn initiation. Most in the group were able to easily steer both skis around the entire turn, with one movement and no stepping or stemming. Stemming or stepping was a compensatory move for a non-centered stance. Some of the common problems that Scott viewed in the group were that a few of the better skiers were over flexed and locked in the ankles. The excess forward ankle flex rarely changed. More of the group members were back and only flexed the knees and waist. This sequence helped both extremes. We buckled our boots and repeated the medium radius parallel turns with the same above sensations and accuracy that the traverses developed. Our turns felt great!…… Many readers this will not appreciate the powerful centered stance that the above sequence can accomplish. We probably spent over one hour performing these tasks while we zeroed in to our ability to work the whole foot. Moving from Turn-to-Turn Scott reminded us to flex and extend to control pressure and flow with the terrain. We moved into a moderately moguled steeper run, and with our boots now unbuckled, we traversed and explored how we flex the ankle to absorb the bumps. We need to flex and actively extend to stay centered over both feet in a traverse in the bumps, and most of us flexed just fine. Next, at the top of the bump, Scott directed us to press the tips of the skis very actively down with the body moving forward and extending as we went into the trough between the bumps. “Extend as you go into the hole to reach the snow,” he told us. We were to press the tips down as we extended our feet, and this was done for an entire run of traverses through the bumps. We were reminded that home base means being centered over the whole foot. Now for a variation, while standing still, we were going to hop and extend off the snow towards the tips of our skis. We had to hold ourselves up with our poles to do this as our tails left the snow. We did these next to initiate a turn and were to come down softly on the tips of the skis and into the arc, this was done with our boots buckled. We did these hop initiations towards the tips of the skis over some bumps, with the goal here to get the tips of our skis to follow the terrain exactly over the bumps and through the turn. Matching the terrain exactly with not too much jump or hop. Slapping of the skis/tips was to be avoided. We were to shape the turns smoothly. This helped many of us to actively move our upper bodies forward as the terrain steepened over the backside of the bumps. All turns in the bumps were initiated with this active extension towards the tips, lifting the tails of our skis 1-2 feet from the snow. We were to come down softly on the tips and into the arc. Eventually we reduced the exaggeration of the hop but still attempted to match the steepening backside of the mogul (terrain) exactly while shaping the turn smoothly. We discovered how much we had to actively move the upper body forward as the terrain steepened on the back side of the mogul, if we were to stay centered over our feet. If we did not make this forward movement, we quickly got behind on our heels. We did several runs of these—practice, practice, practice!…… ††Scott had us then go from a highly edged, railed traverse, to a downhill turn as we crossed the top of a mogul. Our task was to stay centered over the entire foot and to actively move the upper body forward and into the turn and keep the tips of the skis on the snow as they crossed the mogul’s crest. You had to actively extend forward over the drop-off to stay ahead. It was very easy to get back and become stiff in the ankles over the transition. We had to try hard to stay forward on the whole foot and subtle with the ankle. Being able to hold an edge and stay subtle with the ankle joints at first may appear to be in conflict. It’s like being strong and loose in the ankle joints at the same time. Instead of staying strong with the ankles in their lateral (inward and outward) flexing and subtle in the forward flexing, many skiers edge-lock and get back. They lock the lateral and the forward flexing of the ankles and get into the back seat, thereby loosing the ability to adjust and flow with changes in terrain. It is difficult to stay firm laterally and loose in forward flexing of the ankle. It was a challenging task. To reinforce this, we again unbuckled our boots, and held a downhill edged traverse as we flexed and extended slowly. We were to keep pressure on the instep of our arch while doing a highly edged traverse. We held the edge with our lateral flexing of the ankles, yet we were subtle and able to flex and extend the ankle in the forward direction. We rebuckled our boots and did some very high speed railed linked traverses over changing terrain steepness. The goal was to hold the edges firmly with both feet and stay soft/subtle in the ankles and all joints so as to flow with the changes in terrain. This was great fun with lots of speed. There were a few spills as a few locked into a position and could not absorb or react to the changes in the terrain. They quickly became a bit more active the next time they attempted this task.…… “Be subtle enough in the ankles to be able to flow with terrain changes,” proclaimed Scott. We took some free runs and it was time for lunch. The Inside Ski We then hopped on the uphill ski while traversing, landing in the exact same track as we crossed the hill on its uphill edge. We were reminded of the morning lessons of keeping contact against the front of the boot and staying in balance with the entire foot. Then from an uphill ski traverse, we entered into a turn down the hill, keeping the lifted downhill (now inside) ski tip down on the snow. If you get back, you are moving your ski tip into the turn but not your hips. Keep the lifted inside ski tip down on the snow to get your hips to move forward into the turn along with the tips of your skis. To get us forward at the transition in our turns and to flow with the changes, Scott had us do the uphill ski traverse and hop into the turn with the lifted inside ski tip down on the snow. “You’ve got to go when you’ve got to go. Be ahead!”…… ††We then did some very slow and round short radius turns, feeling the pressure on the tongues of both boots during the entire turn, without loosing the connection against the tongues of either boots at any one time or phase of the turn. The result was the inside ski—both skis effortlessly diving into the turns as both ankles flexed to keep the tips connected with changes in turns and terrain. Prior to this, many only felt pressure against the tongue of the outside boot. With pressure/connection against the inside boot as well, the activity of the inside ski was enhanced. We were to finish each of these slow parallel short radius turns centered on both skis. To do this, flex against both tongues then roll, edge, and steer both skis with one movement into the turn. If you are back, the uphill ski often rails forward at this transition. We were asked to feel a little pressure on the uphill “pinky/little” toe and roll it over to the big toe side, through the tongue of the boot as we entered the new turn.…… We release and engage our edges with a lateral/diagonal (forward) movement with your feet, knees and center of mass, and use one (connected) movement to make this happen. This is the second fundamental moment pattern that Scott had us work on. The last few sequences and the next few worked towards this goal. ††In short radius fall-line turns, the body generally goes straight down the fall-line as the skis arc from side-to-side. We were directed to move the body down the hill and to stand on both feet as we exited each turn, and do all we could to not get rocked back in these short radius fall-line turns.…… I always like how Scott finishes his day. He will stand at the bottom of a challenging slope and have us ski laps past him. He will pull one of us at a time to the side for individual feedback as the rest of us continue to practice. It is a nice touch for feedback and personal practice time. The activities that were covered during the second day with Scott will be in the next issue of the Central Line. Day Two This article details the second day of PSIA-C’s 1998 Mini-Academy with Scott Mathers. I encourage you to reread the previous article highlighting day one of the Mini-Academy in the last issue of the Central Line. That refamiliarization will increase your understanding of this article, for the two days built on each other. As a review from the first article, Scott’s presentation highlighted several fundamental moment patterns that make for good skiing. This was not to be taken as an “official PSIA” stance, but rather how Scott is currently organizing his views of skiing. From Scott’s perspective, these fundamental moment patterns
that make for good skiing are: As a reminder to make this article a bit easier to digest, I will place a “††” at the start and a “……” at the end of each mini-progression. Though each mini-progression is often linked to the next one, they may be a separate area for you or your students to explore. You may even consider developing some of these mini-sessions for your certification teaching presentations. Scott reviewed some of the fundamentals of the previous day. We wanted to be able to flex and not be locked in both ankles, be able to finish our turns with some pressure against the tongues of both boots, and try to balance on the whole foot, not levering too far forward or aft. Inside Leg Release |
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