12 replies to this topic

[Pete/Andorra]

HOW TO SKI MOGULS on a SITSKI.

Has anybody got any tips for skiing the moguls on a sit ski?
What line do you take? What kind if turns do you make?
Can you absorb the bump and extend into the trough? If so how do you do it?
What drills do you use?
Regards Pete

[russ1]

Top tip is to replace the 2" racing shock with a 8" shock which will help - apparently I'm a complete beginner at moguls and aviod them where possible as do most sit skiers I know as they're just not that much fun. But according to people who know better than me you ski them the same as an AB although I try to turn on the top and sideslip into the trough rather than ski trough to trough although that may be why I'm rubbish at them, as to what turns - well short quick ones

and I'm serious about the shock - the only guys I've met who ski moguls regularly use rigs specifically set up for them.

[KayDub]

Russ is right, both about needing a better shock to ski them well and the idea is to ski them like an AB. You want to see your line through the moguls before going down and the idea is to get the edge of your ski to cut into the side of the mogul, not go up and down between the moguls. The turns end up being more Z shaped than regular terrain skiing. My fiance is a pro freestyle mogul skier (AB) and we've spent a lot of time together in the moguls, both on a sit ski and when I was AB skiing. Drill wise... I'd say practice but I'll ask him some of the things they do at practice and work on converting them to being on a sit ski and let you know!

[Pete/Andorra]

russ1, on 12 October 2011 - 09:22 PM, said:

Top tip is to replace the 2" racing shock with a 8" shock which will help - apparently I'm a complete beginner at moguls and aviod them where possible as do most sit skiers I know as they're just not that much fun. But according to people who know better than me you ski them the same as an AB although I try to turn on the top and sideslip into the trough rather than ski trough to trough although that may be why I'm rubbish at them, as to what turns - well short quick ones

and I'm serious about the shock - the only guys I've met who ski moguls regularly use rigs specifically set up for them.

Thanks for your feedback Russ. I have to wait till the snow arrives in December before I can have a go.
I am on the Nissin so who do I talk to about an 8 inch shock?
Cheers Pete

[Pete/Andorra]

KayDub, on 13 October 2011 - 03:12 PM, said:

Russ is right, both about needing a better shock to ski them well and the idea is to ski them like an AB. You want to see your line through the moguls before going down and the idea is to get the edge of your ski to cut into the side of the mogul, not go up and down between the moguls. The turns end up being more Z shaped than regular terrain skiing. My fiance is a pro freestyle mogul skier (AB) and we've spent a lot of time together in the moguls, both on a sit ski and when I was AB skiing. Drill wise... I'd say practice but I'll ask him some of the things they do at practice and work on converting them to being on a sit ski and let you know!

Thank you for your advice Kay.
Best regards Pete.

[little_one]

Hi Guys,

I am new on here, a partner of a T10 Partial Paraplegic, and I used to compete in freestyle moguls up until this year since I am having my 6th knee surgery on the same knee also in the past 18 months all cartilage and bone damage and one ACL blowout. I also am a full certified level 3 ski instructor and a level 1 trainer and examiner for the APSI (australian professional snow-sports instructors).

Moguls are tough enough unless you really practice and don't mind falling plus understand the mechanics of the turn and absorption required. Hopefully I can give you some insight and I will add a link to some good youtube videos to demonstrate. Basically you can ski moguls 3 ways, 1. make turns on top of bumps which is easiest because ski has less snow contact and can pivot easily, 2. slow-medium paced turns in and around the bumps using a 'regular technique (only works well on green and blue runs as speed becomes an issue) and 3. skiing the line and actively or passively absorbing the bumps as you ski "the line" or "zipper" while trying to maintain speed by carving down the backside of each mogul commonly referred to as tips down or driving your skis down the backside.

You need to start at the number 1 technique and work up to 2, when you find yourself blowing out or flying out of control doing 'normal' turns, or as I like to say frikken flying then you need to work on how you can absorb the bumps while staying in control. Best way to practice is traversing some decent sized round, NOT zipper or super carved out or deep moguls, and practice sucking yourself or allowing your sit ski to absorb each bump, you also need to stay centred as you go up then back down the other side of each bump. You can then work the speed and size of the bumps, vary both concentrating on keeping your skis especially the tips always contacted with the snow. Ski contact is one of the major things judges look for in competition, if your ski tips are flying up your not moving your weight forward fast enough down the backside of the bump, (practice rocking fore and aft a lot, timing and speed is crucial, the top mogul skiers are moving their ankles and body weight plus absorbing their legs up and down at a rate of 3-5times a second. You know you are doing it correctly when you can maintain your speed and your ski tip on you sit ski is not flying in the air when you reach the top of the bump or start the backside.

