Harb Ski Systems Coaches Ski TUX!

Harald and Diana of Harb Ski Systems two types of short turns.

Quick and powerful short turns!

This photo is from a series of short turns on really steep. Notice the full-body angles, compared to the "Lower Body" angles in the photo below.

This video demonstrates the way you develop short turns without an extension or push against the snow at the rlease.

A "lower-body" short turn shown here, is less risky and should be the first one you work on.

 

Turn Timing and Preparation in very short turns!

Pole and arm use and preparation are rarely taught, understood, or used properly. The lack of this understanding can hold your skiing back for years. 12 years ago I embarked on a skiing development that evolved into changing my technique and my turn timing. The end result is what I call "The No-swing Pole Tap. This is what we teach in our PMTS system.

This photo demonstrates pole preparation in place immediately near the "Apex or just after the skis in the falline. When you achieve this timing you never feel rushed and the upper body is stable without creating rotation or leaning movements. This is substantiated by the strong position of the inside pole and arm. 

When this pole prep isn't ready by the point where the blue arrow is shown in the red arc, the upper body swings quickly and detracts from ski angle, edge hold, and turn quality. Most skiers use too much pole swing because they drop the pole behind the body while dropping the arm and pole to the inside of the arc.

A strong inside half of the body is shown in this photo, which compliments the early pole preparation. 
 

Harald Harb Skiing with On-yo-ne!

Some short turns runs from this season.

                                   Variations on short turns that will serve you well in all conditions.

https://youtu.be/rPEUoftnC0c

Learning to apply World Cup skiing technique.

                World Cup Ski Technique

World Cup skiers are the most efficient and most dynamic turn producers and edge changers in all of skiing. All future skiing technical development for learning and teaching modern techniques are first seen in this disciple. 

Atle Lie McGrath is a Norwegian World Cup alpine ski racer who just won the last slalom race, at 21 years old. Here are the same techniques McGrath uses that we teach at Harb Ski Systems camps, which explain 4 of the 5 "Essentials of Skiing" from our PMTS Direct Parallel system.

                                                The Release

From these fully committed angles in a turn to the new edge angles for the next turn, "this is the transition", which requires a series of crucial movements for all skiers.

The lower body, boots, skis, and legs change angles from being uphill, or into the slope, toward the downhill side. Both legs and knees are bent the same amount at the point when the skis are flat on the snow. This is a crucial and critical movement criterion. 

The lower body keeps tipping under the hips and the hips and upper body are held over the skis and boots. The hips are not dropped to the inside of the turn until the newly engaged edges are achieved.

The graphics in this photo demonstrate the explanation of movements. 1-The red arrow indicates that the right or uphill hip is lowered and the leg stays bent on that side until lower body angles are achieved.
2-The Yellow line demonstrates that no extension is used. This allows lateral tipping movements with both legs and skis. 3-The blue curved line shows that the shoulders are stable, and not leaning into the next arc. 4-The purple curved line shows that his ski pole tip stays on or close to the snow on the uphill side in transition. This is a key indicator of his "Counter Balancing" ability with his upper body at the top of the arc.

 All movements and cues I describe here, we teach to students in our Harb Ski System camps. These movements are "Essential" for recreational skiers, coaches, and ski instructors. 

                             Counter Acting

This is the next photo in the series which demonstrates when the hip is dropped into the center of the arc. And counteracting (of the hips and shoulders) for dealing with the forces is achieved. In previous posts, I have described much more about "Counteracting" if you scroll down further.

British Skier makes history! David Ryding wins Hahnenkamm slalom.

 From a country with almost no snow, no mountains, and no winter, how does a man learn to ski with the best skiers from Austria, Switzerland Norway, and Italy? The answer is "plastics". Yes, as was the advice given to Benjamin in the movie "The Graduate", "the future is in plastics?" Ryding learned to ski on slopes with plastic bristles.

 Is this win a shock, not really. David Ryding is no flash in the pan, he has been on a world cup podium before, at Kitbeheul in 2017, in second place behind the greatest skier in decades, Marcel Hircher.

By winning, Ryding set two records, he becomes the first British skier to have ever won a skiing world cup race. He is also the oldest man to have won a world cup race.

Let us take a look at how it was done.  The Kitzbuhel slalom is a classic race that goes way back to the beginnings of downhill skiing. It is a tough hill under perfect conditions as it has sharp rolls and sidehills in it. However, in a snowstorm, that was almost a blizzard by the second run, things got very dicey as was evident by all the great skiers that skied out of the course, or hooked a gate.

