Hip rotation at and after centerline

[Horton]

One of the things that I believe is true but I do not totally understand is the importance of hip rotation or position after centerline. I can easily make the (false?) argument that opening my hips at this point lets me move my center of mass forward. I can also argue the exact opposite.

 

What I believe to be true is that for a RFF skier going to 2/4/6 to pull their hips counter clockwise (rotate away from the pylon and toward shore) results in a wider path to the ball and and earlier apex. What I am unsure about is why? Is it simply better connection? I know when I ski 36 this is much more critical then at 34.

 

This is being posted in the Advanced Topics Category. The purpose of this limited section of the forum is to encourage some of the guys who run very short rope but do not comment much to chime in. For those of you who can not comment I hope this provides good reading.

 

If you run the purple loop or beyond and want to comment send me a message.

[ColeGiacopuzzi]

I believe that why this creates more space and an earlier apex at 2,4 is I start to rotate my hips counter clockwise, I'm also thinking about moving forward on the ski; flexing that front ankle forward and standing tall in the preturn. Moving forward on the ski sooner, causes the ski to smear letting the tail of the ski move outbound which in effect is why we feel more width before the buoy.

[Horton]

@Colebrah

I 100% agree. My question is why?

[Sethski]

Sorry to be antagonistic, but there needs to be some clarification as to where specifically you are talking about rotating your hips and where specifically you start to move forward putting pressure on the front of the ski. If you do either of these too soon it creates an exact opposite effect of what you want in my opinion. Can I hear some clarification before I throw in my full 2 cents?

[Horton]

@Sethski Always keeping me honest

 

I try move the handle to the left (straight arms) at or after the second wake. I am under the impression that my “trying” to move the handle left helps me not allow my hips to rotate to the right. I do not think the handle actually moves or not very far but my whole core is working to point out from the wakes. Even though I am thinking about the handle or my hands I am trying to impact my hips. (I have tried to think about my hips and I could not process it)

 

I know @Colebrah works on the same thing but he actually thinks about hips.The effect is the same (except he is young and talented)

 

Make any sense?

[Luzz]

@Horton I'll try to explain the way I see it by starting with an oversimplified premise that I believe we all abide to. That is, the wider the ski goes, the earlier it wants to turn. The reason why the movement you are trying to do becomes more critical at 36mph is that the ski wants to travel down the course more than at 34mph, as the boat catches with you faster.

 

With this in mind, it is worth thinking of how we can manage to do this. When it comes to off-side pull edge change, I think the challenge becomes avoiding to end up on the inside edge too quickly, as you are approaching the whole process from a very awkward stance, i.e. offside pull, that the boat is way too good at destroying.

 

As a RFF, what I try to do is to make sure that my right edge engages as late as possible going into 2-4 while not having to stay on the left edge to achieve this!! And for obvious reasons right? We all know the problems with pulling long. The way I try to achieve this is to slow down the rolling of the ski underneath me in order to second the outward direction of the ski as much as I can. Of course this is one of those situations in which you "work with what you have", so if you didn't have a lot of angle into the wakes, than that's the angle you'll try to lose at the slowest rate possible.

 

The reason for all this blurb is that I think the reason why you feel that this movement helps you is that it slows down the rolling of the ski underneath you, allowing you to get more width and, because of that, the apex starts earlier.

 

Of course, making this movement at the wrong time or exaggerating it has problems:

If you exaggerate it, and by that I mean your hips are almost parallel to the shore, then when it comes to turn your onside, you'll have to bring them back to an onside-pull position, requiring you more time. Also, you'll be more likely to just "fall in the turn", which doesn't mean falling, but kind of turning the onside as your body falls in it

If you make the movement too soon, it'll interrupt the edge change and make you pull long

If done too late, it'll bring you the inside edge abruptly with the ski nicely pointing down course

 

I believe that the better your offside pull stack is into the wakes, the less this movement becomes critical, as your hips will be leading the way already. When we talk about defending our position, the way I understand it is to keep what you have to the best of your ability. I am not trying to say that the movement you are doing will become irrelevant once your stack improves (and who knows, maybe you are stacked as hell going to the wakes :sweat_smile: ). I just think that the magnitude of the movement and the importance it has for a nice and strong 2-4 will diminish.

 

Finally, as personal advise, don't exaggerate with the straight arms as it may impede your hips from countering the way they should.

[Terry Winter]

Not sure twisting your hips one way or the other has much affect on overall width in the course. Speed/Direction through the second wake and a solid connection of core/hips/elbows is going to determine the width your ski can reach. Too much movement in any direction can be detrimental, and I believe that in relation to which direction you are facing throughout the entire course the most square or neutral position is ideal. Square and level shoulders, square hips, a strong alignment through the body and balanced over the center of the ski... strive to maintain that. I think most of the movement should be coming from the hips off the second wake not in a rotational direction but more in a back to forward or low to taller position into the pre-turn. Just how I see it.

[AdamCord]

Lots of good comments here. I'll try and make this simple, GUT-style. @twhisper really hit the nail on the head. This is about speed.

