Drive the bases...

[John_B]

I've never mentally gybed with driving a ski with my shins and haven't cared to examine why that is but a couple of posts here perfectly describe how I feel skiing. I may still look like a chimp roller skating in gravel but it feels smooth damnit!

[kc_7777]

On a cat skiing trip.

This thread speaks to me.

Will comment when I get back.

KC


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[SnowMachine]

Funny that it was mentioned already... I'm from a semi professional watersports background, also. Reverse skis in soft snow completely make sense to me. I ski them almost like I'm using the tips to scoop the snow and then transition my weight through the whole length of the ski to finish the turn. You can also drift the ski sideways weighted in the center, to bleed speed or change trajectory. Love it!!

I still think about my skiing almost everywhere except pow. I'm pretty sure I ski with some guys that just go.

[east or bust]

“Drive the bases” needs to be a sticker.


The stacked position is really essential especially for lighter skiers like myself who don’t have the mass to throw at the front of the boot, but have no problem actually flexing the boot when properly aligned (biomechanically speaking). You derive all of your power when your feet are under you.

It would be cool to have some kind of active monitoring pressure sensor in a footbed to see where your weight is throughout a run. I can appreciate that upthread post by EWG about all the different use cases for pressuring those planks we all slide around on other than just hammering GS turns.

[Island Bay]

"Don't tell anybody I said this to you, because you're a tailgunner, but the tails of your skis are actually faster if you can control it. The problem with being a tailgunner is we lose control too easily. But if you can actually harness that, you'll keep winning."

Thank you. That and the soles of your feet thing makes a lot of sense to me.

Really looking forward to seeing where I can go on my AM100s - and how the transition back and forth with LP105s goes.

[kamtron]

This makes me want to get some reverse camber skis. I've enjoyed rocker-camber-rocker for a while but haven't gone to the dark side.

[EWG]

There this really cool book called The Body Has A Mind of It's Own. it's all about how the brain maps the world around you, and one of it's points is that if you have a tool that you're really expert in (a blind person's cane, for example) you eventually start mapping that in your brain as if it's part of your actual body - the cane becomes just a long arm on your brain map. Fascinating.

When I was little skiing was like that (I think it is for everyone). But then sometime in high school the idea of chasing the perfect carved turn took over and I lost that feeling of the skis just being large feet that I could do all kinds of stuff with, and I simply started trying to make that perfect carved turn happen, every time.

At some point I gave that up and started playing again like I was a kid. (I remember drinking in a group of expert skiers and we're having a conversation about this new turn called "slarving." How the hell was that ever "new"?!?) And then the wall broke down and instead of getting that constant mental/brain feedback on whether my skis were hooking up right or my knees were in the right place or if my shins were pressed on the right part of my boot, instead of that my boots and even my skis started just to feel like my feet. I played a lot of soccer at a high level and the idea that your feet were tools to manipulate outside things, and to change movement patterns based on shape and pressure and power, was pretty innate. I started thinking of my skis like that. Or more correctly started to feel my skis as feet that could do that stuff.

When I got on a pair of sick days 10 years ago it just took off, then Jeffrey's after that, cause they could be skied differently, and all these new areas of the ski to use opened up.

This is kind of taking it further than Gaj meant to probably, but I think the point is that that perfect carved turn is one of about 40 ways to move a ski. It's just an arrow in the quiver - and frankly, that's true even for most racers.

The very few world class skiers that have understood this innately since they were very young are truly a joy to watch, and they are typically successful at any event they focus on: moguls, speed, SL, FWT, whatever. It transcends technique. Look at Candide: French Mogul champion at 14, then 720 flat D over Chad's gap, then half pipe and big air in 2000 and 2001, now maybe the best freeride skier ever.

Don't learn technique. Learn how to move the ski. Driving the bases is a core concept to opening up the whole ski.

[pfluffenmeister]

Base ...

How low can you go ???

[XXX-er]

[AK47bp]

Base ...

How low can you go ???

