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Hello and Welcome to Team Wendell Moore Wendell Moore on BBB 2011 Team Moore Skis BBB 2008 Years Coaching SST: 7th Contact info:
Tuesday Team Wendell Moore 2010-11 Name Yrs Skiing Merle English Jim King Karen Gardner Eric McCort Jinny Ladner Heather Hall Average 35 Wednesday Team Wendell Moore for 2008 - 09 Name Age Yrs. Skied Roger Rathbun 47 Averages 61 36 Team Notes for 2008 - 09 Week # 5, February 4, 2009. Wednesday's Team After listening to everyone at lunch, I thought that it might be time to write my first "pointer of the week" like I tried to do every so often last year. In particular, after you had the added bonus of seeing the video of what you were trying to do, a little "wrap" might help solidify the essentials that will lead you to solid, advanced parallel skiing. Week # 6, February 11, 2009. Wednesday's Team After sleeping on our session yesterday, I think it is time for another verbal recap of what we did and give you specific pointers on what to focus on over the next two weeks while we are on break. As well, I would like to thank Elizabeth [Bauxbaum] for taking the time to come out and shadow our group to get a first hand picture of an actual SST session. She is a coach who is interested in working on the program in the future and I believe that she was suitably impressed with what she saw. Week # 1 - December 12th, 2007 Week 1 is in the books; we had some good schnee, good turns and a pretty, exciting day out there all in all. As is my custom, I will be sending you a short review from week to week reporting on what we did from a technical point of view in an effort to support and reinforce the various concepts or skills we covered in the course of the session. This allows me to spend more time skiing with you and less time standing on the hill explaining or professing. In the end, I hope to keep you one step away from fatigued and still cover the maximum amount of terrain possible in the time we have together. God knows there is just so much terrain and so little time! What did we cover this week? The technical definition is “STANCE.” In simple terms, our posture is fundamental to excellent skiing and, we will achieve excellence by visiting and revisiting the fundamentals over and over and yes, over again. Can you beat the “fundamentals” horse to death? I doubt it; in fact, every mentor I have ever had the pleasure of meeting has said the same thing, fundamentals, fundamentals. Get used to the idea of “Discovery” and “Exploration.” I will be asking you to mentally isolate on an ongoing basis so you can become up close and personal with the various areas of your bodies that need to work in order to ski well. Over time, you will become better skiers from the inside out because you will know yourselves in the way you should know yourself in order to ski like the best. Personally, I feel that I skied better yesterday and again today than I skied prior to Wednesday because going through the same process as you, revisiting the fundamentals of standing on my feet and over my skis has really dialed me in. I hope that many of you have had the chance to get up there again since Wednesday and just skied to “feel a difference.” In case you did not, here are a couple of great “at home” drills for you to do while you are dreaming of the next trip to the slopes. Fold up a blanket into a square about 16 x 16 inches or so and then stand on it in your stocking feet and repeat the drills we did this week with your eyes closed if possible imagining yourself skiing along the runs we skied and, isolate the left turn and then the right turn. Remember, that when you isolate [concentrate] on say the left turn, let the right turn happen subconsciously while you focus on the left turn only. Eventually, both the left and the right turn muscular effort have to go subconscious so you achieve “muscle memory.” The elite athletes do this “imagery” exercise routinely now before they go down a racetrack, mentally going through every turn in real time. This is how they can go through the foggy parts without seemingly missing a beat even though they cannot get a visual on the next gate. Awesome stuff! The second drill requires you to dig out an old tennis ball and place it by your feet. But first, stand with your legs slightly apart as you would in your natural skiing stance and then bend over and touch your toes. Slowly come back up to skiers stance letting your arms hang comfortably at your sides, or, slightly in front. Close your eyes and try to sense a natural sway of your body and, experience the play of tensions through the ankles, knees, hips and spine. Now open your eyes, locate the tennis ball and place it under one of your feet while standing on the other. Start to massage the foot over the tennis ball rolling it from the fore foot through the arch and down to the heel and back. After a couple of times, close your eyes and do the same thing. Switch feet. Even better, get your ski