Check point 11, Inside Ski Management

Inside ski and foot management needs to be trained and taught. It is rarely developed completely without guidance and coaching on it's own. Two of the Masters on the World cup of inside ski and foot management as seen here.

Above is Felix, how can you tell he has inside foot management, because he has pulled the inside foot back, the ski tip is still on the snow, but the tail is lifted. When you practice inside foot management this is exactly what occurs.

Marcel below, notice how bent his inside knee is yet his boot is back as far as the other knee, which is touching the boot. These two examples are not happen-stance and not what every World cup skier is born with. This is trained and it it is part of proper expert skiing.

Examples below of two skiers, in slalom, who used to be on or close to slalom podiums. They have failed to keep up with the changing techniques of modern slalom. Very poor inside foot management and also inside foot breakdown is obvious in this skiing, example in photos .

When inside foot  management is lost it also affects upper body balance, often counter balance and leaning are results of the lack of inside foot attention during training.

When you see racers missing this movement, they are losing huge amounts of time.

A short while ago I received an e-mail from a racer. He was asking about transfer to the LTE. He said a coach told him that it isn't something you should use.  Well, I do advise you learn what it is and how to use it.

Once you release the big toe edge of the stance ski your weight and balance need to go somewhere and this is where it should go.

Both Felix NEUREUTHER (here) and Marcel Hirscher use this extensively, those who end the turn with too wide a stance have great difficulty making this movement.

For Schiffrin what a difference 3 weeks can make. A win at Flachau.

Shiffrin wins slalom at Flachau, 1st run by 9/10 of a second. 

This is a big change from 3 weeks ago for her release and transition. Notice the feet are aligned and weight is off the stance foot, transferring to the uphill, little toe edge ski.

                        We see this in Hirscher's skiing example below. He is even stronger and more consistent with the move, with a narrower stance. In this frame it is a fraction of a second before he totally unweights the stance ski and transfers to the little toe edge of the uphill ski.

 Three weeks ago the release looked like this, stepping to the big toe edge, this is her weaker alignment side. But it has been more controlled  in the last two races. There are still some signs that it's not all gone yet in some turns, but this is a major improvement, also shown by how much she won the run. This transition costs time, it's a big toe edge, to big toe edge transition. This means the ski is grinding in the upper part of the arc. Whenever you see this step out type transition, it's an indication of time and speed going away.

Here is hirscher transferring to the little toe edge of the up hill ski, for his release to transition. This is the key move in slalom skiing. This is the move that Ted Ligety can't seem to develop.

Notice the difference between this and stepping to the uphill big toe edge. 

Comparison, Richie Berger.

Harald Harb

                                                                   Richie Berger

                                                       Ski like an Austrian

Richie Berger (above in Blue)  is one of the best freeskiers in the world and represented Austrian for many years in demonstration skiing.