 

A few things to keep in mind - The path of the handle relative to the boat is fixed...you can't stretch the rope to take the handle to a wider point. Our goal when skiing needs to be to get the handle as high as possible as quickly as we can. The higher our speed, the "wider" our trajectory when compared to the course, not because we stretched the rope to a wider point, but because we swung around the pylon faster, getting us to a wide point earlier.

 

Also regardless of how well you accelerate by leveraging and stacking coming into the centerline of the course, at shortline you can't really generate speed after the centerline. The best we can hope for is to maintain our swing speed with minimal loss as we change direction from across course to down course. If any of the above is confusing, please go read the GUT articles we posted last year. (I swear we have more coming! We're slow)

 

Now a fun thing about physics is that we can isolate systems within systems to make what we are looking at simpler and use simple calculations to figure out what's going on. For instance...If we know a skier's weight, speed, and line length, we can use simple math to figure out the rope load at edge change (when the ski is unweighted), which I believe @Horton is about the start of the zone of the course you're asking about. We do this by ignoring the down course motion and just looking at the skier relative to the boat, as if the skier were a simple weight traveling on a circular path around the pylon. I won't bore you with the details of the math, but using f=(mv^2)/r, if @Horton weighs 180lbs, is skiing at 38off, and is traveling at 45mph at the edge change (total guess on speed), then we can calculate that the rope load is 660lbs! There's a reason skiing makes you so sore after a few weeks off. **To avoid confusion I should point out that this 660lbs is a theoretical value that you'd see if the COM didn't move away from the pylon during edge change. Since the COM of even the best skiers moves away from the pylon at this point to some degree, the measured value will be lower than the theoretical**

 

The last piece from the above info that we need to understand is that a pendulum swings FASTER as it shortens, and SLOWER as it lengthens. If you're in a good, stacked position when you come into the CL, you can generally hold that 660lbs. But when the edge change starts, that's when people tend to get that feeling of the handle being ripped off their body as the ski and our hips move under our shoulders and away from the pylon. Another way of thinking of this is that your mass is taking a straight path, while the handle is trying to take a curved path around the pylon. We need our body to take that same curved path in order to stay "connected" to the handle.

 

With all the above info in mind, we can imagine what would happen if we rotate our hips "open" to the boat off the 2nd wake, and what would happen if we "close" our hips away toward shore. If we open to the boat, it will be really hard to keep our mass with the handle, thus keeping the pendulum short, and our swing speed high. You would need super strength to pull the handle into your hips with your arms and lats.

 

On the other hand if you rotate your hips/shoulders away from the boat, AND move your hips/shoulders forward, you will be able to hold the load with your arms straight without your mass moving on a different path (away) from the handle. This image of Nate illustrates it pretty well. You can imagine if his hips/shoulders were facing the boat they would get pulled away from the pylon way too early, lengthening the pendulum, putting the ski on an inefficient inside edge (to @Luzz's point) and thus slowing his swing.

 

 

For the Lazy - Rotating away keeps you connected better and makes you wider/earlier.

[matthewbrown]

I'm not sure anyone is prescribing that one purposely open up their hips at the edgechange, I think a better way to describe what is happening is that we are simply maintaining our previously attained position. Going back to what Terry had written, at this juncture in the course any additional efforts to twist away further, bare no additional fruit. Any twisting away with load is only going to cause handle separation. Maybe after the handle release you can look at opening up toward the shore, but that is a different story. What you are looking at in the picture of Nate is simply a neutral position for an offside cut. If you were to freeze his oneside cut edge change, you would see open hips to the boat. Getting back to @Horton original question, "why do I feel so much wider when I twist my hips away?" You aren't twisting away, you are just doing a better job of maintaining what you have already achieved and most likely are more on top of the ski. Perhaps a better term for twisting away with your hips would be "keeping your hips moving forward and not allowing your butt to drop back." If twisting away with your hips is the key term to get you to do this, then so be it...but that is not what is happening.

 

[matthewbrown]

I'm not sure anyone is prescribing that one purposely open up their hips at the edgechange, I think a better way to describe what is happening is that we are simply maintaining our previously attained position. Going back to what Terry had written, at this juncture in the course any additional efforts to twist away further, bare no additional fruit. Any twisting away with load is only going to cause handle separation. Maybe after the handle release you can look at opening up toward the shore, but that is a different story. What you are looking at in the picture of Nate is simply a neutral position for an offside cut. If you were to freeze his oneside cut edge change, you would see open hips to the boat. Getting back to @Horton original question, "why do I feel so much wider when I twist my hips away?" You aren't twisting away, you are just doing a better job of maintaining what you have already achieved and most likely are more on top of the ski. Perhaps a better term for twisting away with your hips would be "keeping your hips moving forward and not allowing your butt to drop back." If twisting away with your hips is the key term to get you to do this, then so be it...but that is not what is happening.

 

[Horton]

@Luzz Super insightful stuff. Actually my position/stack out of 1/3/5 is hit and miss but that is a whole different subject.

 

@twhisper “most square or neutral position is ideal” these are words that I think the average Baller needs to hear over and over.

