Shoulders down the mountain?

I know this is one of the "staple" things we are supposed to remember and in most cases it makes sense even if you can't always achieve it perfectly. But recently on an "all mountain" course I was told shoulders in the direction of travel. Obviously, sometimes this is down the mountain but sometimes it is not! Where I'm most confused is probably in big wide turns accross the off-pisted sections - would you say shoulders down or shoulders in the direction of travel (ie where the skis are pointing at anyone time)?

snowpack wrote:Where I'm most confused is probably in big wide turns accross the off-pisted sections - would you say shoulders down or shoulders in the direction of travel (ie where the skis are pointing at anyone time)?

Generally where the 'skis are pointing'.

Some decent lessons, probably a private, would sort this out for you rather quickly.

I do what gets me down naturally and safely. I used to swing my shoulders far too much when trying to initiate turns, but thats all stopped now thanks to some telling off and a bit of concentration.

Depends whether you're sliding little short turns or carving longer radius turns.

When bouncing between skidded turns I keep my shoulders more or less squared against the fall line - when carving longer turns my shoulders are a little more squared to my drection of travel (with a slight bias toward the fall line). Quite hard to put it into words what you do with your upper body - it just comes naturally and instinctively - I've never been an instructor so can't really break it down that well!

I think the 'shoulders to the fall line' maxim works best if understood in reverse - there may be points when carving that your shoulders point more toward your direction of travel than straight down the fall line - but you certainly NEVER turn your shoulders up the hill away from the fall line in any circumstances (whether you're skidding turns or carving them) - that route leads to very bad things! If you lose your balance at any point don't give in to the desire to turn your shoulders up the hill to correct a wobble - it won't help matters at all - it throws your body completely out of whack for the next turn.

What Ross said :D

'Shoulders down the mountain' like 'bend ze knees' and 'lean forward' are all phrases which in a given situation may be correct [ or not ] but they don't help you to understand the physics involved [i.e the why ] and like all cliches are too generic to be of much help in any particular problem.

Something to think about.

1/ In a good natural relaxed skiing stance, we are ready to anticipate and react to to changes in forces and terrain. Our natural ready stance is facing foreward in the direction of travel.

2/ We have various body springs that we can wind up and release. The most powerful of these is rotation of the trunk at the waist. Our upper body is a large mass and when rotated creates a clock spring like mechinism at our waist that will try to pull our lower body (smaller mass) around in line with the upper body.

When we make short or cross under type turns, "keeping our shoulders downhill", we are winding up and releasing this clock spring to make those short powerful turns.

In longer or high speed turns we may not want rotational tensions in our body and so upper body rotation may be undesirable.

Exploring and understanding these effects allows you to adopt them as needed. Keep an open mind. As inclination increases, the clock spring effect an be put to other uses.

Trencher

Trencher wrote:Something to think about.

1/ In a good natural relaxed skiing stance, we are ready to anticipate and react to to changes in forces and terrain. Our natural ready stance is facing foreward in the direction of travel.

2/ We have various body springs that we can wind up and release. The most powerful of these is rotation of the trunk at the waist. Our upper body is a large mass and when rotated creates a clock spring like mechinism at our waist that will try to pull our lower body (smaller mass) around in line with the upper body.

When we make short or cross under type turns, "keeping our shoulders downhill", we are winding up and releasing this clock spring to make those short powerful turns.

In longer or high speed turns we may not want rotational tensions in our body and so upper body rotation may be undesirable.


Trencher

That sums up the 'why' very well :D

Look at Trencher's picture very carefully and it will equal a 200 word answer!

Look at his hips= into the turn
Look at his hands = in front
but look again carefully,,,see that left hand what is it doing?


Then most important,,,
look at shoulders and skis.
Do you see how they are parallel.

Want to ski better?

Stop thinking of all those micro bits of information such as;
left eyebrow up
thumbs out
ears wiggling
eyes to left


Three basic (just three) rules.

1. Keep pressure on big toes within boot
2. Keep hands in front and quiet while skiing
3. Never but never look at skis

You do these three and you will be better than 90% of skiers.


If you do not believe me try this.
Keep arms and hands in front ( that is parallel to skis) and try to rotate upper body!

See what happens!


You will have your answer with the feeling you will get!



Oh,,,,enjoy skiing also!