Don

Did you hear the one about the nearsighted house painter. The one who was climbing up with this great big bucket of purple paint, and as he neared the top of the scaffolding at the Sistine Chapel, . . . So, I think I see it. Lifting the toe of the front foot shifts the distribution of the downward force, so that more is directed toward the heel, less toward the toe. Business cards? Is that leverage comparable to, say, a 1 cm displacement rearward of the front binding? It certainly is easier to do, for a test. Is adjusting one the equivalent to adjusting the other, or will each adjustment effect other parts, in different manners? Wouldn't raising the toe, of the rear foot, as I opined, also shift the force distribution, toward the heel, of that foot? Are you suggesting, that the front foot, is more valuable, as it were. That it is more effective, in turn initiation, than the input, from the rear foot? That's foot bigotry, no less. Hmmmm, your changes, I think, could shift the CM rearward, by a compressive force, whereas, any rearward CM shift, by my change, would be the result, of a tension force, and that tension, is applied, at the bottom, of a jointed leg, which is part, of, an, inverted, 'V',, I need to go uncross my eyes now, and rest.

Well, I expressed that rather badly. If my observation of travel restriction in the upper range, i.e. less than max extension is used, it *may* be related to the plane of the sole of the rear foot. Straightening the knee joint increases the distance from the sole to the hip joint. With a flat stance, zero toe or heel lift, that will move the hip joint higher. As the heel is moved higher and the toe is lowered to say 3 degree heel lift/toe drop the same knee extension will force that hip joint more toward the nose of the board and/or cause some pelvic rotation around the vertical axis of the body, goofy - clockwise, regular - anti clock. This may lead directly to greater horizontal and less vertical displacement of the center of mass or indirectly by movement of upper body parts as a consequence of the pelvic rotation/displacement. All parts are causally connected to all other parts to a greater or lesser extent. I think some move is causing your center to mass to behave badly enough when you make it that it is causing, and training, you to *not* make it. Still waiting for Beckmann explain my erroneous deduction.

That is a hint. OK, I'll bite. First impression, Awesome. When I was a beginner I never looked that good, and still don't. What I noticed is consistent blockage of the rider's suspension. Seems to be centered on the lower two thirds of her natural range. Toe lift in rear is insufficient by about two degrees is my guess. Fix the setup and the upper body can then become a little more upright without compromising rider's feeling of secure balance. Beckmann will set me right sure enough. He always does. Second impression, same as the first.

My wife pleaded with our yougest son to wear a helmet, even bought it for him. After telling us he was able to make up his own mind about it, he had it on two days later. The last he recalls about that day was stopping to watch the dudes jumping in the park. He woke up in the hospital hours later with a fractured radius, a sprained ankle and a BIG headache. The doc said he would likely have been dead or brain damaged if not for the helmet. His wife, seven year old son and three year old daughter are all grateful to have him functioning normally! Of course, his mother was vindicated, yet again. Don

snow|3oarder, Bummer to be injured - especially during the riding season. Hope you can enjoy the sport again soon. The following is not to be construed as a diagnosis for your particular injury and is certainly not a substitute for a competent physical evaluation by a licensed professional. The following are assumptions: 1. Your injury occured while executing an aggressive move and/or crash. 2. There is no bony fracture, luxation or sub-luxation. 3. There is no gross (large) tendon/ligament avulsion/rupture. 4. You are not diabetic. 5. Your injury is trivial (read - non-debilitating, non-lifethreatening, and can be expected the heal eventually regardless of treatment or lack thereof). The following should be regarded as theory not fact, so put on your bll sht detector. :) Your pain may be protective pain, low intensity ( 2-3 out of 10) and diffuse. This kind of pain prompts us to reduce our use of the part involved. The injured area is likely much smaller than you think. It may not be a nerve injury but rather a tensile strength failure in a tendon insertion. Tendons connect muscle to bone thru the periosteum which spreads the tension force over a relatively large area. [A ligament can be thought of a tendon that connects one bone to another bone.] If the tension applied to the periosteum is too great or applied too quickly so that the forces do not have adequate time to spread out, it can cause micro-avulsions (tearing) of the periosteum from the underlying bone. Somewhat analogous would be the rock climber with his rope connected to the rock face thru several pitons to form, hopefully, a fail-safe attachment. The periosteum, which by the way, has lots of sensory (pain) neurons, can be thought of as millions of tiny pitons. These tears will heal, but all healing depends on blood flow. No blood flow => No healing. Now, the body part we are talking about, a tendon attachment, has almost no blood flow! It is mostly connective tissue. The living cells in the tendon get their nutrients from the tissue fluid. The tissue fluid comes from the blood capillaries and it moves through the tissues (very slowly!) as the tendon is used. Think of a wet tee shirt (no, not there:), in your hands) twisted hard, with water being squeezed out. Now put it back in the water and relax it. Twisted it hard again. That is like what happens in a normal tendon that is being used - tissue fluid is squeezed out then replenished. Micro-sized injury is occuring with normal use and micro-repair is underway. More use => more injury. More use => more tissue fluid flow => faster healing rate to compensate for the greater injury that occurs. This is the stable natural balance. Then an excessive force comes along causing catastrophic tissue failure on a microscopic scale. Suddenly, massive damage occurs (actually it is likely still microscopic but it isprobably several orders of magnitude larger than normal use tissue injury). Pain increases (pain neurons are always sending signals at intervals even when there is no 'pain' as such, as a way of verifying the integrity of the circuitry). Many pain neurons now send many more signals. These signals should break thru the neural filtering network and result in conscious perception of pain. More pain perception => less use of the part => less flow of tissue fluid => slower healing. Compounding the situation is the inflammatory process. This process is supposed to facilitate healing but it typically interferes with it, slowing it down. At the site of the injury structural damage and some cell death has occured. The debris must be cleared and repairs made. Cells from the bloodstream squeeze through the walls of the capillaries and force their way into the damaged area. Some of these cells consume the debris and then leave the area. Ought to work fine, right? Not quite so easy. Imagine a fender-bender on the BQE. The emergency response teams are called into action. All the police, fire, rescue, wrecker teams from the entire city are sent at once to clean up the mess. Rather unhelpful, that, ay? Excessive inflammatory response causes congestion of, and therefore a decrease in, the capillary blood flow. This can be minimized if you take your prescribed anti-inflammatory medication - before - the injury occurs:). Thank you for your patience for reading this far. Now I will cut to the chase:). To increase the rate of healing, the goal is to increase the flow of blood and tissue fluid to the injured area. At your pleasure and at your own risk, with your fingertip explore the entire painful area. Press firmly with the tip of just one finger. You will likely locate a point where the pain level shoots up. This spot is starving for nutrition. Do a fingertip massage in this area. Press firmly enough to bring the pain level up to a 4 or 5 (out of 10) for 5 to 10 seconds. The pain should go back down almost immediately upon release. If it does not - DO NOT CONTINUE. Then pause a bit and repeat, moving your fingertip back and forth, round and round, up and down. Do this cycle for 2 to 5 minutes. Repeat several times a day. No need to massage all of the adjacent area, you can but your finger will get tired sooner. You mechanically force the tissue fluid to move out of the area. Newer fluid moves in so the cells will have the building materials with which to the repair. The pain spot may move some distance between massages. Find it. Repeat daily until you can no longer find it at all. No medication is needed but I do recommend drinking an ample amount of an aqueous solution dihydrogenmonoxide in water daily:). I hope this helps. Don