 

“I think most of the movement should be coming from the hips off the second wake not in a rotational direction but more in a back to forward or low to taller position into the pre-turn”. That is going to be a big part of my next question. My freaking On Side has to change.

 

@AdamCord good stuff as always.

Sort of a side question: Do you think it is necessarily a bad thing is if a skier pulls in their left elbow during edge change (pumps the handle) (RFF going to 2/4/6). This move most likely the result of something that happens beforehand but it just looks wrong to me. Seems to me that arms should stay close to pelvis as much as possible and not move around.

 

@matthewbrown I think you hit the nail in the head as far as my original question. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone. Good stuff.

 

[Horton]

@Luzz Super insightful stuff. Actually my position/stack out of 1/3/5 is hit and miss but that is a whole different subject.

 

@twhisper “most square or neutral position is ideal” these are words that I think the average Baller needs to hear over and over.

 

“I think most of the movement should be coming from the hips off the second wake not in a rotational direction but more in a back to forward or low to taller position into the pre-turn”. That is going to be a big part of my next question. My freaking On Side has to change.

 

@AdamCord good stuff as always.

Sort of a side question: Do you think it is necessarily a bad thing is if a skier pulls in their left elbow during edge change (pumps the handle) (RFF going to 2/4/6). This move most likely the result of something that happens beforehand but it just looks wrong to me. Seems to me that arms should stay close to pelvis as much as possible and not move around.

 

@matthewbrown I think you hit the nail in the head as far as my original question. Thanks.

Thanks to everyone. Good stuff.

 

[AdamCord]

@Horton I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. If someone is somehow able to "pull in" any meaningful amount with their left arm in this scenario at the edge change they are either superman or they have a very strange body position that I haven't seen before.

 

Plenty of skiers do something of a "pump" after the edge change where the rope load is lower. It's pretty noticeable with CP and he often makes 41 look like an opening pass so I'd say it might not be a bad thing.

[AdamCord]

@Horton I'm not sure I understand what you're asking. If someone is somehow able to "pull in" any meaningful amount with their left arm in this scenario at the edge change they are either superman or they have a very strange body position that I haven't seen before.

 

Plenty of skiers do something of a "pump" after the edge change where the rope load is lower. It's pretty noticeable with CP and he often makes 41 look like an opening pass so I'd say it might not be a bad thing.

[Horton]

Bump

I moved this thread out of "Advanced Only" so if any of you guys have any more ideas you can have at it.

[mwetskier]

in the gut writings the adams promoted -thru @Wish i think -the gate idea of turning your pelvis toward 11 oclock during the pull out and glide and at the very moment you want to turn in toward the gate you turn your pelvis toward 1 oclock. if you feel that the pull out / glide emulate to some degree actions similar to what is desirable after the second wake -going to the 2 ball -then this hip movement being discussed here makes sense. thats my entirely uneducated take on the matter.

[mwetskier]

@Rico -original ' west coast ' teaching from a decade ago would have us twist our pelvis toward 1 oclock to pull out and then counter rotate our hips toward 11 oclock to turn in. so yeah there's another way.

[jimbrake]

The reason for the "west coast hip twist" you refer to @mwetskier is not so much the pointing in any direction for the sake of pointing or going that way, it's an efficient way to move your hips both forward AND off the side of the ski you want to edge. It's just moving your mass forward and either left or right. You can't do that very well with a twist in the direction that you intend to go.

[mwetskier]

@jimbrake -rico asked i answered. i'm not pretending to know which is better just pointing out that theres more than one way to defur a feline -no doubt some ways are better than others.

[jimbrake]

@mwetskier - I was not arguing or correcting, just expanding on what you said.

[ToddL]

@mwetskier - I think there is a difference between locked hips rotated so as to keep the ski pointed outbound during the glide vs. freed hips separating from the ski's direction and moving COM forward.

 

In the first one you are forcing the ski's vector to stay wide via a ridged stance and the "idea" of hip rotation. Clearly you can't rotate very far when rigidly stanced on the ski, but also the ski can't rotate to a narrow path. (during the glide before the gates)

 

In the second motion, the stance is free from the ski. It is actually an intentional separation of lower and upper body. The idea is to move the soon to be leading hip forward. The only way to move one hip forward is to rotate. (during or just after the edge change)

 

Regarding the original question, going from 1ball and heading through the edge change and into the approach to 2ball, I think the left shoulder needs to stay back or away from the pylon while the ski moves through the edge change. This is part of the connection mentioned above. It also is why we see that "reverse C" stance in some still shots of the best skier's edge changes. So, left shoulder stays away through the edge change more so than focusing on a rotation.

 

I am careful to mention a specific wake crossing so that I can clearly specify the left shoulder. I am not sure what to call it. It is the "leading" shoulder during the wake crossing because with open shoulders during a lean, it is slightly ahead. It has been called the "away" shoulder for someone who is closed to the boat when leaning. It will become the "outside" shoulder during the turn and if there is any inside hip movement forward (a.k.a. counter rotation), it will become the trailing shoulder during the apex and finish of the turn. Too many labels that change at each point of the movement. So, "left" works...