A Quick Apology, this is my second post and I am very very new to the paralysis terminology despite teaching adaptive skiing for a decent amount of time. Please forgive me if I am not using enough sit ski terminology specific to these instructions and also you need to really visualise this in your head. The best way of course is to learn with your own learning style (hearing/listening, watching/doing, copying etc: visual auditory and kinesthetic) but unless you are planning on coming to Beaver Creek this is the best I can offer lol.

Okay on we go. This will and should take most people between 10-15 hours sometimes less sometimes significantly more depending on your fitness level and how quickly you pickup new sports. If you try and skip steps or skills such as how to move fore and aft to ride the frontside and backside to stay centred and balanced you will find yourself riding the tail or your ski and sitting waaaaaay to far back making you 1. frikken fly, 2. you cannot absorb properly, 3. moguls become jumps and consequently horrible landings lol and 4. Speed control is non existent. Not to mention a whole range of other things physically that are going wrong that block other movements. SO PRACTICE FROM STEP 1, GET A BUDDY TO WATCH YOU! it is very unlikely you learnt to read quickly by skipping learning letters or pronunciation, skiing is no different no matter what you buddy from Texas says or New Yorkers who tell me constantly to hurry up lessons and it's a waste of time, they all soon cry for help when I ask them to demonstrate what they think they can do down our training site, 230meter of 32 degree angled slope with 2 huge jumps and mogul heights of 2-3 feet, and of course the 'zipper' is so rutted and so deep once you are in there is no way of getting out lol unless of course you try the jump technique mentioned earlier haha. I am a big fan of allowing people.friends/students to show me what they mean rather than tell me, and I am trying to write this and explain my teaching style without sounding like a jackass. I try to be patient and 99% of my students come back for more from me and have become lifelong friends that come on holidays with me etc.
So after you have practiced 1 and 2, before we move on to technique 3. there is one last focus for technique 2, and this focus needs to be done in conjunction with the other skills you are practicing or have mastered. You need to with your sit ski decide whether you are going to actively or passively absorb the bump. Absorption is wonderful, despite popular belief if done correctly it does not affect an AB persons knees whatsoever, it is like the shocks on a 4wd off roading over logs and rocks etc, if the shocks are working the car wont fall apart, if they are working the body and sheet metal stays intact and glass windows don;t shatter on each impact. Knees are the weakest joint in the body (my dad was a power lifter in Australia while serving in the military, 5'6" and tells me constantly not to forget the 3/4" and just shy of 120kg. He snapped his ACL coming up from the bottom of a squat with 860lbs while training. His leg muscles and surrounding muscles of the knee were so big and strong that he opted not to replace it, his other knee blew out when he jammed a leg between to rocks to save himself from falling 1000feet off a cliff in Austria whilst skiing, admittedly his leg also snapped but the acl was replaced as it was in 2003 and doctors make money off surgery these days not like back when he did hi other knee in the late 70's early 80's. His replaced ACL knee got arthritis first, his other knee despite arthritis did not bother him until a surgeon told him to replace it and ever since has gotten so painful he self injects cortisone (doctors like my crazy father do anything to keep skiing!) Anyway back to absorption, if done correctly in the moguls/bumpy terrain then your body is fine, AB skiers who compete get what's called mogul back because of the constant static upper body they keep for judging points and the harsh landings etc, again the absorption if done correctly does not allow this but even professionals do it incorectly occasionally and when you do 50 runs/day in training and you messup just 1/10th time you HURT at the end of the day. So to absorb you need to make the impact or contact to the upside of the bump smooth and soft not abrupt and bangy/jarred. There are so many ways to explain this and countless analogies so here are a few Basic ones. Make your body tall towards impact, then small when you do impact, then you make yourself tall down the backside of the bump and tall again when you hit the next one. This feels like or is similar to swinging on a rope swing or regular park swing. You have to make yourself small to go backwards then tall and long to go forwards to keep momentum and gain speed and rhythm. Another is to constantly think you have a roof above your head and you dont want to hit it as its literally 1/inch above you, so when you are going up the bump you have to make yoursefl small (DONT DUCK! you do that when someone throws a ball at you not when you ski), So in your sit ski you have to practice moving your chest and hips (if able to, otherwise as much mass and body parts as possible) up and down extending and contracting them. You can also think and feel like you are making yourself light and then heavy, light at the top of the bump then heavy when you hit it.

