Alex, Daisy, Mike (Day 3)

There would be a common theme throughout all the exercises and skiing of the day: Lifting the lower leg out of the way and “diverge” the ski – whether to assist a pivoting action or to generate a skating action.

Skiing is built on two basic principles – Skating and Dynamics. Whether this ends up as “pivoting” or “carving” depends mainly on which ski edges are being used and the extent of the dynamics.

Pivoting

Warmer temperatures allowed us to start out focusing on pivoting. Everyone is starting to get the feel for remaining on the inside edge of the foot – while the edge of the ski changes during the turn. Daisy finally actually “heard” this today and understood it. Just practicing this each day for a short while brings big changes in skill levels. The main aim concerning Daisy is to directly work towards replacing her strong tendency to “snowplough” the start of her turns (actually a downhill stem – using the lower ski as a crutch and preventing dynamics) with something much more useful – namely “dynamics” which can be felt at even a low speed and through a range covering the most subtle to the most violent movements.

Alex meanwhile was managing to just stand patiently on his ski and wait for the pivot to take place instead of rushing, twisting and forcing everything. Mike with his wider skis was managing the pivot from a standstill quite easily.  Later on we used bumps for pivoting on – with the ski tips and tails in the air – focusing on leading the pivot by diverging the lower ski into the turn.

Skating

Skating skills were built up using a standard progression of exercises beginning with just stepping up sideways uphill – using both uphill edges. This is where there is a good opportunity to feel the feet inside the boots and to feel if there is either grip from the edge or slipping. It also allows the movement of the body to be clearly felt with no other distractions present.

Forward sliding was then added to the side stepping. As soon as the skier slides forwards the ski tries to make an arc – especially very parabolic skis like Mike’s – and this can pull the skier off the edge and cause a loss of grip. The body needs to become sensitive to this issue to be able to correct it and maintain grip. The exercise proceeds by starting off progressively more directly downhill and stepping around across the hill to a stop. The need to “diverge” the skis becomes obvious and is part of the change of direction – with some of the change of direction coming from the skis themselves.

Eventually whole turns are attempted by crossing the fall-line – then turns are linked – stepping continuously. Skating steps are then progressively reduced to only three per turn, then two and finally one – whereby an automatic down/up rhythm is set in place and natural timing – coming from the skating action – is produced. In the video everyone can be seen with this good timing.

Alex is doing very well – with both good skating and dynamics in the video and Daisy starts off well but then when she picks up a bit too much speed and starts pushing her lower ski away as a brake – instead of gripping and displacing her body instead. Mike started out well but bailed out due to being crowded out by someone nearby.

Mike simply needs to increase his dynamics to generate more edging of his skis. With narrow racing skis there is grip with even a slight lateral movement of the centre of mass – but with wider off-piste parabolics there is a bigger threshold where nothing happens and there is no feedback before the edge grip connects. During this threshold most people panic and just return upright. Parabolic skis are not the most grippy skis on ice either – because the whole of the edge is in contact with the ice and pressure is distributed along the edge. While this enhances carving is doesn’t maximise edge grip on ice – where skis which allow the pressure to be localised under-foot give the best ice grip.

Off Piste

The off-piste is very varied just now which doesn’t give people the opportunity to move very far without having to change technique! Mike was tending to “jump” the start of his turns – which is fine for pivoting sharp turns – but not when there is a bit of forward momentum. What was really needed here was to stand solidly on the outside ski and use pressure to get the ski to drive a turn. Alex picked up on this well and as a result is already rounding his turns out much better and controlling his speed through his “line” instead of his previous “braking actions”. There wasn’t much snow around which would allow the skis to pivot inside the snow so dynamics and strong pressure was all that would work. The key off-piste however when confronted with this situation is how the lift from the end of one turn is used to come over the lower ski into the next turn – but we didn’t have time to look at that. Tomorrow!

Face de Bellevarde

Alex managed to stay on my tail all the way down the Face, despite rocks and sheet ice in parts. I was seriously glad to have my old “rock basher” skis on! We mainly skied on bumps off the side of the piste and at no point did this throw Alex off. 

Alex, Daisy, Mike (Day 2)

Temperature of the snow today was -24°C  and this photo of the mountains in the distance captures the stinging cold atmosphere.

