This is the World Famous TelemarkTalk / TelemarkTips / Telemark Francais Forum, by far the most dynamic telemark and backcountry skiing discussion board on the world wide web since 1998. East, West, North, South, Canada, US or Europe, Backcountry or not.
This is the World Famous TelemarkTalk / TelemarkTips / Telemark Francais Forum, by far the most dynamic telemark and backcountry skiing discussion board on the world wide web since 1998. East, West, North, South, Canada, US or Europe, Backcountry or not.
This is the World Famous TelemarkTalk / TelemarkTips Forum, by far the most dynamic telemark and backcountry skiing discussion board on the world wide web. We have fun here, come on in and be a part of it.
Notice how he is centered further back over his rear foot. I don't know if you can see it, but he stays centered at all times. The "holy grail"
Think of it more in terms of where the force vector of your CG goes. It's a plumb line that drops from your belly. As terrain becomes steeper, you have to move the CG back slightly to keep that vector centered (roughly) between your feet. IMO most of your weight shouldn't be over the back boot.
One of the complications of skiing bumps is the need to continually reposition your CG as the terrain varies dramatically over short distances. On a continuous steep slope, it's more constant.
I'm not buying into that upright stance as shown in that illustration as being integral to telemark. It's just one style, and not the most stable one as far as I'm concerned.
MSA, the whole point about getting your butt back is to center the weight between the skis, not on the rear foot. How you get your weight centered between your skis doesn't matter as much as getting your weight centered there.
That is a good point about needing to get further back as things get steeper and it is rarely mentioned. The stance that works on a 15 degree slope will put you too far forward on something steep if you don'e adjust.
I want to add that if you ski with a more spread out stance you won't be centered if you are too far back, so there are no absolutes.
I'm not buying into that upright stance as shown in that illustration as being integral to telemark. It's just one style, and not the most stable one as far as I'm concerned.
MSA, the whole point about getting your butt back is to center the weight between the skis, not on the rear foot. How you get your weight centered between your skis doesn't matter as much as getting your weight centered there.
That is a good point about needing to get further back as things get steeper and it is rarely mentioned. The stance that works on a 15 degree slope will put you too far forward on something steep if you don'e adjust.
I want to add that if you ski with a more spread out stance you won't be centered if you are too far back, so there are no absolutes.
Yeah, I think we are probably saying the same thing from different perspectives.
I try to keep my weight (vector) between my skis. I can tell when I get too far back because the damn skis just stop turning. I only am a proponent of an upright stance because I need it too increase endurance by decreasing the load on my muscles. In this case, my style is driven to some extent by my objective, but it's still absolutely only a style. Both of my sons get really deep into the knee drop, and my friend Lisa stays lower than anyone I've ever seen, and it takes me 3 runs to lap her!
BITCH!
Anyway, this probably isn't that upright. I'd like to be a little straighter.
I skied for an hour yesterday trying to correct something and found myself having less enjoyment, I think is my point.
This is a sure sign to think less and ski more.
The only reason to change anything is if you find it's holding you back. I took a tele lesson recently and remarked that I was frustrated that my turns always felt long and that I really struggled skiing bumps. Found out I was letting my back leg dangle a little too far back without enough pressure on it. Changed my stance a bit, really started working on weighting the back foot earlier, and boom, quicker turns happen. Still practicing a bit to fully crush some old habits, but the point being is that until you want to fix something (and wanting to have the approval of tele forum folks is a very bad reason to want to fix something) don't bother and just ski.
*no approval needed, just contributing. I mostly ski solo, so online community is all I have
Fits me to a "T"!
Thanks @lowangle al
Now I need to work on listening. That was further illustrated when I got my new mountain bike shock pump today. It wasn't working and in the middle of my hissy fit I thought "maybe I should read the instructions"!
Problem solved!
I always say don't overthink it. Don't get mired in the details. The one thing that you can't overthink or practice too much is getting better centered. There is a good instructional video by Urmas that has you going straight on a low angle doing telemark transitions with no turns. It forces you to get better centered because you don't have your inertia keeping you going like you do in a turn.
Maybe someone will post that video.
I'm always thinking about my skiing. You need to make constant adjustments to stay centered and to continually improve the connection between your brain and your ski edges and bases. If your not thinking about your skiing you're going to get a lot of practice picking yourself up off the snow. The biggest motivator of all is that the better you get the more fun it is.
20240308_085530.jpgYup, and I was reminded of what you were saying when I seen this image from telemark tips. It seems having an alpine background ground privide a good basis but there are key differences
That’s what I’m like when skiing alpine. But, no gender change on switching to tele for backcountry pow!
There is a good instructional video by Urmas that has you going straight on a low angle doing telemark transitions with no turns. It forces you to get better centered because you don't have your inertia keeping you going like you do in a turn.
Maybe someone will post that video.
His carving video got me started in pursuit of the carved turn. I always thought carved turns in an alpine stance were very easy - almost automatic on modern shaped skis. I found the learning curve to be slow in a telemark stance. My first successes occurred with my weight back but that resulted in turns that left a single thin track. It took a while to dial in the fore-aft positioning enough to get 2 thin tracks. Part of the problem was that with weight back, I couldn't generate turns tight enough so that I didn't take up the entire width of the trail. Getting a cheap pair of intermediate skis in the sub-14m turn range really helped in that regard and now that I've developed a bit of muscle memory and confidence my wider turning skis are very workable for carving as well.
agreed