Ryding skied beautifully and perfectly for that hill and for the conditions. He was fast, he was consistent and he was in total control. Every other racer had some mistakes or trouble trying to ski a fast line. Watching the race you would have thought everyone but Ryding was on a more difficult course with extra icy conditions. The best skiers in the world were flailing, with arms flying, skis going every which way, basically struggling on every turn.  The top 5 skiers had major mistakes in the second run. 

David Ryding, a beautiful classic technique with great foot discipline and outside ski balance.

Ryding skis with a narrow stance and great inside ski preparation and balancing movements.

In this photo above, David retracts his stance ski, keeps his feet close, and prepares for this edge change.

This is a skill that served Rdying well on this undulating course, the foot pull-back. In this photo he prepares the new turn by tipping the new inside ski first and pulling the foot back to assure his fore/aft balance will be where it needs it for every turn.

These two movements are just 2 of the 5 "Essentials" that made a huge difference in Ryding's great skiing and victory at the Hahenkamm slalom.. They are well explained and demonstrated in my book, "The Essentials fo Skiing." There are 5 Essentials, and Ryding had a direct link to all 5 in his amazing skiing that won him his first world cup race.

Consequences for World Cup skiers when cuff alignment isn't matching the leg curve.

On the left is a newcomer to the top 5 in a World Cup GS race at Alta Badia. On the right is a veteran racer who has numerous top 5 results in his career but is now struggling. These comparison photos are two different turns, but the point isn't about the turn it's the leg to boot angles and the consequences. The times for the run support the result from what happened on all the turns where the racer on the right showed a lack of edge angle and ski edge holding ability.

 The top right photo shows the difference in ski and boot angle to the surface. There is a definite lack of boot angle compared to the leg and knee angle with the skier on the left. The consequences are shown in the lower right comparisons. Although this is a one-turn example, this occurred numerous times in the difficult offset turns in both runs. These two racers are on different boot companies. 

The photo below shows a new racer who put up an excellent performance with a good result, on the same boot company as the racer at the top right. Some racers obviously fit the manufacturer's
boot angles better than others, or the techs did a better job setting up the boots for the skier in the lower photo.

For the course set in Alta Badia, a racer needed to achieve an angle like the one above to make the ski perform well. Notice how the medial angle of the ski boot in this photo is touching the snow and the ski is at almost 90 degrees to the surface. This angle is much more in line with the top photo on the left which creates a turn that holds well and accelerates the racer down the slope.

Harald Harb skis the Head e-Original

The world's "Best Skiers" ski with the world's most efficient technique.

 When learning to ski with “PMTS Direct Parallel” ™ you end up with the same technique as Hirscher. Without trying anything special and skiing my normal turns, the technical elements of these two techniques are exactly the same. I knew nothing about Hirscher or his technique when I wrote my books, “Anyone can be an Expert Skier” and the “Essentials of Skiing.” He is 29 and I am 71 in these photos. Hirscher uses the most efficient ski technique I have ever seen in my coaching career. With efficiency, you can ski for the rest of your life, with less fatigue, complete control, and more fun.

Skiing April's light powder, Arapahoe Basin

                                                    https://youtu.be/PgBJzchAj8w

Reviews of Harald Harb's "Essentials of Skiing", book by racers and ski Instructors.

Skiing traditions: Debunked and Explained! 1st in a Series, by Harald Harb

Just a short history: 

The transition in skiing has been misrepresented or not described correctly in ski literature since the beginning of time. In fact, in Warren Witherell's two books, it is never addressed at all. George Joubert, the French coach, in the late 60s and early 70s,  wrote two books. In them he does address the transition, however his descriptions are incorrectly focused.  I can make that statements because skiing at the highest levels has evolved differently from the way Joubert described it. Many so called ski technicians even today reference these books as the "gospel" never looking to evolve or properly analyze skiing after Joubert. Therefore ski teaching has stagnated since. 

In this series I will explain and break down how 21st Century skiing works at the highest levels and how recreational, intermediate and advanced skiers can add significant improvements to their skiing enjoyment and performance. With these methods and approaches you will ski with more efficiency, control and ease, rather than fighting gravity. You will learn to enjoy relaxation and the ease of acquiring ski performance with less effort. Let's get into it!

