Early Pressure

[coldsmokedude]

There is a lot of talk about getting early pressure down onto the ski, but what does that really mean? While skiing a few days ago I was experimenting with this concept. The snow was very hard and my skis were chattering. I played around with a strong push on my arch to be sure the inside edge (of my foot) was flattened out for its entire length when pressuring my inside ski edge in the turn. My hope was to get more edge pressure along the whole length of the ski and get rid of the chattering. This helped but did not completely stop it.

Next I tried putting more pressure down on the "inside edge" of the ball of my foot only, instead of pressuring the entire length of the inside edge of my foot (heel to toe). This was the ticket and my skis started to hold without chattering. What I discovered is that I was able to apply pressure on the ball of my foot much more quickly than trying to press down on the entire inside edge of my arch. This quick down movement was completed earlier in the new turn and gave me more edge bite and it loaded up the ski causing more rebound out of the end of the turn. Gotta like the double bonus.

Powering down on the ball of my foot caused me to press down harder on the ski, where trying to apply pressure to the entire inside edge of my foot caused me to do more rolling of the knee into the turn with less pressure on the ski itself.

Pressing down on my skis using a more forceful push on the ball of my foot was actually creating earlier and stronger pressure during the turn. Early pressure = Early Initiation. This quick push on the inside front of your foot makes your ski jump up to a higher edge angle, or so it seemed. Or, maybe I began adding more knee angulation to get there. What ever it was, I liked it.

Am I making any sense here?

[mogulmaster1]

The other thing to think about when trying to get early pressure is to move forward into your new turns and not be passive or wait for the turn. To start skier must move forward into the turn to make this happen.

[Nailbender]

I think I'm always on the balls of my feet while grabbing hard with my toes for tip/edge feel. I'm never on my heels, but don't have the new carving ski's either.

Agreed, forward, forward, forward and chest square to the fall line, how much trouble can you get into from that position?

[Jeffy]

Totally agree guys. I know things don't go quite as well when I am NOT in that position.

[coldsmokedude]

Keeping my elbows up (arms always wide apart) makes it easier to get early pressure. It frees up my lower body so I can get more knee anugulation. Just a couple inches of height (elbows held higher) really helps me round out the turn, while getting earlier pressure more easily.

Vertically positioned upper arms = more locked up lower body.
Horizontially positioned upper arms held out away from my body at 45-degrees min, with arms out in front of me = free moving lower body.

Elbows, a silly simple thing - HUGE INFLUENCE ON MY TECH!

[Nailbender]

CSD wrote:

Elbows, a silly simple thing - HUGE INFLUENCE ON MY TECH!

I agree, in fact I'll take that comment to the next level. The hands/elbows are SO important to mogul skiing, I swear I can tell if a skier even stands a chance of holding a line over the tops by watching their hand position while skiing away from the chair. I don't even have to see them ski moguls.

I've got a comment to add to the "early pressure" thought. In order to level up, I believe the next step is to gain "constant" even pressure at all times eliminating unweighting and down weighting completely. Light tips are where it's at I believe and have been working on Geoffda's suggestion at Epic to focus on smoothing my release. It's way easier said than done. Thoughts?

[mogulmaster1]

I've got a comment to add to the "early pressure" thought. In order to level up, I believe the next step is to gain "constant" even pressure at all times eliminating unweighting and down weighting completely. Light tips are where it's at I believe and have been working on Geoffda's suggestion at Epic to focus on smoothing my release. It's way easier said than done. Thoughts?

When talking to a lot of racers they say to let the pressure build up on the ski as it comes into the fall line. In short the skis will build up pressure when put on a extreme edge.

Yes SVMM does this in short radius turns. Letting the skis to build up this pressure requires that the skier apply pressure to start the process. Then as the skis go to reverse camber by applying pressure as hard as the skier can for about the 1st three turns and then as Geoffda's suggestion of smoothing the release of the rest of the skiers turns will be effort less.

As we can do this making short radius turns. It is something that I'm still working on in a GS turn. Sometimes I do it, sometimes I apply to much added pressure.