BottomUporTopDown? Tele Updates

Our dedicated instructors could say "Both".
That would be enough to quell my fire.
OK. The Hard Word. What do you say ?

Latest poster from across the Pacific to face a ban:
"
Henry said: ↑
I was skiing with a woman who had the too-many-lessons/not-enough-skiing syndrome. She asked for suggestions.
I had her drill with the double pole drag. Both poles pressed hard down into the snow out to the sides, never allow a pole tip to lift off the snow. This got her reacting to the pitch of the slope. I added counter to the double pole drag where by the end of the turn she was double-dragging with the inside pole tip ending up near her inside ski tip and the outside pole tip near her outside ski tail. A couple of runs like this, then just ski. She was skiing the hill instead of skiing the formula. Her skis were on edge doing the work for her. She was in balance. She had a big grin. She bought me a beer."

The Response:

"If only you wouldn't have written that sentence about counter I would have bought in hook, line and sinker plus given you a million "likes" !
You aren't advocating active rotation (counter) of the upper body are you? We don't counter, counter happens. As you rightly stated, the disciplined of dragging of the poles will promote proper stance/balance leading to a countered state but from the bottom up not the top down.

May have misunderstood and if so, my apologies."

 

So, they will only get past that mental block if they end up as elite racing models.
Once apon a time, everybody enjoyed wedeln as a passport to edged turns.

 

It is not that you cannot do it, it is forbidden for you to even try. Are you forbidden from trying PMTS, too ?
PMTS discourages Deb Armstrong's leg steering thing.

That was from a demo run from a German society.
I think that initiation was to make the method obvious to the skiers who say "Nothing to it !"
And proceed to do slow short turns or bounce their skis from side to side.
Core anticipation is so powerful that most cannot spot the small but essential movements of a top wedelner.
Even the arm movement timing of an intermediate completely escapes them.

 

Core muscles are the strongest in the body.
A blinkered view will continue to insist that we are seeing rotation WITHIN the turn.
When did the lights go out ?
Even in 1956:
"
1956: WEDELN IS HERE TO STAY. Wedeln is a simple, effective, graceful way to ski. Skis are turned with the feet, and it is high time theorists stopped insisting that they are turned with the shoulders or some other remote part of the body. – Fred Springer-Miller, SKI Magazine, December 1956.
"

 

Here is a typical knowitall claiming to be wedeling ..
But he is producing short turns from the feet up.
THAT is the relatively exhausting technique.
The intermediate Krakenhauser wedeln is driven by crossing the inside arm BEFORE the turn begins.
The second skier is a wedeler, and his arm timing is out of phase.
He gives up and then just apes the "master".

 

There is no pole plant in a true wedeln, you just drag the poles behind you. (as in the first post of this thread.)
He has a confused picture of Hendrik Kristoffersen style, first to get four classic slalom wins in a year, using his new outer arm back anticipation.

 

2016

 

Excellent instruction: "We are not focusing on sliding turns".
Excellent encouragement: " Yes ! That is a good place to lie down."
Instructor might have to buy his own beer. Might get some poured on his head, however.

 

I continue to try to improve my English.

https://www.gocomics.com/speedbump/2019/10/02

But I am now thinking that that is not the problem.

 

The situation is getting serious. Bottom Up is the Newspeak demanded by the equipment lobby.
Top Down followers, who don't even care if they are skiing straights, are a ridiculed minority.
It has even been suggested that their superior system is just a parody of "real" skiing.
Even utubes are being censored to remove top down segments explained as demonstrations of bad skiing.

Gorn, gorn !

 

If the Telemark Swing has become the Telemark Stem, how are they managing ?
The answer is "With Difficulty".
We can tell a telemarker from his tracks. That should tell us something about the terrible technique that has developed. What should come naturally, a smooth rounded turn, now needs long dedication and precision equipment. I find that changing their ingrained style to be almost impossible.

 

All controversial opinions have had the axe.
This disappeared in 2016:
"
There have been so many fads in skiing that it is easy to understand why many thought shaped skis were just another fad. Experience shows the shaped skis are not a fad, however. They are common today and so prevalent that the earlier-era models are the ones that stand out.
A curious situation has developed, however. Beginner and intermediate skiers almost universally are on shaped skis. One sees more upper-level skiers--especially older ones--on earlier-era skis, although still a much lesser number than is on shaped skis even in this group. This situation is curious because it is these older-model upper level skiers who could most benefit from the shaped skis if they would only invest a few hours learning how to use them. They would add carving to their skill package, find turns easier to make, and generally improve their skiing enjoyment, becoming more efficient and versatile in their maneuvers.
On the other hand--and here you have a personal observation from your author--beginner skiers are often challenged by the shaped skis. Beginners find skidding a ski very useful in controlling speed, yet the shaped skis tend to go up on their edges and to carve around the turns with more speed than the beginners can handle. So be it. The industry's rental shops have switched over to shaped skis and that is all that is available. Beginners and we instructors are left to deal with this issue. And of course most beginners don't know any better, but this instructor taught beginners before there were shaped skis and is still teaching beginners, and so has his opinion based on that experience. Meanwhile the beginners, believing that shaped skis are best, want them. An argument can be made that using shaped skis at first then avoids the problem of then adjusting to the shaped skis as skill levels improve. A good experiment would be to try out groups in various combinations of ski styles and measure how well the different groups learn. Probably won't happen.
"

 

I look across the valley to the tracks of a couple of typical nearcountry descents.
One shows showers of snow at the turn apex from the slarves of a happy intermediate.
The other has long, straight turn beginnings, with wide slides at the bottom.
Typical telemarker.
His progressive knee bend has no effect until it becomes extreme.
His ski sidecut does not work in the new snow.
He is a lost soul, having never heard of the swing. Poor thing.

 

I am saying freeheeler relying on railing is like ballet dancer relying on addies.
Telemark is at it's best with no steel edges to steal your style.
Telemark swing requires arms held out instead of forward.
It was just coming good when it was pushed over a cliff by the present steamroller style.
The home of telemark is not on corduroy or clattering down a mogul field under a chairlift.

 

Maybe there could be some cross pollination with an exchange program of instructors from top turning aware areas, such as French Canada.
But that would require a brave and outspoken convert with influence in our own echelon. Unlikely.
Could Top Down awareness come from the ground up ?
Some sort of Facebook frenzy from a group who come to realize that they are being short changed ?
"How Dare You ???????? "

 

You are definately getting the message. Shadowing girls will help. Only with permission, of course.