Sunday, December 29, 2013

How does Maries Schild do it? The best slalom skier to have ever lived.

It's easy to say, as they do on Universal Sports telecasts, "she brings it", she has the "energy", she  makes "no mistakes". But there is so much more to it. Those are skiing  clichés  but don't describe how she does it. For a more in-depth look at almost perfect slalom technique of Maries Schild read below:
Upper Body compliments her feet.
Schild's upper body Counter-acting is stronger and her Counter-balance, not only better, but earlier in the arc, than the rest. She has mastered and uses all of the "Essentials of Skiing", in every turn. Most of the field only has some of the Essentials, and rarely use all the Essentials in the same turn.
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In the last 30 turns, in the 2nd run, Schild beat the field that ran before her by 1 second to the bottom. She has yet to ski "all out" in two runs. If she does get back to being able to do it, she will begin winning slaloms by more than 1.5 seconds. This is how dominant she was before her injury. She also beat Shiffrin by 1.1 seconds in that run to take the win. 


Lower Body sets it up: Schild has emphatic outside ski retraction and flexing at the release of every turn, in other words, she pulls her leg into a strong flexing action when she releases the ski, and transfers to the other ski, while it is still on the little toe edge and is still that inside ski.

This is so obvious, but few coaches know how she achieves it. This is worth 1/50 of a second on every turn. Schild also has the narrowest stance and holds the inside ski and boot close even in the turn, this allows her to manage her inside ski tipping and pull back. She keeps the inside ski lighter for longer in a turn, than any of the others. The others except for her sister Bernadette, and Zettel, all use the inside ski to lean into. Even Shiffrin, her stance falls away (feet get too wide horizontally) and she ends up on the inside at the falline, this takes much of her rebound energy and edge hold away, out of the release.

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