http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Journal entries by Debbie Armstrong en-us http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php PHP http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Ok gang, so the ski season is right around the corner. This is the time to be getting after your conditioning for the season. Proper ski technique and appropriate equipment are keys to success in the sport but in general people don’t appreciate how important conditioning is. Whatever level skier you are, improved fitness will improve your skiing. Check out the new ski conditioning tips on that page. 2006-09-06 22:34:08 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php When we speak and write about ski technique ideas are never fixed. We are referring to our current thinking at the moment. This is what makes skiing so compelling - its evolution, intricacies, variables. What follows is a list, in brief, of my thoughts while at Hood over the past couple days. Conditions were groomed snow and sunny. I was skiing on slalom skis making slalom turns in gates and free skiing. 1) No leaning in with the shoulders. Only lean from the knees down. Drill – ski down keeping both pole tips on the snow throughout the entire turn. 2) Moving to my skis and not to the turn helped me stay over my skis and not get inside. 3) While running slalom I have the tendency to get squatty, or getting lower and lower, limiting my ability to open my hips and recenter over my feet in between turns. My goal was to open my hips more but I had trouble doing this by focusing any movement on my hip area. I had success opening the hip by reaching my outside foot back at turn initiation. This movement extended my hip flexor and I got the hip extension I was looking for without my body extending in an upward motion at all. 2006-07-31 11:16:58 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php I was quickly reminded at how strong I need to be to ski my high end, finely tuned equipment at a level meeting my expectations. This sport takes strength, power, and quickness. I skied a 155 slalom ski with a three degree side bevel and a one degree base. My new Nordica Dobermann 150 had just been set up with a six mm lifter throughout the entire sole of the boot. This combination of equipment was awesome but it is very easy for my technical abilities to exceed my physical conditioning abilities these days. I can edge the ski, bend it and develop forces on this equipment that will trampoline me off the slope very quickly if I am not careful. My point is that I have been inspired and motivated once again to get after my training routine NOW. July 31st is not too early. Biking is always part of my conditioning program throughout the year but now I need to get more strength and power specific. 2006-07-31 10:22:46 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 2006-05-24 16:49:37 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php The annual PSIA Academy and NSP Powderfall are wrapped up. What follows are some notes of what transpired. My objective is to give a general idea of certain exercises and teaching points that we covered. Chapters have been written about many of these thoughts. There is so much material and my goal is to get some of it out there. If I try to get too in-depth and precise then these thoughts will never reach the site. So the goal here is to remind participants of some of the content we covered and offer food for thought to visitors of the site. Please contact me for further explanation or questions. General theme, continuous movement - continuous, precise, sometimes delicate movements generated from within the body. Of course we move when we ski. Our skis take us down the hill. But I am talking about movements generated from within the body. This can be tipping/edging movements, flexing and extending movements or turning/rotary movements. Consider the park and ride syndrome. Where the skier tips the skis onto edge but stops developing edge angle or angles in their body and waits for the ski to complete the arc. Today’s skis are meant to turn and they do this easily but we must maintain continuous movement from within the body throughout the entire turn. The next three entries will include the specific content. 2006-04-28 12:23:16 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Stance and balance: Strive to always remain perpendicular to the hill. Look ahead, read the terrain, anticipate terrain changes and “work” or strive to maintain the proper balance. The idea of keeping the femurs vertical helped some. I placed people’s ski tips on my thighs/knees (as I was kneeling on the snow with my skis off) and asked folks to get more forward into their boots which brought them into balance. While their ski tips were off the snow, (resting on my knees) I asked them to notice how their ski tips were loaded up and bent. I then asked the skier to get back onto her/his heels and notice how that “unloaded” their ski tips. Returning to the balanced position the ski tips once again became engaged, loaded and bent. We are always striving to engage the entire length of the ski. 2006-04-28 12:22:23 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Turning/rotary skills: People speak of the separation of the upper and lower halves of the body. How about the separation between the foot and the lower leg? Again, this fits into the continuous movement theme. When in the bumps or crud folks often would make one large, abrupt, sometimes desperate, movement followed by a total lack of movement. Why make such an attempt at a frantic movement followed by nothing at all? Sounds manic to me. In this instance keep moving or keep turning the legs under the stable upper body but don’t stop there. Keep moving or turning even more. Get that final 8th or 16th of the turn by continuing to steer the feet just a bit more. Use that ankle joint! We think of our ankles often when edging the ski but it comes in handy also when turning the ski by way of more rotary motion (this is not to be mistaken as a pivot or heal thrust). In the crud we need a very disciplined core or midsection. One’s arms can not put them in balance but the arms sure can take one out of balance. Strive for functional tension in the arms and core - not rigid but not loose and sloppy either. Tension from the core allows for the lower body to move, turn, flex and extend. 2006-04-28 12:16:27 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Carving/tipping skills: We talked about “working” the left thigh down the hill to the left to turn left. Simultaneously this left leg gets shorter as one turns to the left. Notice how the arch of the inside foot also flashes to the sky. This helps to get the edge of the inside ski on an equal edge angle to that of the outside ski. Wanting to highlight the inside leg activity that is necessary to edge the inside ski we did another exercise. We placed our pole vertically along the downhill side of the thigh of our downhill leg, (place the tip of the pole into the snow right next to the pinky toe boot buckle. Then bring the pole right along your thigh and tight up against it.) We then used ankle and thigh movement to bend the pole (don’t not twist or move your hip). This generated tension and tipping movements of the new inside leg. We are talking a lot these days of the movement of the inside leg. Don’t confuse this talk with equal pressuring of both legs. We did an exercise with our skis off. One person stood between two others who were facing the middle person. The single person moved laterally between the other two (as they provided resistance) trying to push them over as weight was redistributed between the two feet. “Redistributed” here does not mean a total weight transfer. 2006-04-28 12:16:06 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php "Even if your on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there." I heard this in a country song (not remembering the artist). This quote will become a motto in my skiing. 2006-04-08 22:29:35 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php Thanks for the visits you epicski folks. Let me get in on this conversation and then we can continue it in January of 07! As for the "rolling of the ankles to rotate the buckles to the snow" this looks to be what is happening (in reference to the moving sequence of shots on the homepage). I do think of this as a fine tuning mechanism but this is not my power move. I think of my movments coming out of the core. This movement promotes larger muscle groups and can be more structural - from there I fine tune my edge angles with some knee and ankle. Above I said "from there" - these movements are not sequencial. Of course movements work together as Weems stated in his notes. To keep to the initial question however, I do think of my ankles a lot. For me I don't think of tipping the buckles into the snow of the inside ski as much as I think of rolling the arch of that foot to the sky. Then of course, I am always striving to maintain the tension in that ankle joint for ankle flexion. 2006-04-08 22:23:42 http://debbiearmstrong.com/debs_journal.php So Debbiearmstrong.com is off the ground. You will notice that some pages aren’t complete. Expect that by September, 2006. My goal with the site is to reach the ski enthusiast - that professional or recreational skier who understands there is always more to learn. I have learned more about skiing since winning my Gold Medal than prior to it and I plan on continuing to learn through discussions with you. With this journal page I intend to share what I learn and discover on a daily basis as a PSIA Alpine Team Member, active instructor and race enthusiast. This summer and fall I will discuss ski conditioning. Next winter the journal will include lesson entries (both successes and flops), equipment thoughts, US Ski Team insights, answers to your questions and so on. I hope to generate thought and with this will come opinions. My opinions will be shared here and I expect I will be hearing yours. I hope to anyway. So here we go. I hope you enjoy the site. 2006-03-16 21:04:49