Brandon, thank you for this awesome content! You have an art for taking a complex topic and making it simple, understandable and applicable. As a candidate for Alpine Trainer, myself, I feel like I hit a gold mine with your content! Greetings from Taos Ski Valley!

Fantastic video! Thank you!

Carv should hire you, or should build a rival platform.

Some great stuff. Very good.

Great job. totally enjoyed it.

just found your site

"most skiers just wanna skid around and have lunch."

Great video!

I've seen this guy at Solitude

This text is actually intended as a question, a statement, and, in the best-case scenario, if I haven't said anything nonsensical, as a hopefully welcome addition. You can, of course, also observe this from the other side, although this is a bit like a cat chasing its own tail. To make the tightest possible turn (fully carved), you need a high edge angle. Achieving high edge angles requires moving the COM significantly towards the inside of the turn. To lean far inwards without supporting yourself on the inside ski, you must generate high centrifugal forces to keep this position in dynamic equilibrium. Therefore, you need a certain basic speed to move the COM significantly towards the inside of the turn later on. The turn must first be initiated by edge angle alone from the knee and ankle joint, without moving the COM significantly towards the inside. As soon as you feel the edge gripping and the ski starts to pull into the curve, the exciting part begins, or the cat trying to catch its own tail: The higher the edge angle, the tighter the curve radius becomes, and this, in turn, increases the centrifugal force acting outwards. You can therefore lean further into the turn, and so on and so forth. Hence the term dynamic balance. Depending on the height of the plate under the binding, the thickness of the lifter plates of the plug boots, and the width of the ski boot, the adventure will eventually come to an end, and a boot-out will occur if you do not let the COM move in the other direction, towards the skis and upwards, in time. Of course, you could also put it this way: you have to bring the skis back under the COM by letting them cross under your body. So, you don't move the COM inwards to compensate for the centrifugal forces that occur, but you move the COM inwards to provoke these very forces and increase them even further. In this way, the position inwards and the edge angle can also be increased even further. Anyone who has ever experienced it knows what I mean and will probably never be able to wipe the grin off their face for the rest of their life. However, anyone who hasn't yet been able to do it feels like they are standing in front of an insurmountable wall. It takes some effort to move clearly towards the inside of the turn on suspicion, so to speak, and thereby bet that the centrifugal forces will actually really kick in when you urgently need them and you don't want to just fall over or at least not have to support yourself on the inside ski. The whole thing happens continuously, of course, and your bottom is only just above the ground for a very short time. Once you have jumped over this cliff, you will feel an amazing sense of security and stability in the area of ​​the apex, although the COM is never at rest in relation to the skis, but is constantly changing its relative position (high/low, right/left, forwards/backwards), hence the term "dynamic balance." When initiating the turn, the pressure point should be on the ball of the foot and then carefully move backwards a little. Around the apex, the pressure point distribution should be in the middle between the ball of the foot and the heel so that the ski can be fully bent, the curved inner edge of the outer ski rests completely on the snow, and the end of the ski does not wash out. However, since you are close to the fall line here, the skis point significantly downhill on steep terrain, and in this respect, the body position must now feel very strongly tilted forward. This is also one of the reasons why it is much more difficult to make clean, narrow turns on steeper terrain. You may think you are leaning your body forwards a lot, but in reality, it is still not enough given the steepness of the slope. And if the pressure point is on your heel in the apex area, then the ski will not bend properly either (this is just as disadvantageous in this section of the turn as it would be if the pressure was only on the ball of the foot). The turn radius is not tight enough, there are not the necessary centrifugal forces, you cannot lean far enough inwards, etc. At the end of the turn, you then release the ski and place more weight on your heel and thus the tail of the ski. But do this with a lot of feeling and caution, otherwise, you could get a kick like from an angry donkey and quickly find yourself half a meter airborne. In the transition, you re-center and bring the COM back into a neutral position over your feet, change the load from the old outside ski to the new outside ski and roll the skis onto the new edges. And then the process starts again from the beginning, this time on the other side of the body, of course. In addition to changing the load while changing the edges, there are two other variants. In the whitepass-turn, the edges change before the load change. So, you keep the load on the old outside ski, change the edges and then start the turn on the little toe edge of the same ski, which has now become the new inside ski. As the turn progresses, the load is then changed to the big toe edge of the new outside ski, so that the apex and completion are completed on this ski. In the second variant, the load change is carried out first and then the edges are rolled to the other side. So, at the end of the completion, you shift the load to the mountain ski (the old inside ski) and ride on the little toe edge of this ski. The very last part of the end of the turn is therefore completed on the inside ski. Then the skis are rolled onto the new edges and the turn is initiated with the load on the same ski (now the new outside ski) and on the big toe edge and the turn is continued on this edge until shortly before the end of the completion. And in addition: - "3 Types of Ski Turns explained, Extension, Middle and Flexion", Reilly McGlashan - "Skiing crossover New School vs Old school what is faster? ODERMATT VS ZUBCIC, Reilly McGlashan - "marcel hirscher the skiing compact transition king, Reilly McGlashan - "Ski Like Marco Odermatt (Upward Release), Sebastian Tschernuth - "extended skiing transition basic theory ski carving", Reilly McGlashan