Thanks for the flashback

https://youtu.be/hgJdRkm1t3E?si=7Ow6zdLlV3mSCDpK


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[singlecross]

This thread came to mind while I was out playing some pond hockey today. I realized how much ice skating is controlled through the soles of your feet (especially balls of your feet and big toe) and all without a shin high cuff to brace against. Balance and edging requirements above those needed for skiing. I’ve never minded softer flexing ski boots as I grew up playing hockey and like the ankle flexion from my time skating. No wonder hockey players are usually pretty good skiers. I think east or bust played hockey as well? Your thoughts?

Maybe I’m just East Coast and love ice.

[pfluffenmeister]

“Drive the bases” needs to be a sticker.


The stacked position is really essential especially for lighter skiers like myself who don’t have the mass to throw at the front of the boot, but have no problem actually flexing the boot when properly aligned (biomechanically speaking). You derive all of your power when your feet are under you.

It would be cool to have some kind of active monitoring pressure sensor in a footbed to see where your weight is throughout a run. I can appreciate that upthread post by EWG about all the different use cases for pressuring those planks we all slide around on other than just hammering GS turns.

I'm also light ~155# and jibe with this.

This is called “retraction” and can be very useful. I used to coach it when athletes would get their feet out in front of them and end up backseat, especially in a transition to a steeper pitch on the course.

With reverse camber skis I find it useful as there seems like less traditional tail on them to support the end of the turn and your feet can slip out in front of you. Retracting your feet back up and under you works great on reverse camber skis, especially to ski steeper powder lines without bobbing up and down and also mogul skiing to keep head and shoulders steady and use lower body to absorb terrain.

Slice feet forward mid turn, then retract up and back to reset for the top of the next turn, repeat, repeat, smile, repeat.

I felt retraction taking place underneath me as I was crushing steep groomers at Jackson.
It was cool.

[gaijin]

Huh... I'm also 155#. I always felt small and more of a finesse skier than a power house. I wonder if the reverse camber world just taught me to be okay with that instead of trying to be a power house.

[emotional freedom]"DRIVE TEH BASES" IS AN EXPRESSION TO COMING OUT AND BEING WHO I REALLY AM! [/emotional freedom]

And who I really am is a ballerina.

NTTAWWT.

[skinipenem]

Gajin, thanks for taking me up on the suggestion to expand your ideas from the HL FR/R110 thread. Very intriguing.
I was most interested in your take on how reverse cambered techniques transfer to cambered skis. Thanks for expanding the topic.

I had forgotten about retraction technique. Super useful technique to get dialed into the center of a ski and definitely helpful for moguls.

Soles of the feet is where it is at for me. The challenge is how to stack the rest of my body to be in alignment at the correct time to keep my feet as the primary sensory and motor input devices. What drives me crazy is out of alignment boots that throws everything else just a little or lot out of whack and really takes away from the finesse experience of having gooey relaxed feet communicating with the brain, and skiing with flow, and power.

none of this might make any sense. still early season for me; too much working.

[gaijin]

I was most interested in your take on how reverse cambered techniques transfer to cambered skis. Thanks for expanding the topic.

To keep it simple-- I now ski my cambered skis the same as I ski my reverse skis. Whereas I used to have different technique between skis.

In detail-- when I first got on reverse camber, and adapted, I had trouble re-adapting back to my carvers. So one day would be a powder day, then the next would be a groomer day and it was always awkward. It would take me a few runs of standing on my shins and trying to get back into the zone of railing. After a while, a few weeks, or a season or whatever of doing that I just kind of said fuck it, ski these like you do your others and now I do. I don't ski my trad-cambers from my shin, I ski them from my soles. That's been my whole epiphany.

I don't really unweight them anymore either, but I do retract them as mentioned above. I didn't really know retraction was a technique or an even a term-- but now that singlecross explained it, I get it. "Oh, yeah, that's part of it, too." It really is like standing in the middle of a saucer sled that just so happens to be directional.