Best way to practice absorption and best terrain is nice easy green sloped with lots of spaced out bumps, not a mogul field. As you get good at this and you will feel it when you do because it feels smooth not bangy and you wont feel like you are jarring or crashng into the bumps. As a side note, as you start to master absorption try to think about what happens to your speed at each point of absorption. When do you slow down? When do you speed up? and the tough one is how do you make it constant? not speed up slow down? You can progress to steeper and slopes and areas with less space between bumps when you can comfortably absorb and extend your weight/mass/body up and down the bumps correctly timing it, its common sense that as you progress to steeper and less spaced moguls you will have to perform this motion faster, so prcticing in the gym or pool or on the bed, anywhere where you feel comfortable working out is a good workout and practice in the of season or downtime. I would train foot speed (thats what AB people call it commonly in mogul training) by jumping rope and dong box jumps that were timed. I had to be able to do 80 box jumps in a minute and the jumps were one foot on, one foot off, then jump up and land on the other side of the box wit on foot on one foot off again and again and again until i wuld literally puke as our fitness coach would scream at us not to give up and not slow down, "DONT YOU GIVE UP ON ME! SUCK IT UP< DON"t YOU SLOWDOWN!" oh man I don;t miss those for a second!
Anyway find something that helps you work on your speed and ability to perform you absorption technique fast and properly, make sure to use your entire range of motion that is possible to extend and contract, the more you do and the faster you are allows you to go faster on steeper terrain and look not just in control but frikken awesome. I think using some dumbells and doing a lift frim as low as you can get them to the highest you can using a lower weight than you normally woudl because you should time yourself in a minute and see how may reps you can do, then try and beat it by 20% at the star of each new week/cycle. Foot speed and explosive power and strength are the things to work on in the gym to help not just maser moguls but to allow you to breathe at the bottom fo the run. It also prevents injuries which are common in moguls, shoulders commonly pop out and collar ones snap so make sure you work on shoulder flexibility and strength also if possible. For those not able to use their arms or hold weights, practice shifting you weight up and down like you are preparing for a jump then explode upwards with all you've got. Gain the feeling of the weightlessness at the peak of you extension then all the gravity as you absorb your body mass. Core work is also good if you can work on it. Posture in the bumps despite being in a sit ski is crucial, if you do not have the correct posture/stance then it is easier to become off balance and ride the back of your skis and become a backseat bandit, these creatures can be seen going straight down black and blue runs on snowboards and twintips with their homeboy apparel on. (if only those homies on skis and snowboards knew that the top freestyle adn big air jumpers all started ski racing or mogul skiing to get their skiing technique and agility mastered before they fling themselves off 70foot jumps! but alas i'm 23 and people older than myself still don;t realise this fact.) Okay so you ned gym work and keep it up to master absorption and obtain the speed necessary to keep up with the bumps that will fly faster and faster towards you as you career down an awesome mogul field yelling "RAAAAAAAAAAAH" at the top of your lungs and if you fall and smash yourself up down 3/4 of the rest of the run then you wil be safe knowing that you did you preventative gym work to protect shoulders etc.

Now you should have been practicing your fore and aft balance, absorption and of course making turns. (I may have missed something its 4am and i'm getting tired sorry if I have) find small easy mogul lines that can be found in beginner areas of high traffic and sometimes ski schools will setup beginner mogul areas for kids and ask the groomers not to flatten them overnight. Practice your techniques and start slowly and not in a huge mogul field so if something goes wrong nothing will go wrong with you. Practice on 5-6 moguls at a time in the zipper line then stop and start again, slowly work your way up to more and more moguls at one time, making sure you stop yourself if you get out of control or find yourself leaning backwards. Keeep progressing onto more moguls steeper terrain etc and when you do that which could be by the end of the season or by the middle of it ask me some more questions and advice and there are some more advanced tecniques such as carving down the backside and generating speed in the zipper line etc.