The only thing I would say is there is the subtle diving of the head/ upper body to the inside at the start of the turn 33:43. This sets up a poor ability to gain early edging because of this upper body leaning or diving, leaving the body position not angulated. No early edge creates too much pressure for the last part of the turn, which is almost like braking. Make the turn with the legs first at transition ie lean legs, set early edge without upper body movement and this will leave the upper body angulated over the outside ski and a more spread-out progressive pressure on the outside ski. Keep body still as possible. Try dragging the pole drill on outside ski side for each turn, "early" at least at the apex. This should help keep body over outside ski throughout the turn.

Thanks so much for this value information, very good explain, crongatulations!!!

Hey gang, just a quick ask for those commenting: please be respectful of our friends in this video who have volunteered to put themselves and their skiing out there to be picked apart for the betterment of our education. While I could care less if you shred my personal skiing in other videos and remind me how much I suck, or make fun of how many times I said “right” in this video, let’s keep our observations and evaluations relatively nonjudgmental and objective and not rooted in boosting our own egos by tearing others down. I absolutely want to hear your own observations, evaluations, and prescription ideas because we all stand to benefit from hearing each others perspectives, but I’d also like to continue having volunteers who put themselves out there to help further our education and no one will want to participate if we can’t keep things respectful. Thank you all!

Great job! I like the “Consider’ concept. The common Body Movements across Fundamentals was helpful!

Thanks Brandon. Well done

Brandon, as a 5-year instructor, in my 2nd season in pursuit of l2...your video makes me want to come work at okemo to learn from your team...well done sir!

fantastic!

Yes yes and yes, thanks man!

That was a gem at the end there

One of the best videos on KZbin on the topic. Hope to see more of this, for example on friction and elastic forces dynamics on the ski. Thanks, from an engineer trying to make sense of this sport ⛷️

Hey gang, during editing I accidentally missed making sure a video (10:00) by @alfonsoeae that was used in this tech talk got proper credit for its use. I unfortunately can't add it after upload, so I wanted to pin a comment directing everyone to check out his awesome Instagram with a ton of visual representations of skiing technique, biomechanics, physics, and more: instagram.com/alfonsoeae/ Check the description for links to the sources of all the video clips used.

Very interesting! But why is my video not included in the credits?? I would have liked the content presenter to have mentioned my name as the author of one of the videos that appear in the presentation at minute 10:00. If he did, at least I didn't realize it. I don't mind that my videos are used but I think it is fair that at least mention where the video material was obtained from if it is not designed or recorded by oneself. What is very curious is that he did mention the authors of some of the other videos he included in the presentation.

His primary goal is to not rise up during transition his center of mass stays very low. He rolls his ski over from one edge to the other through transition. I use that same technique but not as low as he goes. I love doing it on groomers with slis in the 80mm range and good corn snow with a pair of 100mm skis

Brandon, I am doing this same topic today (11/2) for PSIA-NW Fall Seminar. I would love to share my content with you to keep exploring this topic. Cheers, great job.

Pressure can be created by your turn shape and the angle of your skis. Playing with the speed with which you shorten your inside leg will provide you with lots of variety in your turn shape and allow you to flick your skis from turn to turn. Fun to play with once you learn to play with pressure or lack there of during transition. Learn to ice skate and or rollerblade. Highly recommended from someone who learned to ski in their mid fifties.

Thanks for hosting Brandon!

The level 2 candidate. You asked for good things. Quiet upper body (too quiet maybe, parallel skis for the most part, fairly equal edge angles.

