Hip to be square
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These days it seems to be very hip to be square to the skis, i.e. keep facing wherever the skis are pointing at all times, at least - it seems - if you listen to North American pros, on the racing side or even the recreational side. Gone are the days of anticipation and separation... or are they?
Do we want to ski like this one?
or like this one?
Do we want to let the hips turn to be square to the skis throughout the turn, much like a golf cart, or rather keep them pointing down the hill?
There's a lot of advice lately "to be square" out there, at least in North America and some from Japan. Deserves looking into, so let's jump right in...
What is square
Being square refers to having the hips and shoulders point to where the skis are pointing. In this video, Reilly shows a good definition of square:
One point that we especailly agree with is when he also points out that all notions of square or counter are to be judged in relation to the outside ski. Everything we do when skiing on-piste and most off-piste is related to controlling gripping with the outside ski, so that makes complete sense.
The relative positions of the inside and outside skis, whether the inside ski is even or slightly ahead of the outside ski is a somewhat related relationship, see Tip lead and The wall.
Squaring positions vs actions
Actions are important, positions not so much. Actions prescribe a movement that we do to create an outcome. Positions describe a cue, such as "face the outside ski" or "be square"... but remember that a broken clock still tells time accurately twice a day!
Square relates to and prescribes a position. And as mentioned above, we will be generally "square" at least once per turn. When? Generally around the apex, when both body and skis are pointing down.
If you think that "be square" describes passivity as in lack of action, it sure sounds like it - let's look at some actions.
Square vs counter
Since the upper body is connected to the lower body, it generally likes to turn and lean as one unit. That is the default course of action unless the skier does something about it, to separate the movements of the upper and lower body. In "the rotational plane" this means that the upper body can turn together with or independent of the lower body.
So if we're not to follow the skis around, what are the other options? The opposite of square are two possibilities: Rotation and Counteraction or Coiling.
Briefly, rotation means to rotate the upper body more into the turn than the skis are rotating and it is generally considered one of the cardinal sins of skiing and we will not spend more bits on it. By contrast, counteraction means to rotate the upper body opposite to the direction the skis are rotating, resulting in the upper body pointing towards the outside ski to some extent.
This is famed skier Lindsey throughout a high powered turn:
You can see that she is quite square in frames 1 and 9, but those are also the only frames that she is square with the skis! In the meantime, her body is either pointing towards the inside ski or the outside ski. Does that mean she rotates and counteracts all the time? Hardly.
From frames 1 - 4, as the skis turn left, she is counteracting so that the body turns the other way (i.e. the body stays pointing down the hill and towards the outside ski), creating a lot of counter or a countered position in transition. In frames 5 - 7, as the skis glide across the slope and the skis change, i.e. the old outside ski becomes the new inside ski, she is still pointing down the hill, maintains that counter and in frames 7-9, as the skis start to engage and turn, she still is counteracting the rotation of the skis, to end up all pointing down in frame 9.
Remember, actions matter, positions not so much. Far from "staying square", she is strongly counteracting throughout the turn while in places she looks square (frames 1,9), countered (frames 2-3-4) or even looks rotated in frames 5-6-7.
- coiling
- maintaining coiling
- uncoiling
Virtually all performance skiers in all performance turns everywhere ski with counteraction - the more performance, the more counteraction there is, which tells you what it's good for! Maintaining coiling in transition is a strong effort of the core and body to maintain the coiled or countered position while the skis are gliding across the scope and it is one big reason why we can't maintain strong coiling in large turns, where we go a long way across the slope between apexes.
Turn shape and speed
In short turns, bumps and glades, to slalom turns towards GS turns, a lot of counteracting and maintaining counter in transition is critical. You cannot even ski bumps or go through a slalom course without tons of counteracting - it will be very rare to see a lack of counteraction in these situations.
Well, what does speed have to do with this? A turn in bumps or slalom turn taken at a crawling pace is more akin to a downhill turn than a short turn. That's why speed matters when looking at turn shapes and actions. Yes, you can get through a bump field, possibly, being totally square and rotating your entire body wherever the skis are rotating, when going very slow. So slow as to not be of interest to us.
When we say "short turns" or "skiing bumps" or "slalom turns" we mean doing the respective turns fluidly and maintaining an appropriate rhythm. There can be many that will twist this and say "look at me skiing so square but very slowly in these short turns". Yeah, sure. Who'd want to?
To have a blanket statement or instruction to skiers "to be square", without looking at turn shape or performance seems to be well out of place. In fact when you ski a zipper line, the body barely has time to start following the skis and it is naturally separated - see what happens when you try to square it up and have it point to the side at every apex.
Why counteract?
There are many benefits to coiling, detailed throughout this website, for instance controlling Angular momentum, and since physics did not change this past few decades, the requirements for good skiing have not changed either.
What did change in the past few decades were the skis, which are way more auto-turning with their hourglass shapes, so one can way more easily get away with bad technique, but if anything, for good skiers, they probably accentuated the need for good counteraction, since they turn so quickly.
The many benefits of coiling can boil down to "performance". Starting with short turns and slalom turns to GS turns, the more performance you want, the more coiling you need, up to a point, obviously.
Pretzeling
A good friend coined this phrase about an extreme counter at the apex: it looks like a contortion to have the hips point outside when the skis are in the fall line, like turning the body into a pretzel.
Next, we'll talk about pretzeling, stay tuned!
Read more
Related posts:
Sessions:
- Intro to coiling
- Upper and lower body separation again
- Explore coiling
- Strong inside half
- Refine uncoiling
Drills:
Start improving your counteraction
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