The Transition

The Transition is the most complex part of ski turns and requires the biggest change in the body. In the transition, your lower body, from below the hips, moves downhill, and the upper body stays the same until the lower body engages the skis to the new edge angles. Once this is done, the upper body needs to move from one side to the other over you skis. Ideally, this is accomplished without a pivot or and effort to create direction change. Once in the arc or a turn, the movements are relatively simple and consistent with how you stand on the ski. The transition is the point at which, everything happens, all this
changes and you move from one ski to the other and from one turn to the other. The best free skiers and racers can get this done before they reach the fallen. Let's have a look at the basics. 

     For the first session of body movements in this series; I focus on lower the body.       

To achieve a good transition, you have to have the skis engaged, not slipping, and the inside leg bent more than the outside leg. This happens with inside flex bending and tipping. Also, the upper body needs to counter-act the turning forces, called counter-acting. More on that later.

Through the bottom of the turn continue building your angles to load the outside ski. Many skiers give up the turn too early and therefore are rushed, therefore never getting the lower body released.

The actions of the release have begin already in this photo. The outside leg has shortened through bending  and lightening the pressure. How do you lighten pressure? You physically retract or pull the ski and knee up. Photo below.

The red arrow is the movement to retract. The blue arrow is getting that ski released.         The black arrow is where your balance and pressure goes when you create these     movements.

Now the tip of the ski is lifted, both knees are equally bent and the angles from the previous turn are gone.

The skis are flat, and half way through the transition. Notice nothing else has moved, only the lower leg flexing and bending up toward my chest,  has created the transition. Now both legs have the same amount of bend.

The lower body transition is complete, now you build the actions for the arc. The inside leg keeps bending and tipping,toward its outside little toe edge of the ski, until it is shorter than the outside leg.

The red arrow is for continued action of bending and flexing. The yellow arrows are
to indicate increased tipping.   Never push against the outside leg, common
error taught to skiers.

In the turn, all is good.

Keep a look out for the second article in the series where I address the upper body responsibilities in transition.

One of the 5 "Essentials of Skiing" Counteracting!

If "Carving" is one of the things you want to achieve in your skiing, then "Counteracting is a big contributor to that skill. In this post, I define some of the key ways to learn how to achieve and develop CA.

 The Yellow line curve is the arc of the turn. The two blue arcs are movements you make while in the arc, starting at the top of the arc and moving the arm and hand forward toward the tip of the ski until the end of the turn. 

Notice the ski pole tip is also moving downhill and in a circle as much or in advance of the skis coming through the arc. 

When you begin to learn how to use counteracting it may not work its way down to your hips where you see the red arrows, at first. (photo above)

This is difficult for many skiers to create hip CA due to either lack of awareness or flexibility. With practice, you can increase your hip support for your turns.

The forces in a carved turn want to rotate your torso, which decreases ski angles and edge hold. This is the reason to develop CA movements. Just trying to hold a countered hip isn't enough. Counteracting, or CA is a movement, not a position. 

Begin by using the pole tip, arm, and hand on the inside of the arc, to develop your CA movements through turns. Slow down, and pick a relatively flat slope to practice this. Make the movements from the top of the arc all the way to the end. This requires effort and patience, it won't happen immediately but it will pay off with great skiing if you stick with it.

10 to 13 year old ski racers, with superior skiing and mature technical development, Are Fast!

There are some notions and beliefs around US Ski Coaching,  that young racers who ski too well and have learned good technique; are never going to be successful fast racers, because they are over techniqued. 

Sometimes I have to just shake my head in wonder at the belief systems that prevail in skiing.

The notion that good technique makes you a slow skier is not only absurd, but it's an attempt to remove the responsibility of good coaching from the coach's back.  

When proper technique is coached and developed a young racer doesn't have to dwell on his skiing he can relax and ski fast without thinking. The individual and his personality traits bring the fire in the belly on race day. And if you don't have that fire naturally, you probably won't make it whether or not you have good or undeveloped technique.  It's the determination and motivation that makes a skier aggressive and an attacking racer, not diminished in the slightest by his ability to ski well.

 In fact, it's the opposite, the better you ski the more confidence you have to ski fast, not the other way around. Sometimes in the US we have strange ideas about what develops success.

In Austria all the racers learn to ski well and then they develop into champions, and they all  "amazingly" have the same good technique. Are they over techniques? Maybe they are but they are still fast.

Below are three very fast racers with exemplary technique. When taught correctly and without technical overload or jargon, skiers don't slow down to ski well in a course; they rely on the instincts trained into their skiing movements. 

In these photo you see skiers with world cup skiing. Outside ski, skeletal alignment to the forces and excellent balance.