At the 35ish minutes clip of the host I see a lot of spray from the tail of the skis although the quality of the video is such that it is hard to really get a look at the ski/snow interaction. Post level 3?! I think your angulation and inclination are fine. It seems you have a tendency to stem a little, especially the left turns and as you say you are late at the transition. :) I'd be happy to be able to ski like that

Interesting that during the first round of participant observations, no one mentioned what the skis were doing which is what I thought was the goal. Good observations were made with respect to what movements and body positions the skier has. Another point is that the skier, like many other great skiers has a definite A Frame going on. Despite that, the ski/snow interaction is great high edge angles and snow spraying from the shovel of the ski indicating great forward pressure.

At 39:16, it's clear that there is too much inclination and not enough angulation over the outside ski early. This is due to this habit of a combined popping up (as others have mentioned) and diving the upper body towards the inside of the turn which leaves more inclined and removes any angulation at the onset of the turn. You want the upper body to naturally be over the outside ski. Also, as a result the turn is rushed leaving all the pressure on the later part of the turn - this also contributes to the popping up motion. Even with this latter part of the turn, you are losing grip in the back end, mainly because of the lack of sufficient angulation issue and the leaving the turn to the last second problem. If you didn't pop up, stayed central with upper body in transition, then got onto the outside ski early and throughout the turn, you wouldn't lose the grip and the turn would be rounder and more fluid. Lastly, practice more ankle and knee flexion progressively through the turn, so you can manage the pressures and not pop up or brake too much, all while being more angulated over outside ski. A good one is to purposely reach out, down the hill with a pole plant to get you over more, vs your very insignificant and poor pole plants.

Are you full cert? That video from 2020 was rough…sorry.

Your vocabulary limits your understanding of things. That is why the Eskimos have 10 different words for snow. So their understanding is much more complete.

I was familiar with the Performance Guides, but strictly from a cert exam perspective. Appreciate Angelo’s review of how to use them as a self-development tool as I continue on this path. While I aspire to L3, its doubtful I would ever achieve that level of skiing. However, he has inspired me to look closer at the Teaching and MA components to up my current game as an instructor! Thank you for sharing this presentation!

Thanks man! I have an engineering background as well and this allowed me to make sense of a lot of things I’ve heard throughout research.

Bro, this is next-level nerdiness, love it! I suggest snowboarders check this out too, you will need to imagine some of the aspects a bit differently visually, but most of it (if not all) translates really well to snowboarding-especially if you know how or want to learn how to use your edges when turning, instead of skidded turns

This is really great information. Thanks for putting this together.

Excellent dialogue here. 👏👏Thank you for posting. Your explanations are easily understood and very encouraging to experiment further with my own body movements to get the desired ski performance! ⛷️⛷️

Fantastic!

Extremely well communicated. ❤

Body behavior, ski behavior, snow behavior- noise. I start with snow behavior. What is the effect the ski makes on snow? Spraying and Compaction are the effects ski behaviors skidding (noisey) and carving (quiet) have on the snow. How does compaction create a smooth slippery trench under foot? Snow behavior, compaction...Pressure temperature gradients manipulated to form exclusion zone hyper fluidity. Ski behavior, quietly bending/ carving creates acceleration sensed as greater pressure under foot. Body behavior adjusting to make precise manipulation of ski behavior to maximize compaction (shush, quiet vibrations), minimize spray . (chatter)

Try to find a coach that can help you understand the mechanics and you should stop showing only breaking turns.This is repeating stuff you should have gotten rid of 40 years ago.

The very best explanations of alpine skiing. It could be helpful for demonstrators to complete turns at least perpendicular to the fall line to more clearly show the necessity of forward motions to get their center right angles to the fall line. One could also then see how early edge change can happen before the traverse is complete. The shot from above of T.L. moving his feet forward at the completion of turns to move his center back (perpendicular to the horizon) was revealing.

Nice Job focused on Why. We throw a ball and catch a ball. I think skiing is always catching a ball. We use a gamepad to catch a ball not throw.

I found stand up paddle board share a lot similarities to this.

Just keep your hands forward. Stop pole dragging. Sheesh!

Great stuff! Skiing and smiling, smiling and skiing!

Well done!! I love it...

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I am an engineer by training, I am interested in disassembling complex systems into simple understandable parts, you have a similar approach. I want to translate your video into Russian, dub it and post it on my channel if you give me permission to do this work. This December I will be studying to become a ski instructor and will try your method on myself.