boots out and, while standing on a carpet in your ski boot, repeat the same drill with the tennis ball under the other foot. Switch feet. Enjoy the rest of your week and report back to me on your “discoveries” next Wednesday on Blackcomb. Cheers Wendell Week 2 - December 19th, 2007 Merry Christmas everyone. The bird is bathed, stuffed and spinning on the rotisserie so life is pretty good. I hope that all of you are enjoying some family time today and during the holidays. It has been almost a week since the last session but there finally is enough time to sit down and collect my thoughts on how it went. The theme was BALANCE last week. Again, here is one of those fundamental zones or theatres of operations that we can focus on again and again. I chose to start with a look at the area between the turns that I refer to as the “neutral zone” where we line everything up, exit one turn and prepare to enter in to the next. You may also know this area as the “cross-over” and, in powder schnee, you may have heard it referred to as the “platform.” You will also recall that I promised you that, if we make it our # 1 goal to isolate, focus and perfect this “link” in our turns, the initiation of the turn is “absolutely effortless.” This goes along with the premise that none of us are getting any younger and if we can set ourselves up to start every turn “balanced”, we can expend our precious energy driving through the turns; and turning the skis is what skiing is all about. In order to set up for the crossover, imagine yourself coming to the end of a left turn and your right foot is the downhill one. Now focus on the ankle and how it is rolling to the inside allowing the weight to come from the pad on the ball of the foot behind the big toe, through the arch and on to the inside of the heel. Now as the weight reaches the maximum there, start a slight deliberate roll [release] from the side, to the bottom of the foot. There is still no weight transferred but there should be a sudden momentary realization that things are about to change. If you are seated at this moment, place both feet on the floor and bring your upper body forward to assimilate the feeling of getting up. Focus on the muscles that are engaging through your pelvic girdle from the pubic bone and up to the stomach. These are the core muscles that we want to isolate in the “neutral zone”. We want to, however, engage these muscles in such a way as to allow us to move forward [up] and transition [pivot] over to the left foot and turn right. For a moment go back to your chair, to that point where you brought the upper body over your feet, and engage the core, then the leg muscles, and stand up. This is the “movement that we want to stop like a bad habit. I refer to it as “uphill skiing” as opposed to “downhill skiing.” Why should we be moving up in order to go down a slope? We simply need to replace this premature “up” motion with a “pivot.” Now go back to the point of “sudden realization.” With the core muscles engaged pivot both feet in the new direction and simultaneously apply pressure to the new edges and let the legs extend and tense. Now you have transitioned across effortlessly and you are set up to take your skis for a ride and not vice versa. By the way, for your timing, add a double pole plant. Where? Play with it and figure out where it works best for you. Enjoy and we’ll see you on the 9th of January Cheers Wendell. SST Week # 3 - January 9, 2008 This week the theme was TIMING & COORDINATION. As the session moved on past the huff und puff up to the Gray Zone and we got down to business on the practice, we soon came to the realization that there would be many “ugly” turns before this one was going to sink in and become reality. However, perseverance and good old ingenuity would prevail and a few laughs later, a new sense of T & C began to appear. In review, as skiers, we know the goal is to swing the skis from side to side and execute a series of linked falls [turns] as we harmonize our bodies with gravity and descend the slopes. In previous sessions, we explored the mechanics of stance and balance and now, we are looking at the mechanization that “glues” it all together. Glue may not be the best choice of words because, as we have learned; a good skier has little or no chronic tension but has the presence of mind and body to both rest into gravity’s embrace and, rise up from it. This is a direct quote from Mary Bond from her book “The New Rules of Posture.” She refers to the “Dynamic Axis” as the optimal relationship between you and gravity where you neither draw your body up too far from the earth [snow] nor fix it too firmly, to the earth [snow]. So we looked specifically at coordination in the effort to “crossover’ from turn to turn and the relationship of the three arches in our feet and how to get them all to interplay. The inner arch [downhill foot] is the mobilizer; the outer arch [uphill foot] is the stabilizer and the transverse arch between the toes and the