Day One – revisited…

Yesterday temperatures were literally disruptive – preventing skis from sliding (especially sideways) and making it too cold for any serious attempt at constructive coaching. Daisy ran into a problem on the slightly steeper Solaise run and although for a few minutes the issue appeared to be irrational there was a good reason for it. Her boots were both too big and she had not tightened them – leaving them on the loosest setting. The fact that the boots were too big was clear from the start as she could not hold the skis on edge – but the loose buckle setting wasn’t spotted until later on.  The session however turned out to be useful because she has never assimilated sideslipping skills – which are utterly essential for control and tight pivoting actions. The entire descent turned into an exercise in sideslipping and strategy: How to negotiate an intimidating icy slope with skis that won’t grip! – looking for soft snow to turn on and staying safe. Daisy actually did very well. For the following day the boots would be sorted and the problem cured – but the underlying skills still need a lot of work!!!

Day Two – Not quite so cold!

With the sunshine out the plan was to tackle technique straight away – then take it into practical skiing.  Getting kids to focus in such an environment is a challenge in itself – but gradually both Alex and Daisy came around to the task in hand. Unfortunately Mike and Jannette were stranded on the Bellevarde Express chair for at least 25 minutes due to a breakdown – so were were separated.

I explained how pivoting was done from standing on the outside edge of the uphill ski to start the turn – but that the ski would change edge during the turn. However, key to the whole issue is that the foot from the start to the end of the turn remains on the inside edge. Both are filmed here with their first reasonably successful attempts. We would ski for a while and then pause for a few more attempts – to avoid frustration.

During simple sideslipping Daisy still tends to snowplough the uphill ski – which gets her into a lot of difficulty when moving slowly. Gradually she is being taught to keep the uphill ski either parallel or diverging (skating) so that it is always on the top edge. This should soon click into place for her.

Daisy leads the way down skiing in the second part of the video clip. Last year (which Daisy missed) is when Alex worked on the same things and managed to lose his wide stance and snowplough. He puts in small checks to break his speed behind Daisy but that issue will be easily fixed by being taught to round the turns out more and avoid unnecessary “pushing out” of the heels. Alex already has good dynamics so he doesn’t need the heel pushing action. Alex is also much better centred over his skis while Daisy is too far on the backs of the boots (which partly contributed to the problems yesterday – and helped to disguise them!). Daisy is comfortable with speed, terrain and difficult snow – so only technique needs to be sorted out – there are no emotional issues. We played in powder snow for a while and despite getting stuck on a couple of occasions she enjoyed it much better then most children do on the very first attempt. Within a day or two she will be very comfortable with this – and then will probably not want to go back on piste! (Pistes are not real skiing anyway!)

Mike was struggling a bit with the Zag Big skis – due to the unaccustomed width. The key here is to learn to skate on the flat and feel the inside edges grip solidly, using the insides of the feet and the adductor muscles. Eventually this becomes easier because most of this work is done through increased dynamics and the adductors/feet issues are only fine control. Mike had been getting “flipped” the wrong way by the width of the skis and so for example on ice the ski would flatten pulling the knee and hip out and throwing the upper body uphill – the skis skidding out of control. If the ski’s are going to skid on ice then it’s critical to hold form and not lose hip angulation – but to maintain angulation and go with the skid. During the turn it also helps to pull everything inwards (towards the turn centre) consciously right until the end of the turn.

Atilla Skiing

Atilla learned most of his skiing from me as a child – but has gone through adolescence without any continued coaching. He is now twice the size that he was last time he received instruction. The outcome is that his skiing has become rather mixed up and gone off on a tangent of its own.

Haluk in the video is just nursing his poorly knee joints – but unfortunately is relying too much on dynamics, not enough on pivoting and is consequently limiting his upper/lower body separation, blocking his hip joints and straining his knees with an over-flexion of the ankles – and of course blaming the skis instead!

Technical

First of all it’s important to say that there are many strengths in Atilla’s skiing – and he clearly enjoys it. The skiing is just disorganised and needs to be re-organised. Dynamics are present and strong. Pivoting is present and strong. So where is it going wrong? Separating “cause and effect” is the key issue here. It’s very easy to look at the symptoms and to try prescribe solutions for them – like most moronic doctors do with illnesses. Non of that goes anywhere useful of course. So what is the underlying cause (or causes) of this muddled skiing?

Our answer is simple. There are two problems here.

1. The first and main problem is that in order to keep his feet ahead of his body Atilla is leaning against the back of his ski boots.
2. The second issue is that Atilla is fundamentally “two footed” and has very limited independent use of his legs.