As for the change of shock absorbers on your sit skis, I would try out these tips first, i am not a fan of recommeding equipment to help you ski until you try to master the technique first. If you are getting bucked around like a rodeo clown despite trying to actively absorb then you should play around with your shocks.

Oh one last thing I started talking about active and passive absorption, I explained active absorption where you actvel absorb the bumps, pasive absorption is allowing your shocks to do the work for you with the help of your body ie. as your body goes up the bump your shock needs to compress automatically aswell as your body, rather than you actively contracting or extending.

Active absorbtion is easier but I ca talk more about how to master passive bsorption which is used more for ungroomed and choppy terrain, deep powder and a range of other unpedicatable snow cnodtions.


i told you I would post a link, I will but not now tomorrow I am too tired lol.

Have fun this winer and PM me if you need some more help or further explanation of certain point. Hae fun most of all though I always do when ive got skis strapped to me and I got 100mph!

[Pete Anderson]

Sit skiing is tough. Sit skiing through the mogals is even more challenging. I bent a couple of skis due to hitting a trough head-on, due to loosing control. The ski instantly changed to a reverse cambered ski. I'll ski the little bumps, but the big ones, I just can't afford it. It can be very hard on the ski. However, I do like the jumps! (the small ones of course).

Pete Anderson

Edited by Pete Anderson, 18 October 2011 - 06:37 PM.

[Pete/Andorra]

Hi Little-one,

Sorry for the delayed reply I have been off the radar for a while.

Lots of info in your reply, many thanks.
I am now waiting for the new season and snow to arrive so I can go out there and have a go.

Pete

[little_one]

Hey guys here are some links to videos of mogul skiing that should give you some visualisation and puts my progressions in context for all you visual learners. If anyone is interested I can scan some pages from my teaching manual that I have it has diagrams, physics involved and is basically all the theory involved in mogul skiing for recreational skiers. It's the manual instructors use to study for exams and learn how to teach other people so it is very involved, if you love learning by thinking and listening this could be a good tool.

Links: I got coached by one of the guys that worked for mogul logic a while ago, I was in canada for summer training where i copped a massive knee injury that actually made me cry!, mogul logic is a training camp for budding mogul athletes and most of the videos are theirs so I want to make sure that everyone knows I didn't steal the videos it is the property of mogul logic for copyright reasons and I don't take any credit etc for them, I do not own them.


this is a good video on absorption, try and visualise yourself doing this in a sit ski and what body movements and weight adjustments you can make to replicate this technique. The absorption used in this video is exactly the same absorption technique you need when traversing or practicing on smaller bumps side to side across the slope.


This video has great mogul skiing seen from different angles, focus on the whole picture and what it looks like, although you may be thinking it is old and obsolete (70's style. hot doggin, old school etc etc) it is the same technique used my current world cup freestlye skiers. The only difference being speed and a much less turning of the skis from side to side in order to create more speed. Compare the video to this one of the 2006 olympic gold medalist Dale Begg-Smith (He is an Aussie!!!!) Dale has the best turning technique watch the parts in slow motion while trying to commentate what he is doing to gain some understanding.

The main thing to remeber is that the technique used 40 years ago is fundamentally the same one used today.

Hit the gym guys and practice your absorption movements, both extension and retraction of your body weight, plus increase the speed so that you can keep up with the tempo that the bumps on the steeper runs will force you into. The more you strengthen and practice your movements out of the bumps and moguls the faster and stronger you will become. As for me I had my 6th knee surgery on my right knee 2 weeks ago back home in Australia and am doomed to a life of arthritis from an early age... 6 surgeries in 19 months will do that haha. If anyone wants some more information or just wants to talk about other skiing techniques etc I would love to help out or even look at videos of yourself and offer some advice.

Have fun in the mountains this season, I can't wait to get in the sit ski with my Fiance this winter, her first time not skiing on 2 feet this year so I am looking forward to having having fun and learnning something different.

Edited by little_one, 18 November 2011 - 07:10 AM.

[little_one]

Pete Anderson, on 18 October 2011 - 06:36 PM, said:

Sit skiing is tough. Sit skiing through the mogals is even more challenging. I bent a couple of skis due to hitting a trough head-on, due to loosing control. The ski instantly changed to a reverse cambered ski. I'll ski the little bumps, but the big ones, I just can't afford it. It can be very hard on the ski. However, I do like the jumps! (the small ones of course).

