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Ski Technique From a
Different Perspective
Principles of Mastery Ski
Technique: Truths on
balance
Hello everyone and welcome back
Great skiers master fundamentals. In this newsletter you will be shown
how to use one incredibly powerful yet beautifully simple principal
governing your balance. When you do this right, you'll experience
impressive
changes in your skiing performance and ski
technique.
Imagine if you will, that you are in an unfamiliar hotel room and while
on your way to the bathroom, in the dark and half asleep, you trip over
a suitcase left on the ground. Your body, sensing that you are about to
fall, takes immediate subconscious action to prevent you from falling
or getting hurt. In order to do this, your body relies on a
subconscious neurological conversation, which takes place in 3 key
joints in your body. These joints contain densely packed receptors
called proprioceptors, which specifically give spatial information
about each joint's position in space and time.
In your opinion, which
joints are
the most important for you to know where you are in space and time?
The answers in order of importance are:
- The jaw joint (TMJ), which coupled to the
inner ear, has
the
greatest number of receptors for you to know where you are in space and
time.
- The ankle (talo-calcaneal) comes second.
- The pelvis (sacro-iliac) comes third.
| The
neurological conversation loop |
 |
- Firstly: Your jaw and middle ear are the
primary source of information regarding the initial movement.
- Second: This
information is then
referenced with your ankle.
- And thirdly the
information is
finally referenced to your pelvis.
This comparison process begins the neurological conversation loop.
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First things
first
The most powerful "spatial balance" receptor in the neurological
conversation loop is the jaw. Your jaw joint is an antenna directly
connected to the cosmos picking up meaningful vibrations from both your
external environment and your internal environment. These "vibes" are
collected and subconsciously interpreted at all times despite you're
being unaware that this is happening.
This leaves me with a question for you:
When was the last time
you've given
thoughts to what you are doing with your jaw when skiing?
Not being aware of the behavior of your jaw is a problem when it comes
to ski technique, because it is
your jaw's interpretation of the situation that commands your body's
total response, in other words your jaw's subconscious
behavior is controlling your skiing.
From this knowledge, we derive the first law of the jaw and this law
states:
When
you don't know what your jaw is doing, you are not in control of your
ski technique or your skiing.
Ignoring
the "law of the jaw"
triggers a myriad
of highly undesirable syndromes crippling your skiing. Imagine if you
will that as you are walking off the gondola at the top of the
mountain, you feel disappointed by the weather, it's windier and colder
than you thought. Then you proceed to check out the slope; it looks
steep, challenging and the visibility is limited. Although you are
fully awake and you're not tripping over suitcases, the receptors in
your jaw are at work assessing the spatial environment around as well
as taking into account your innermost thoughts and feelings
relevant to the situation.
The jaw's perception of
your
thoughts and feelings influences its
automatic response system and consequently you may be setting set off
with a certain degree of hesitancy. In physical terms, hesitancy is
displayed when the jaw is positioned too far back in relation to the
position of the ankles. This induces the consequential stiffening of
the back, pelvis and legs, massively challenging the three components
of the neurological conversation loop. You now have no leeway to handle
future balance challenging events such as bumps in the terrain, running
into soft snow or hitting a patch of ice.
Uncertainty of
outcome = Jaw
holding back = Poor confidence
= Poor control = Poor balance = Poor ski technique = Poor skiing
- The
jaw is aligned in a plane behind the one of the ankles; this is how
leaning back happens
- Because the jaw is positioned in space further
back than the ankles the
proprioceptive information will not match information from other
centres. The nervous system, in an effort to obtain more information
will seek greater comparison thus increasing this neurological
conversation.
- When your nervous system is in a constant state
of high-level
proprioceptive conversation your balance is compromised, forcing your
body to stiffen in an attempt to cope with the situation.
Placing your jaw in the right plane
Traditional ski
technique had it
that when a skier
was leaning
back, the advice offered was to "lean forward" which in itself sounds
like common sense but isn't in reality because leaning either forward
or back aren't states of optimal balance. You don't want to be leaning
anywhere; you want to be grounded through your feet. Confusion
continues however when one is told to seek optimal balance by pushing
the knees forwards or even worse - to ski with a strong contact of the
shins with the front of the boots. Pushing shins into the boots results
in having you relying on boots to hold yourself up, leaving imbalanced
jaw and ankles thus increasing the neurological noise. Ankles, as we
now know, are second in command in the hierarchy of the neurological
conversation loop and are therefore not competent to solve balance
issues originating from a misplaced jaw.
- Ditching
traditional ski technique and placing your jaw where it counts:
to do this
picture an imaginary plane positioned just in front of your knees as
illustrated by the yellow line
and just make sure that your jaw remains forward of that plane.
- From
there, enjoy your skiing knowing that the all important jaw receptors
are controlling the situation from the correct point in relation to
your feet, to your body and in relation to the rest of the world. This
allows your subconscious pilot to operate your skiing descent from the
cockpit area in front of the aircraft where it is most efficient.
- Notice if you will, that tibias (red
line) are positioned
straighter than the spine (green
line) and this is the way it has to be if you mean
business and want to remain in control on the mountain.
| Control
the position of your jaw and you control the most vital component in
your balance chain. |
Did you know that the famous
Italian ski champion, Alberto Tomba always wore a bite plane to optimise his neurological conversation loop and improve his
already outstanding skiing performance! Proof that great masters never
leave anything to chance. |
Looking forward to
skiing with you
on the mountain in Val d'Isere, and until then, ski with passion.
Bernard Chesneau
SKI MASTERY, VAL D'ISERE
Email: ski@ski-mastery.com
Tel: 00 33 4 79 40 17 68 or Mobile: 00 33 6 14 27 15 60
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