All ways of riding a snowboard are better than not riding, as long as you are having fun and don't get hurt.:) Carvers don't have to rotate to initiate a turn and neither do beginners. This is NOT about rotating to initiate the turn but rotating to stay in a carve while driving faster and/or steeper. Rotate or not as you choose - But consider this: I cannot self-evaluate my technique while riding because the information ( conducted along nerves ) does not reach my consciousness before the turn done. I plan moves ahead, initiate action ( try to move as I planned but mostly doesn't work as planned though ), then basically just react by reflex while in the turn. I can think about what may be happening in really tiny time slices but cannot really see what happens, even with video. So I try to verify by using a slower moving system. So, bear with me please: Try this, if you want. (disclamer - I am not liable for any injuries) Go to a good swivel chair, one that turns easily. Take off dirty shoes :). (Maybe even have a spotter.) Stand straight up on the seat with your weight on both feet. Steady now. Turn your shoulders/upper body slowly clockwise. Notice what happens to your feet. Turn in the opposite direction. Try turning slowly in one direction and then quickly in the opposite direction. Dismount. If your feet did not rotate in the opposite direction from your upper body - try a different chair!! To put a fine point on it, when the torso rotates clockwise the feet and board try to rotate counterclockwise. For example, a goofy rider making a toeside turn with counterclockwise upper body rotation is applying a clockwise force to the board - this will increase the cut at the tail while simultaneously decreasing the bite at the leading edge. As when you were rotating on the chair, the force is only present while you are rotating, not before and not after. While the absolute amount of rotational force may not seem very large, especially when compared to the force of your mass decambering the board, it is applied very differently. The decambering force is delivered perpendicularly to the board in two places - your leading foot and your trailing foot - and causes the tip and tail sections bend. (Put a board flat on the floor and stand on top of it.) The rotational (or perhaps I should say 'counter-rotational') force is directed transversly. (Take any old noodly board and place it on the floor on edge at 90 degrees. Grasp it in the center and try to rotate it so that the tip comes straight up and the tail goes straight down into the floor. All boards are very good at transferring the force in this direction.) An important point is that all of the rotational force is delivered to the snow/ice/water thru a single point, not the entire length of the effective edge as is the decambering force. (In theory anyway, a line tangent to a circle touches it at one and only one point.) That point happens to be at the widest part of the tail. The edge at this point will cut deeper and therefore be able to hold against more force if it is sharper. High speed turns that fail usually do so because the tail cannot follow in the trench (it skids). To make the tail better follow the trench you can: (1) Move your center of mass rearward dynamically as you ride (easy to do but perhaps not a good compromise,) or move your bindings rearward. (I am not advocating either, simply stating options.) (2) Rotate if you need. You can see uphill better, too! P.S. 1. If you get 'locked' in a turn try rotating upper body to the outside of the turn. This should make the tail cut less deep (more shallow) so it can climb out of the trench easier. Yes it's counterintuitive, I know. 2. When carrying/storing your board use pieces of old garden hose 4 to 6 inches long to protect the fat edges of your board and your fingers! Don P.P.S. Remember, for your continued health you must inhale after every exhale.