Exercise for Downward Release (and what you can expect in 2021)

[@Triggerboy62]

What are you talking about, he is a great skier!!!

[@thelion6614]

I will work on this tomorrow! (I have also seen this drill done with cutoff ski poles).

[@beattheclock7509]

You could definitely combine this with a pole exercise!

[@JB91710]

Forget the legs, forget the legs, Forget The LEGS!!! 0:25 Forget pushing your skis to the side or rolling them over. What you do to allow your skis to make turns is right there in your own video. You just need to look higher! You make your leg angle change by driving your face, hands and chest in the direction you want your skis to go next, which is down the hill. At the very beginning of 0:17: 1. His skis are turning to the left with his weight and balance on his right foot. 2. When he wants to start a new turn, he pushes his face, hands and chest down the hill and gets off his right foot to balance on his left foot. 3. The leg angle changes which rolls that left foot over onto the inside edge of the ski and that ski makes the new turn. 0:20 He decides to make a quick turn to the left, so he stops his upper body from crossing the slope with his skis and heads down the hill as he changes his weight and balance to his right foot. he isn't "Making" his feet go to the right by Pushing them, he is Letting them go to the right as his upper body goes down the hill. That is what creates the new leg angle. 0:34 Look, it's right here. He isn't Pushing his skis to the left; they are sliding to the left as his upper body moves down the hill to the right. It "Looks and Feels Like" they are being pushed but they are not. Watch the leg angle change. It's the upper body changing position, not the feet. 0:50 The skis are designed to turn, and they are because he is leaning down the hill to keep is weight over the tips. If he let his upper body go I the direction the skis are pointing, they would continue across the slope. because he is stopping his upper body from crossing the slope, his legs change angle, and the skis make the new turn. THE LAST THING TO HAPPEN IS THE SKIS TURNING, NOT THE FIRST! It does not start with the feet, if finishes with the feet! Stop thinking of the feet just because your skis are down there. Your skis require the proper upper body positioning and weight change to create the new leg angle which allows the skis to make the turn. Turning happens from your eyes down, not from your feet up! Plus, don't hold your poles like that to make you lean forward more. It will make you bend over at the waste just like you see here. Hold onto the handles as if they are the handlebars of a bicycle. When you want to make a turn point the front tire down the hill and switch your weight from the downhill pedal to the uphill pedal. Look for this in his turns.

[@beattheclock7509]

Hi JB, we re doing this exercise to practice a low release. This is used sometimes when you don't have enough time to do a "normal" transition. To your point about forgetting the legs, i just cannot imagine thinking and fixing my upperbody before paying attention to my ankles, knees and hips. I'll go skiing next weekend and will see what it does though. The reason i focus on the legs is because: 1) it works for me personally 2) it helps with explaining what a skier could do to get better balance, to build up pressure faster, to get more edge angles 3) sometimes i do talk about the positioning of the upperbody. This is when one doesn't get the other clues, so i switch to something they might understand and implement. 4) i don't really care much about what happens first from an objective point of view. What i try to do is explain things so that people understand. So you may be correct in that the upperbody should do something before the legs, but i don t think so and i definitely don t think it is more important to focus on the upperbody.

[@JB91710]

@@beattheclock7509 See, here's the deal. What an instructor does when they think about making turns for themselves, doesn't always work for a student because the instructor may be doing other things that they aren't aware of and the student needs. An instructor needs to take Everything they do and put it into words and analogies a student can understand and relate to. 1. Case in point! 2. Talking about legs and ankles to a student doesn't do any of the things you listed. That's my point. Students are apprehensive and afraid. They don't want to face and lean down the hill which puts their upper body in the correct place to allow the skis to turn. An instructor doesn't have that problem, they put their body where it needs to be naturally. So, they focus on the legs, and ankles when teaching and forget the most important part. 3. If a student positions their upper body correctly and changes their weight at the right time, everything you are focusing on happens automatically and doesn't have to be taught or addressed. But if you focus on the legs and ankles, they won't do the most important part and the skis won't turn. It may have been you that said, "It's the hen or the egg" situation. Which comes first? It's actually the rooster getting some that starts the whole ball rolling. Nothing will happen correctly with the legs, ankles and skis if the upper body isn't in the right position. Think of it this way. You are balanced on your right arch. When you take your weight off your right foot you will fall over like a tree with a wedge cut in it. You won't be balanced anymore. That creates the leg and ankle actions you are talking about. Without that fall down the hill, the skis won't turn. Without the upper body down the hill, nothing will happen at all. 4. Then you will fit right in with the vast majority of ski instructors worldwide who teach people the wrong things. Do you teach snowplow and stem turns and then go into parallel?

[@beattheclock7509]

@@JB91710 so we agree that some people learn things differently. Why do you insist then that all students have the same problem? Most kids i have been coaching are about 13-18 and while few were in the top 3 nationally, most of them are probably better skiers by the age of 14 than most instructors are. You are correct that adults who are just starting out are mostly afraid, but that just does not generalize, especially to the people watching this channel. And finally, to say that i am just as wrong about my teaching approach as everyone else is quite a statement, i hope you have been coaching someone like Bode Miller to show that you really know what you re talking about.

[@JB91710]

@@beattheclock7509 Miller can't teach either. I've seen his teaching videos. Being able to ski has nothing to do with the ability to teach it. If you are teaching competent skiers, you are still focusing on the wrong parts of the body. Shiffrin did bad in the Olympics because she couldn't concentrate on what she needed to do with her body. All she could do is make up for it by trying to make her feet make the turns. It didn't work. I know this because I called it and She confirmed it.

[@MrArunasB]

Iv tryed your idea today by thinking just upper body and set my mind on it and dont think about the feet, and it worked for me. But I think its individual thing, if some one dont have fundamentas of their feet it probably will not work. But thanks for the idea, it works for me, I notised that my edge angles became highter and I dont afraid steeper sections of the course as it was before.

[@davidbeazer9799]

He may not be Marcel Hirscher but he's great skier. Slalom looked good!

[@davidbeazer9799]

Exactly what I'm working on!

[@beattheclock7509]

Good thing to work on!

[@SkiSchoolSkiZenitSaasFee]

Best team ever!

[@stevie5903]

Good instruction

[@trevorquinn2839]

Been here since like 30 subs

[@beattheclock7509]

Thats so awesome!!!! Thank you ;)

[@tobiastschernuth1598]

legs like a spring

[@beattheclock7509]

Yea just insane ;)

[@Adri-gg9ut]

😍

[@arizzo5187]

It's called flex to release ... this has been around for 20 years...if you want more insight look at Harold Harb website it's explained in detail ... ( Flex to release , foot pull back )

[@jamesdunn9714]

Flex to release, that is correct, but it doesn't matter what it is called as long as it is presented and described accurately as it is here.