ball of the foot is the “spring.” Although most of us had quite a few “uglies” at first, our practice, along with the “snappy double pole plant” helped us to coordinate our movements and nail more than a few awesome and sensational turns out there. So, what went on here? We actually decided to challenge one of the “Sacred Cows” of skiing; which says, that there is no up - motion necessary in order to un-weight the skis. What we discovered was our lower and upper centers of gravity and how to pass between the two of them in every turn. The analogy is a kid swinging on a swing. The upper center located behind your heart, in front of your spine and between your shoulder blades is called upon every time the feet crossover from one side to the other and the sensation is akin to getting up out of a chair, or the upswing on the swing. The lower center, located behind your intestines and just in front of your lower vertebra is called upon as the feet extend away and catch you as the weight transfers to the heel and you complete a turn and set up to “spring” into the next. This is akin to the feeling at the bottom of the swing when the kid feels the pull of gravity. The compelling part of this discovery is to, not be too analytical, but rather be natural, feel good about moving and knowing that your bodies not only like to move, but need to move. It is also important to observe that, in any class situation, with your Coach urging you on and your desire to keep up with the others that the tendency is to “over - stabilize.” It is up to you to call on your “Inner Coach” to keep your body open and use the tone in your inner corset to exchange recurring tension with open stability during the session and ultimately when you go out and free ski. Enjoy your week and play with the T & C. Cheers Wendell Week # 4 The theme this week was SKIING.  Le Team on West Ridge January 16, 2008 Alex, Arne, Regina, Roger, John, Sally, Barry. Missing Ken Hello Everyone This week the theme was STANCE Part Deux. I introduced you to the “Falling Leaf” exercise where we spent time discovering our fore and aft position and more importantly the subtle movements we can make to center and re-center in the normal ebb and flow of moving our weight around our central axis. In general, you want to explore the movements foreword and backwards but utilize the core muscles [the T/A corset] to resist the movement to the heels. From there, we skied Chainsaw Ridge to the Hot Tub and then got down to the business of getting the weight to the front of the skis in the first phase of the turn. At the beginning of the turn, you want to get up on the shovel where the ski is wider and softer. The ski will actually start to bend and pull the turn radius in. As you move through the turn, you notice a distinct pull to the heels. You want to resist that pull by tightening through the “core” and prepare for the next turn. The exercise I introduced you to, brought on some fits of confusion at first; but from the feedback and results achieved skiing “the Couloir” 3 times, it appears that you got on to it. Briefly, as you crossover, lift up the inside foot, balance to the new edge and then place the outside ski back on the snow and finish the turn. Once you have this drill down, blend it back in to your skiing and don’t be afraid to “pump up the volume a bit” as well. To get more lively, bring a strong, aggressive, double pole plant in to the fray with all the vigor associated with stabbing a “you know what” in self defense of course. Cheers Wendell Week # 6 – January 30, 2008 - Whistler The theme this week was SKIING! In a word, we whipped off 15,000 vertical feet of powder skiing. Nothing describes the day better than the moment I saw you all skiing down that first run in Flute Bowl, awesome; just like a shot from a Heli Skiing movie. As serendipity would have it this week, my Yoga instructor Kashi made us try a breathing exercise she learned from a yoga monk who has taken a vow of silence and only communicates through the written word. It pertains to us because it has to do with activating the muscles on the pelvic floor through to the ones we want to activate, the T/A’s or transverse abdominals. These “core corset muscles” are the ones we want to flex and release in every turn sequence. She made us practice the activation after we had forcefully exhaled. She then had us continue a “pumping motion” closing the sphincters and pulling the abdominals tight, then releasing; tight, then release. The exercise is supposed to have positive benefit to the prostate in men and of similar benefit for women as well. As I continue my own practice of this “muscle movement”, I am feeling positive effects to my own skiing. Yesterday I skied one of the tight VD Chutes with better control than ever with increased ease at making those turns on steep narrow tracks with moguls in powder. When you ski from the core, your leg muscles all work in unison from the hip to the ankle. Making an analogy with our arm doing