The most fun thing on my cambered skis now is carving, drifting into a surf to scrub speed because the terrain is getting steep, then feathering back into a carve but from my tail to my tip (instead of the other way around) and then accelerating like a bat out of hell into the runout as the ski engages into a full carve again. It's a little different than a stivot, per se, because not all stivots are defined as engaging the tail of the edge first. But I'm not all familiar with modern coaching language, either. So correct me if I'm just regurgitating (or discovering) what coaches articulate daily.

I was watching River Radmus talk about it, but he simplified it quite a bit and didn't go into much about technique. Just kind of referred to it as a way of setting up for the next gate. And being as I'm not in gates, our motives are a bit different. He's working on timing and direction, I'm out in the open working on sensation and looking at the approaching terrain to open them up.

[Mustonen]

Two thoughts:

- I’ve described some of this to struggling skiers as staying in the middle of your possible motions. That’s really what we mean when we say “face the fall line” or “stay in an athletic stance.” When we turn right across the fall line, our most likely next motion is going to be to transition in the opposite direction, and we’ll be more responsive and be able to generate a lot more power if our body is coiled for that next move. It’s important to remember, though, that in a long radius turn the likelihood of that next motion being in the opposite direction is less, so it makes sense for your shoulders to face more in the direction of travel than strictly down the fall line. AND it’s always in the realm of possibility that you’ll have to cut further uphill to avoid a rock or tree or snowboarder so you can’t coil too tightly, no matter your turn shape. Same thing goes for up and down motion and remaining flexed and stacked at all times… though that’s a lot more intuitive and obvious and there isn’t quite so much dogma to work against with that one. The point is, consider all the places you might need to go and stay as close to the middle of those motions as possible, weighted toward likelihood.

- With more traditional, cambered skis I used to pursue more upper/lower body articulation to achieve higher edge angles, plus it felt cool. Dallying my rens for years, though, that didn’t work. I found that I had a lot more steering control if they were always underfoot and I remained pretty vertically stacked at all times, even if I was leaned way over in a carve. It’s fun to be able to do that when I get on more traditional skis, but more and more I find I just always stay stacked and feel that sensation of retraction in transitions rather than that hip movement. Possible my hips are just getting old, too, and don’t move the way they used to.

Hoji is a reference point for this… is Mark Abma, too?

[ktoor]

this has been a really helpful thread. my background is coming to skiing late (last 10 years and mostly backcountry) and just getting a couple days on my first reverse camber ski (bc110).

i have had lots of fun but for me the challenges and parts im figuring out are:
- given the mount, how little ski is in front of me, 'feels' like ill be less stablr at speed
- finding my balance always; when pitches get steeper i am doing alot of fore/aft adjustment with my body to find the sweet spot. when i want to scrub speed i really lean back rather than using my edges just because my body naturally finds that feels good

lots of good enjoyable parts (sliding around on bases is really fun, love how easy to pivot they are when things get tight) but wondering if the above is all me getting used to this type of ski. ill be keeping the main ideas from up thread in mind while skiing tomorrow (staying stacked, initiating turns with pinky/toe, driving through the bases more).

fun learnings all round though. snow has been great round whistler area as well; hard not to enjoy.


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[Core Shot]

Great ideas here.

Last two winters getting more into progressive mounts. That and more reverse.

It is different coming from old school pressure the shin habits.
But it is refreshing. Not just something new. But really just standing there. Like when you don’t have skis on. You just stand there. On your feet.
Relaxed.
Intuitive.
Fun.

[skinipenem]

Thx gaijin for entertaining my request to start this thread

Core Shot, you got me thinking about dynamic ankle flexion and extension through the turn. Deb Armstrong recently revisited the topic in one of her vids that the algorithm popped. I think ankle flexion and (extension) works with reverse cambered skis too, perhaps to a lesser degree though.. I find myself much more centered skiing the unicycle then the full suspension.

[EWG]

One note, cause Ive been thinking about this over the last month now and then - Pretty sure even the most committed progressive skiers will have their shins into front of the boots when things get really steep - like maybe 35+ angles. I do it for sure, often without even thinking about it. Keeps your skis form getting out in front and happens naturally as you retract for each turn.