Pete Anderson

If you are bending the tips and top section of your skis I would most likely recommend you have a go at shifting hour weight back onto the centre or just behind centre (not the tail) of your ski before you impact or hit the face of the bump/mogul. Having most or all of the pressure on the tips and front fo your skis when you impact into the bump causes AB skiers to double eject (both skis release instantly) and catapult their bodies forward front flipping until they lose enough speed. Although this is amusing to watch from the sidelines it is the worst feeling ever! As for a sit ski/mono skis, because they do not release from the seat and are permanently attached the skis will take all the force and break. This might not be the case at all for you but 99% of the time ski tips bending and snapping at the top is the result of to much pressure or weight on the front of the ski wen it impacts undulating terrain such as moguls or even small jumps. Practice shifting your weight back a little before impact on some small moguls then try it on the big steep ones and see if that makes a difference. If it doesn't try get a video fo yourself and I will be glad to look at it and offer some advice and training tools to fix the problem.

Seeya mate and have fun in the bumps!

[Pete Anderson]

I broke my new replacement ski last week within 45 minutes. It was a twin tip Rossi, and it "was" sweet. I was launched from a jump that put me into the "back seat." Insta "rocker ski." Oh well. I've got backup skis for my backups!

I'll have a go at the bumps the next time around.

Thanks for the input!

Pete

[little_one]

Pete Anderson, on 21 November 2011 - 07:38 PM, said:

I broke my new replacement ski last week within 45 minutes. It was a twin tip Rossi, and it "was" sweet. I was launched from a jump that put me into the "back seat." Insta "rocker ski." Oh well. I've got backup skis for my backups!

I'll have a go at the bumps the next time around.

Thanks for the input!

Pete

dude you ned a stronger ski like a fischer deigned one or a dynastar, these two ski makers are the best for off the shelf durability that recreational skiers can get heir hand on. UNless you are interested in purchasing a pair of factory race stock skis that are made for world cup skiers and are 100% bulletproof mate! I dare you to try break one of those hahaha, I also want to go skiing with you you sound like you are crazy and fast i love that and would love a day in the beave or vail colorado tearing up the AB's. BTW fischer and dynastar use the best materials as far as more durable and expensive wood for the core and spend more time and use more expensive glues and such to bind them , not to mention they spend a far greater amount of time when they steam the wood core and bend and shape them to ensure no stress marks and cracks. SALOMON ROSSI HEAD AND ATOMIC as far as my limited but long experience with their recreational skis I have always had a friend or an athlete who curses their skis and shows me a defect out of the boz brand new that missed the final check or got damaged in trasit or were skiing hard and fast through moguls and presto designed thier own reverse cambered rockers! just like yours pete. I now think you are not to blame entirely but skis are meant to bend tip to tail in theory without breaking, if it cant don;t buy it (I wouldn't reccommend trying this in a ski shop they wil hate you and ask you to leave most likely ;) Fischer and Dynastar are the strongest most durable skis, forget cheaper or sometimes not so cheap twintp park skis for now, they are so flexible and are designed to flex alot! so with the sit skis weight plus your agressive style they will break, even the pros break their park skis beacuse they will break to avoid major injuris to the rider when they are put under a certain amount of pressure a certain way that the ski has been designed to sanap because it replicates a potentially injury creating scenario. A bit like ski bindings how they release for AB people when to much force is placed on them they release the toe or hell sideways or upwards in some cases.

If you like checkout the links to some skis you might like and they should be cheap, if not I can generally get them really cheap through wholesalers on the mountains here where we get our stuff for the athletes and our own stuff at unbelievable prices. I usually upload the skis to ebay to keep everything safe on both ends and its gives u a cheap pair of skkis and I get a sale!. Anyway glad to help anytime, how high was the jump btw and was there a landing or was it flat?

Edited by little_one, 22 November 2011 - 12:27 PM.

[Pete Anderson]

Thanks for the response. I agree, the stiff racing ski is probably what I need, or a very good, high quality twin tip. The jump was suppose to be a little powder puff that was about 2-3 feet high. It turned out to be an chunk of ice from the snow making equipment. I immediately leaned back to avoid driving my ski tip into it, and it launched me! Kind of a flat landing. No pain, or injuries, except for the ski.

I still have a quiver of skis to fall back on...No pun intended.

I'll keep ya posted mate!

Pete