The rest of the mess is just a collection of symptoms resulting from the above – similar to the way the body expresses genes – when inappropriate genes are expressed we end up with a muddled mess in health terms and then doctors have a field day supplying you with toxic prescription drugs for life! The real answers are usually very simple.

In future Atilla needs to learn how to organise his body so that the feet remain ahead without pressuring the back of his boots and he needs to understand how to maintain independent leg action at all times – even when the feet are close together. Beyond this he needs to become aware of the variety “symptoms” that stem from getting it wrong – so that he knows what is happening.

Still Cycling and Running

Mild weather in the valley is permitting a wonderful prolongation of the cycling and running season with no ice or snow on the ground. The photos below are taken across from Les Arcs and La Plagne when out on the bike Friday. Currently I’m working on optimising my health through optimum diet and optimum exercise (with good technique) – realising a body fat percentage of around 9%. One current goal is to use the cold and exercise to convert white body fat into brown fat – which keeps the body warm automatically without shivering.

 

Optimal Nutrition Protocol (without supplements)

(Abstracted from a recent email communication…)

Epigenetic

(selective gene expression) diet is essential to control hormones - which control your behaviour and your health. (Also - your visceral fat acts like a single gland - overpowering the hypothalamus in the brain and so all the other hormones which dictate even your behaviour - so abdominal fat must go...)

Carbohydrates:
1 Remove all sources of refined sugars
2 Remove all starchy vegetables
3 Remove all "healthy whole grains" and seeds.
4 Remove anything even resembling wheat. Cereals, Pastas, Pizzas, Bread, Biscuits, Pastries.
5 Remove all sweet fruits and fruit drinks.
6 Remove all "gluten free" products as this is a con - stuffed with alternative carbs instead.

Fats:
Remove Omega 6 oils (Sunflower etc - all veg/seed/nut oils except organic virgin olive oil) and all hydrogenated oils. Remove raw almonds, walnuts, brazil nuts, peanuts - unless in small quantities (High Omega 6)

Protein:
Avoid lean meat. If your optimum weight is 80 kg then eat no more than 1.5 max grams protein per Kg per day - so you would want to consume no more than 120g of actual protein per day!

Good Nutrition...

Carbohydrates:
You should eat non starchy vegetables: green leafy plants, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage, broccoli, etc. (Tip: eat with a lot of butter!)
Raw nuts: Macadamia is best! Limit walnuts, peanuts and brazil nuts.
Berries: All berries are excellent sources of antioxidants and are not sweet.

Fats:
Increase Omega 3 fats - from seafood or in capsule form.
Organic Virgin Olive oil is fine.
Use Saturated animal fats - eat the skin - use the bones and everything in cooking. The gelatine is essential for good gut health.
Use saturated plant fats such as organic Coconut oil and organic Palm oil. (Buying organic is utterly essential to avoid toxicity from processing and from pesticides and herbicides - especially concerning fats as they collect toxins!)
Organic, grass fed butter is excellent - especially if it's from raw (unpasteurised) milk.
Grass fed hard cheese from raw milk (Beaufort cheese for example)
Use full fat cream - (Crème Fraiche in France)
(Do not eat yoghurt, cottage cheese or drink milk as the all provoke very high insulin spikes due to certain protein issues. Do not eat "low fat" products)
Buy Lindt 90% cacao chocolate - no other brand exists that keeps carb content down far enough. Only eat one or two squares (with a black coffee etc.)

Protein:
Shellfish - Oysters are ideal food.
Fatty fish (Wild salmon, Mackerel, Sardines.) Do not buy farmed seafood - even if it is "organic".
Eat organic meats – choosing the fattiest meats. Try to avoid frying and grilling. Slow low temperature cooking is best. (to avoid glycation – toxic "AGE" by-products)
Eat organic free-range eggs - no restriction on quantity.

Alcohol:
Drink a glass of red wine as your alcohol drink - Beer is based on wheat so avoid it completely. Red wine has the antioxidants your body needs - same as chocolate - so it's good in small quantities. Is is disastrous in large quantities - no more ever than two glasses per day!

Circadian Cycles
Respect daily hormonal rhythms and cycles.
Eat two times per day - 30 minutes after rising (at 6 am) in the morning and around 6 pm in the evening. Try to exercise around 4 to 5 pm if you can. (Ideal scenario) Go to bed early and avoid bright lights after dark.