 These skiers developed these basics through exercises skiing outside of gates. This requires focus concentration and discipline. This is often not something everyone has or brings, many skiers have to learn how to focus just as they have to learn different techniques.

(Below photo) This is 10 year old Zack, he's highly focused and loves exercises that he uses to  develop his skiing by training outside of gates.

A highly skilled skier always looks like they have world cup technique, doesn't matter what age.

Sometimes you have a wild and loose skier who needs to be gradually reigned in to develop enough technical ability, yet not lose that free spirited edge. Ever skier and personality is different and coaches need to realize you don't treat all racers the same way. The skier below is a free spirit, yet he now has the ski technique to also stay in the courses while skiing fast and free.

Technical development of 8 to 13 year old skiers.

Proper coaching results in excellent racers.

This racer is 13 years old, has been taught "How" to get to this relationship to his skis. This involves using correct movements into and out of the turns to accomplish a photo like this. These are world cup skiing techniques and body movements and angled relationships.  These types of movements are not taught by USSA education to coaches or by coaches using USSA training. This is a totally different system, much like what the Austrians use to create the best skiers in the world.

If what I stated above is the case, what are the key differences from what you see here and what is in USSA Coaches Education. The first glaring difference, if you listen and compare to USSA coaches education, USSA coaches education has no clearly outlined, "descriptions of the movements" or "how" to create the right movements to become top level racers. Yes, sure there are "concepts", but concepts don't teach coaches how to coach or racers how to move their bodies.

Second, there are glaring portions of a ski turn missing from the overall understanding of skiing in USSA coaches education.  For example: the transition, going from one turn to the next, is not described, no movements are appropriated to this most important aspect of skiing. The transition (between gates) in racing, is the part of the turn that has the most body changes, largest body movements and where American skiers most often have trouble, yet no mentions of this phase, in the skiing pyramid, hierarchy, for slalom. Also the transition sets you up for the next turn. If you listen to the  Sasha Rearick, US Head Men's Coach,  in his presentations, there no mention of a transition. No mentions of it's importance, how it's done, what movements are involved or how to set it up.

Another glaring omission, is boot, foot and ski tipping, how to tip a ski on edge, which ski to tip,  how to un-tip the skis and what movements are involved.

Mr. Rearick tells coaches in presentations that he will not tell them "how" to coach, or how to teach, or what to coach, they should use their imaginations. US coaches have been using their imaginations for decades, how is that working? Yet, the US ski team still complains that there are no talents in the development pipeline. How is it that the Head Coach of the Men's US Team after berating the US domestic coaches for not developing enough world cup skiing talents, can end the presentations with no help? He goes on to say he isn't going to tell them how they should coach, so how does he expect to get from domestic programs what he needs on the world cup. Does anyone else see a total disengagement of responsibility from a national team coach as an educator? If he isn't going to educate coaches, why is he presenting?

Pure example of missed boot set up. It's not working here either.

The article is a filled with incorrect approaches to boot set up.. The poor and misguiding information is coming out of Ski Racing these days is astounding, sensationalism reporting, without references, or facts. I was there when Warner put his back out in training at Loveland. I had checked his alignment on our stand at our shop numerous times. It was completely due to his "mis- alignment" of his boots, and he wouldn't listen to reason about his over canting. He over canted himself and he got hurt because of it, this was on his Dodge boots. Warner has little understanding of his or anyone else's alignment for that matter.
I don't know why Ski Racing Magazine can't write about proper correct alignment information, it is available. It would be much more helpful if Ski Racing wrote about alignment that is actually relevant to skiers, and at the same time is accurate?????? Perpetuating confusion about alignment doesn't serve the ski industry and can actually hurt people.


Anyone following this advice from Warner's article is putting themselves in serious jeopardy and the possibility of a serious knee injury. Warner should be ashamed of this article and his ignorance of proper boot fitting and alignment.

Warner's solution to tip his cuff toward his leg, it doesn't work the way he intended. It makes the boot highly over reactive to any terrain, ruts or chatters in a course. It also pre-loads the boot enough that any slight tipping force toward the new edge is over done and right after that the boot and ski drop excessively inside, so much so that the ski can't possible hold an edge. Although this may feel like you get tremendous grip when free skiing, in a racing situation it actually loads the ski early and quickly and makes for a very hard hit when it achieves early hold and is quick to the edge, and these quick re-loads shocks end up in the knee and lower back as the shock travels into the body.
A very dangerous situation.