Pole usage

[rusty]

It's been often said that when ski technique analysis gets down to pole usage, people are often looking at symptoms instead of causes. But Victor had some things to say about pole usage that really made a lot of sense. The first tip I remember was that pole swings that occur continuously through out the turn (as opposed to being flicked out just prior to the pole touch) make the skiing look much smoother. The second thing was that pole usage serves a different function and should have different timing in long turns versus short turns. I just can't remember exactly how he presented this. Does anyone have any more detail on this? Maybe we can coax Victor into his first post?

[ckuck]

I'd definitely agree with both of those. We always taught continuous pole movement on the deck. For the 2nd one, I'd venture to say that pole use in long radius turns is more to lead the turn and provide rythm, rather than an actual plant like you'd do (blocking pole plant) when skiing steeps with short radius turns, for example. When I'm on the GS boards going Mach whatever, much of the time my poles don't even touch the snow. Think about it - at 25+MPH "planting" the pole is pretty disruptive of flow, eh?

Here's a bit of trivia: The word rythm means "flow" in ancient Greek, and "style" in Modern Greek.