Recalibrate your circadian (daily) clocks by switching to Temperature instead of light (summer adaptation). Cold Adaptation required - 3 to 5 times per week in cold bath - skin temperature to 50 to 55 °F (9°C) Use ice (protect skin though) or water. (I use a cold bath at 7°C (45°F) for 25 mins every second day). The shivering afterwards is useful as it releases a hormone called "Irisin" which converts your white fat into brown fat". Live and sleep in cool temperatures (19°C of below) as this ramps up your brown fat by as much as 40%.

Use a pack of frozen peas or anything that you can place on the perineum nerve between the legs - for as long as you can - as often as you can - if you can't manage to do the cold baths. Use cold showers too - but not so effective. Ice your whole upper body if you can.

AVOID
All medication and vaccination (All are toxic) (Tip: use coconut oil on your skin to ease irritation)
All mass produced and processed foods where possible.
All sources of fluoride (check you toothpaste!) Do not use fluoride products - it is a violent neurotoxin and the most carcinogenic substance known to man. You can get safe toothpaste in any organic food store - or just buy Sodium Bicarbonate from a supermarket and brush with that instead.

CONCLUSION
If you observe all of the above (as I do) then your health will improve dramatically. Even just getting close to this will do the job. I go further by including at least 1 hour of fully aerobic exercise per day (no "games" or nonsense - just sustained effort!) and far more in the summer. I also ensure about 80% fat, 15% protein and 5%carbs overall in my diet and use an electronic breathalyser device to test for ketone production - which is at a maximum of 0.06% Body Acetone Concentration (BAC) which equates to  8 mmol/L Beta- hydroxybutyrate in the blood - which is as high as blood homeostasis will permit. I can sustain 0.05% most of the time and the lowest I have seen in the last month is 0.02%.

Ketosis has four components - increasing in strength in the following order...

Nutritional Ketosis
Fasting Ketosis
Post Exercise Ketosis
Cold Thermogenesis Ketosis

They all add together and compliment each other. For example eating each 12 hours gives an 11 hour fast between each meal. The body needs 8 hours to go through a cleansing of glucose in the liver and close to 12 hours for a full intermittent fast. Exercising near 5pm when the hormone cycles permit the best efforts, then eating and then bathing in cold water - all together pushes ketosis up to a measureable maximum.

Doctors will tell you that ketosis is dangerous - citing "ketoacidosis" - which is one way that type 1 diabetics die. Their Beta-hydroxybutyrate goes up above 15 mmol/L and their blood sugar simultaneously rockets. This absolutely cannot happen to a person even if the pancreas can only create a small amount of insulin. Doctors are unaware of this and into the bargain they have no formal training in nutrition so their bad and inappropriate advice has to be completely avoided.

Espace Killy Mid December 2014

 

 

 

 

Spectacular Day

Apparently there is no snow – but I enjoyed some great off piste skiing today – and stopped for a moment to enjoy the view!

 

 

 

 

 

Keith, Gail – Introduction to skiing.

The first time ever on skis is the most important of all. Initial impressions of success or failure tend to be imprinted indelibly. Ski Schools invariably allocate trainee instructors to the job of working with complete beginners and reserve the most experienced instructors for the highest level skiers. Beginners however require the absolute best of instruction to set up a proper open-ended development process based on the encouragement of appropriate natural movements and instincts. Achieving this is impossible for the trainee instructor who is already brainwashed with teaching dogma which contradicts even the most basic laws of physics. In reality it is impossible for nearly all instructors – though many experienced ones have at least abandoned the worst of the dogma and found some tricks of their own to compensate with.

Keith had good deal of water-skiing experience though Gail didn’t seem to be so enthusiastic about that sport. Keith had already heard from others that what he would be taught in skiing is the exact opposite of his water-skiing. This would normally be true and is the consequence of the ignorant dogma of the international ski school systems that I mentioned in the first paragraph. My job today was precisely to ensure than all of that nonsense and the incapacitating consequences were completely avoided.

Bony Crossing The Alps

There wasn’t much time for looking around but the place where we would work on the skiing was where Napoleon Bonaparte had his passage over the Alps stationed with troops. Stone signal towers still line the route every few hundred metres apart parallel to the Télecabine du Vallon and even in Val d’Isère itself. The music accompanying the edited video is therefore appropriately “Bony Crossing the Alps” – which was  historically a very popular tune used to rile up people in revolution – especially in Ireland. In those days people actually valued “freedom” – even if they were mostly often deliberately misled into banker’s wars. Today they prefer to just give up and sink towards irretrievable globalist totalitarianism!

