Help diagnosing Telemark errors, please!

[Tom M]

Slowing down on a lower angle slope will also help with the other problems you are having. The first thing you have to figure out is how to get centered and stay centered throughout the turn and transition. Once you have that pretty well down you can start working on edging and pressuring your skis.

It's a long process, but gains come early and it's fun from the start. At least your tracks look good, that's a good early accomplishment.

I agree with @lowangle al. Ski the easy slopes in ideal snow conditions (soft snow, no ice or crust). Try different variations of ski and body posture positions until you find one that works the best for you. It is very important to just learn how to balance and transition the weight to make the turn work. If you are trying to use the turn to check your speed on a steeper slope, then that is an added complication to the learning process. That will come with time as you become more comfortable with the balance and angulation of the telemark turn. In the beginning I think it is helpful to just make minor long radius turns and link those turns. Forget the short, quick, tight turns during the learning process. I know it can be a bit frustrating at first. Just don't try and over analyze the micro details. I think for most people it is a bit like trying to learn to walk. It will come naturally with enough time and practice.

[JohnSKepler]

This is all great and helpful. While I'm not leaving out anyone's contribution it seems like the two main things I need to work on these turns are 1) take off the skins and 2) less slope angle. Getting these two environmental conditions will then help me work on the mechanics of the turn - something I've never done, not even with Alpine.

When I lived in the Southeast it just rained all the time so, even though I'm more of an outdoors guy, my primary activity turned into weightlifting. Here in Utah, I find it hard to find time to lift weights. At any rate, there was this very knowledgeable meat-titan at my gym who was a heck of a nice guy; big-Mike. He was great at providing technique advice in a way that wasn't demeaning. I remember him saying: "Leave your ego at home on back-day." Meaning: don't try to lift so much. Back is more about technique. And he was right. Sounds like some time on the Bunny Slope is in order!

[mca80]

Sounds like some time on the Bunny Slope is in order!

That's my plan. I have 3 days under my belt trying turns on a 50ft hill a few minutes from home, twice with Kongsvold and once with Nansen. I will attempt larger hills soon, once with an instructor at lift-operated and the rest will probably be skiing up and then working turns down at a resort that doesn't operate lifts mid-week so I can be by myself (not leaving ego totally at home yet). But while I really look forward to 6 or 700ft vertical (big for this neck of the woods), and eventually steeper runs, I think the rest of this season will be strictly green runs just for working technique at expense of greater (or different) thrills.

[Montana St Alum]

This is all great and helpful. While I'm not leaving out anyone's contribution it seems like the two main things I need to work on these turns are 1) take off the skins and 2) less slope angle. Getting these two environmental conditions will then help me work on the mechanics of the turn - something I've never done, not even with Alpine.

When I lived in the Southeast it just rained all the time so, even though I'm more of an outdoors guy, my primary activity turned into weightlifting. Here in Utah, I find it hard to find time to lift weights. At any rate, there was this very knowledgeable meat-titan at my gym who was a heck of a nice guy; big-Mike. He was great at providing technique advice in a way that wasn't demeaning. I remember him saying: "Leave your ego at home on back-day." Meaning: don't try to lift so much. Back is more about technique. And he was right. Sounds like some time on the Bunny Slope is in order!

Some of us live in Utah. What ski area are you doing this at?

[lowangle al]

Could a feeling of heaviness come from a lack of unweighting, when switching leads, too? A rhythm and flow of weighting and unweighting has helped, when I have moved to slightly faster slopes from bunny slopes.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1807

Further, @lowangle al wrote somewhere:

Unweighting your skis makes it easier and quicker to get across the fall line and it is followed by a weighting of the skis which will make it easier to flex and turn them. This is more important on xcd type skis than a more downhill oriented ski. The key is to get the edge set and weighted on your new lead ski asap to maintain control.[

@lowangle al FYI he mentioned "Alfa Free/Falketind 62" earlier. Maybe the unweighting is not that important with those skis, but it has helped me with my Gammes there.

Unweighting is important because it results in weighting. So if you want to squash the camber out of those Gammes to carve with the middle of your ski you will be doing a lot of unweighting.

It's all that heavy weighting and unweighting that make dbl camber skis hard to learn to carve a turn on. A soft single camber ski should turn just by rolling it on edge.

[mca80]

Could a feeling of heaviness come from a lack of unweighting, when switching leads, too? A rhythm and flow of weighting and unweighting has helped, when I have moved to slightly faster slopes from bunny slopes.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1807

Further, @lowangle al wrote somewhere:

Unweighting your skis makes it easier and quicker to get across the fall line and it is followed by a weighting of the skis which will make it easier to flex and turn them. This is more important on xcd type skis than a more downhill oriented ski. The key is to get the edge set and weighted on your new lead ski asap to maintain control.[

@lowangle al FYI he mentioned "Alfa Free/Falketind 62" earlier. Maybe the unweighting is not that important with those skis, but it has helped me with my Gammes there.

Unweighting is important because it results in weighting. So if you want to squash the camber out of those Gammes to carve with the middle of your ski you will be doing a lot of unweighting.

It's all that heavy weighting and unweighting that make dbl camber skis hard to learn to carve a turn on. A soft single camber ski should turn just by rolling it on edge.

Don't want to totally derail thread to talk about my own initial self-lessons in telemark, but this seems relevant. Not that Nansen is a stiff double camber, but it's definitely different than the Kongsvold. I noticed in my attempts with Nansen starting the turn I was more likely to become unbalanced and less controlled. Once in the swing it turned very well, maybe due to steel edge and getting on edge? Then coming out and trying to link, same thing, less control and stability than with wider, more stable, flatter Kongsvold, legs and center of gravity moving about.

[lowangle al]

For one thing I think the flex of the kongsvold might be softer, not having edges to stiffen it up. The other thing is it may be good to not have that steel edge for carving, since too much edge with too little control isn't good. This would make the kongsvold more forgiving.

[Stephen]

There are two types or ways of unweighting the skis.
Up-Unweighting;
Down-unweighting.
http://www.effectiveskiing.com/Topic/Do ... nweighting

When you see someone sort of jumping or rising up for the unweighting, that is up-unweighting.
When you see someone who seems to just flow downhill, with a very still upper body, they are still unweighting, but using down-unweighting.

They both have there uses.
I tend to like the feeling of down-unweighting.

In the turn, pressure builds up on the ski, the ski is bent, it wants to spring back, relax the legs, let the body flow downhill, the skis spring up and are unweighted, and the new turn can start.

This requires linked turns in the fall-line, and some degree of speed, to generate energy in the turn.
It doesn't work if the turn ends in a traverse, because all the energy of the last turn has been lost.

[tkarhu]

When practicing tele turns at a bunny hill, the moment of unweighting is a small moment in a neutral standing position between turns IME. You have your ski tipis pointing downhill, legs and feet are relaxed, and you do not edge or pressure your skis, when you unweight. The moment of unweighting gives a rest for your legs, if going downhill feels heavy.

[jyw5]

I watched a ton of videos for a while. several times per month for several yrs. especially on days I couldn't ski. I watched everything from Pro nordic races, telehiro, all those old film classics, basic nordic and telemark instruction videos, and whatever else was available online.

Its been a 7 year journey.

Also, the two best books I read over and over were

Allen & MIke's Really Cool Telemark Tips
Cross Country Downhill by Steve Barnett

my form is still total crap but I can get down from almost any mountain in leather boots and NNNBC in nearly anything other than boiler plate hard snow.