a bicep curl, imagine the tightness in the shoulder instead of in the bicep as you do the curl. Now envision your leg where your shoulder is your abdominals and your bicep is your quad! An excellent “off slope” way to isolate this is while you are in bed either before you go to sleep or when you are waking up and before you get out of bed. Start by lying on your back and try to “flex and release” the abdominals, crunching from the pelvic floor to the top of the tummy. You will likely have a difficult time isolating the T/A’s of course because they are transverse. So, with a cat stretch crunch and turn over to one side and try the same thing repeatedly. Now you should feel the abdominals much better especially if you have your hip in a counter rotated position. Cat stretch again and turn over to the other side and repeat. Do this a number of times to both sides and, as you get better with it, add full flexion of the ankles, knees and hips and then alternate to full extension of the same joints. Pay particular attention to the full flexion and how you can pull your knees up to your chest and, how much you can flex the ankles. Keep this in mind for a future session when we get into “pressure control” where we will examine how to bend like this to control the pressure through the steering arc. Cheers Wendell Week # 7 Feb. 6th and Week # 8, Feb.13th The theme these two weeks has been skiing and more skiing. Week # 9 Feb 27th - Blackcomb The theme this week was PRESSURE CONTROL. For some of you, the session was like icing “powder” on the cake while others struggled and even got “beat up” a bit; but hopefully just your egos. On the surface, pressure control looks easy but masked in this skill is all the finesse you can muster up, a fair amount of balancing coupled with a strong dose of basic stance fundamentals. After the session, some of us discussed what we thought was needed in order to grasp the message. Some suggested that they thought an individualized pointer or two would do the trick. I was quick to point out however, that Pressure Control is no trick and success comes with mastering the fundamentals associated with basic stance, balance, timing and coordination. So, think of pressure control as your reward for mastering the fundamentals. To this end, here are some exercises for you to practice. On-Hill Hockey Stops. Start with a side slip and then full stop by rolling the ankles, knees and hips inward, planting the pole at the exact moment the edges stop sliding. Maintain a wide stance and repeat numerous times. Do them to both sides and observe the difference from side to side. Traverse thru bumps. The goal here is to ride up and over the sides of the bumps by flexing through the weighted downhill leg and then extending that same leg as you go in to the troughs maintaining your balance and trajectory. Your uphill leg is bent softly, your stance is hip width or wider and your uphill arm and hand is engaged to maintain a position forward and over the skis. You are feeling a stretch that reaches from your downhill [mobile] arch through your leg to your groin and up to the uphill hip. You are focused on keeping the tension through the T/A’s [core] and at the ankle to maintain your edge. Again, Do this exercise to both sides and observe the difference from side to side. Off- Hill - Balance & Coordination exercises. Hockey Stops. Take off your shoes and stand on a carpeted floor preferably in front of a mirror. Position yourself in the position to do the Hockey Stops. Work on the weighting/unweighting by rolling in and out as if you were setting and releasing your edges. Focus on the movement to the balls of the feet and back to the heel and feel the T/A’s engaged. Make this smooth and balanced and commit the muscle effort to memory on both sides. Falling Leaf. From the same hockey stop position, and, without moving your feet, adjust the effort you are making so that you can do the “Falling Leaf.” Concentrate on the subtle difference in muscle effort required through the T/A’s. Commit this to muscle memory. The Venerable Early Edge Roll Over. Stand in a doorway so that you can lean on both sides of the doorway. Place your hands on either jam at about pole plant height. Position yourself in a wide stance and at the end of the turn to the right. Flex then roll over and extend from your mobile arch to your stable arch on your downhill [left] foot as you lean toward the door jam on the left side. Now feather the weight on to the right foot, your new downhill ski and as you flex, notice how the weight goes on to both hands supporting you from falling forward. Visualize where you are in the arc of the turn at this instant. Repeat to the other side and commit this movement to muscle memory. See you next week on Whistler. Cheers Wendell Roy's Birthday Party at Crystal Hut February, 2005
2005 Team Photo January 12, 2005 Blackcomb Mountain
April 2007 Wine & Cheese in Burnt Stew Basin
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