 

Getting Started

In the morning I’d met Keith and Gail to ensure they were going to be equipped with the most appropriate equipment. Beginner’s boots are really no good so should always be avoided. I won’t go into all the whys and wherefores here. They ended up with intermediate boots and the shortest adult skis available – which was fine.

Up on the mountain, following a brief description of the function of bindings both Keith and Gail put on one ski. It takes a while to get the feeling for such an enormous extension to the foot so the idea was to  just move around on the flat ground, using the poles for support and sliding were possible. After a short while the ski was removed and transferred to the other foot. This builds familiarity with the bindings and cleaning the snow off the soles of the boots – as well as accustoming the body to accelerations. The terrain was flat enough to allow us to quickly progress to having both skis on.

With both skis on we practised turning on the spot (star turns) with little steps to avoid crossing the skis. Straight running was possible on a gentle gradient with a run-out and no threat of accelerating out of control. The first turns were executed simply by stepping the skis over in the direction of the turn with a slight divergence – much the same as in skating. To return back up the gentle gradient we use “herringbone” steps – once again with the ski tips diverging in a skating stance. No problems were encountered. All that is required at this stage is patience and repetition. Gail had a tendency to look at the ground and her skis so this was quickly brought to her attention to deal with. Looking at the ground has a paralysing effect and it’s best to deal with that immediately to prevent it from developing into a habit. The tendency to do this is just a response to tension and apprehension. The answer is to deliberately look up and towards the place you want to go to. It didn’t take Gail long to connect with this difference.

Skating

With Keith’s skis diverging I stood in front of him first and asked him to push me forwards – to encourage him to use the inside edges of his feet and skis to grip and push. This is the basis of skating. Both Keith and Gail had no difficulty doing this. To skate properly (with me out of the way) the pushing translates into a “falling forwards” and acceleration instead of overcoming a resistance. This exercise was intended to help the skated turns to develop and to introduce more active leg use.

From there on I allowed both Keith and Gail to choose for themselves the height they climbed up the small slope to launch themselves from. Sidestepping on the two uphill edges was introduced to make climbing simpler. Gail took a while to appreciate how the skis had to be completely across the fall-line of the slope to prevent them sliding away. It can take a while to get used to reading terrain and slope angles.

Keith had a slight tendency to remain “vertical” when sliding downhill and be on the back of his boots. I explained that he needed to stand in the middle of the boots – not lean on the backs or the fronts and to try to get perpendicular to the slope – not vertical to gravity. He had clearly also heard from someone that he should lean forwards – so I dispelled this myth too. Standing perpendicular to the slope  when sliding feels exactly the same as standing vertical on perfectly flat ground.

All skating exercises are useful in skiing and develop independent and active use of the legs. Skating is fundamental to skiing  - skis being not much more than big skates which scribe an arc instead of a straight line. The second of the two real fundamentals of skiing is “dynamics”.

Parallel turns and Dynamics

Once both Keith and Gail had a little speed it was time to immediately introduce “dynamics”. Skis work just like a bicycle or Keith’s water-skis. You fall over to one side  and the skis cut in front of your trajectory and bring you back up – making a turn in the process. For this reason I explained to both to get a little bit of speed – use a fairly wide stance for stability – then just move the centre of mass (around the belly button) to the side – towards the left to go left or towards the right to go right. I explained that there would be a bit of a delay but that the skis would eventually respond and that it didn’t matter which foot the weight ended up on. The key is to control the direction through the motion of the centre of mass. Both managed this very well and despite only being in their first few hours on skis and on a very short section of snow with no lift available – they were both able to make effortless parallel turns. “Dynamics” is what makes parallel turns!

Neither Gail nor Keith learned any defensive snowploughing with converging skis. They were not encouraged to be in “balance” and to shift or transfer weight to the “outside ski” in the turn as snowploughers always are. They were given the basics of Dynamics – the branch of physics (mechanics) with is the opposite of “balance” (Statics) – and which comes completely naturally if not interfered with. Gail had a tendency to try to force the turns by twisting her body in the direction of the turn – once again induced by tension and apprehension. Once this was quickly pointed out she was immediately able to work on correcting it. Building skill in this manner allows very clear feedback and correction right from the start – before any destructive habits can take root.

Both Keith an Gail appeared to be inspired by their day in the mountains and their experience of skiing. Luckily the weather at high altitude was kind on this day – a fitting compensation for the lack of snow in the valley below.

 

The struggle to produce snow in the nursery slopes of Val…