Beckmann AG

Strolz will be happy to build a custom for you. Their shell system is componentized, so you can mix cuff and scafo to get the flex you want. The older models even had a rudimentary RAB on the spine. Not the best performance product on the market, but if you have a bear paw for a foot... And later you can learn to ski in them.

Commissioner Gordon forgot to pay the utility bill? Yes, I made Jack's footbeds. No, I am not a guru. That is, however, the correct spelling of my name, and I do work at Sugarloaf.Or have I misunderstood your post...?

Newcarver, If you happen by Sugarloaf, get in touch in advance. I have several pair of clamps you can demo. (Catek OS1/ 2, Bomber TD2). As Jack suggested, post your boot size. If I don't have something usable, I might know someone who does.

If you want a fairly dense, low volume, non-thermofit liner, shop your local used equipment stores for a pair of Nordica, Lange, or Salomon race boots. The Dobermann liner will be the best quality, and warmest, while the Salomon will be the thinnest and coldest. This option is viable if the contour of the shell (not just the length) is a very close match to your foot. Otherwise don't bother. It may also be possible to remove one layer of material from your existing liners in the affected area.

Oh, good. Scanning your post, I was sincerely hoping that you had not gone to the trouble on my account...

Funny you should post that video. It was just about a year ago when I forwarded that to TT(with the title line 'How to ride an alpine snowboard'), and he sent it to Jack, and you know the rest. (I think most got caught up in the aspect of body angles, and missed the point entirely). She has exceptional fluidity in the rearrangement of the base of support relative to the center of mass. Apparently the means by which she does this is subject to debate... Which ski 'moves' first really doesn't have much to do with her success. Rather, the movement of the skis is one outcome, which then determines a larger outcome. I retrospect, I think I failed to pick up the duality in this statement: Which is to say, that which ski leads, is determined by whether the CM is crossing, or being crossed? I may still disagree, but then I don't usually think in terms of which ski does what first.Either way, the LV video is more effective if one ignores the text. Ok, so then what begins the release of pressure? Is it the body moving across the board, which affects the pressure underfoot? Or is it the change in pressure which precedes net body movement? Or is it really neither; actually something else entirely? Granted, both actions may take place, but what is the fuse/trigger (fugger?)?

Are you sure about that? Sounds like momentary convergence/micro wedge. How do you conceptualize turn release? Well, done that way, I can see why ankle focused edging would be frowned upon. Sorry to be a stickler, but can you describe this movement as you did the ankle example? Are the hips projected laterally by way of differential muscle activity in the torso? Is there some relaxing of the legs that allows gravitational pull to draw the hips sideways? Are we talking some combination of the two?

Steve, Altering or interfering with one or more of the senses will have an effect on your psyche and thus on your behavior. Back when helmets were bulkier and with fewer vents, it was common to feel faster and more confident while wearing one due to the relative silence when in motion. We are somewhat reliant on our sense of touch to know where we are in space. Confusion here leads to tension, due to uncertainty. Tension interferes with flow, timing, accuracy etc, which further affects the psyche. Boot plastic has a lifespan. My guess is that degradation from sunlight has the greatest impact. It used to be one would see Nordicas and Technicas with the toes missing. These boots were always badly faded. Some boots are made of plastics that block vibration, possibly due to economics in manufacture, but also because it creates the impression for the user that they are skiing better than they really are, as the ride feels smoother. (Come to think of it, that's also economics...) The drawback is that such skiers rely more on their sense of sight, and always ski as though they are thinking about every move. In short, the brain doesn't really know where the feet are, and has a harder time making what should be intuitive movements. I have seen this principle at work many times over. And also the effect when you change out to 'transmissive' boots. I have used 'good' boots for hundreds of days past their service life with decent sensitivity, while I have used 'dead' boots that from day one that were a disappointment. I suspect that a set of 'barn fresh' quality boots, recent of cold storage in a box, should work just fine. And by quality, I mean of good plastic. Not being familiar with the actual composition of current offerings, I can't comment on which boots might be better than others. Suffice to say, given the opportunity, I would build boots differently. There are many conflicting demands in the marketplace, and the manufacturers are giving the customers what they think they want in the manner most favorable to commercial success. It sounds like you have some degree of visual impairment. Consider all the layers between the snow and the skin on the sole of your foot. Of those, how many will readily transmit vibration, and how many will not? 'Tighten up' the feedback loop, and life should get better.

This is often an indicator that a pair of boots is nearing the end of its career. That, or the plastic is acoustically opaque to begin with.

Glad to be of service. I hereby donate my winnings to the charity of your choice.

Some of my best friends are typos...Ok; clear on your understanding of the concept. Can you elaborate on the second part of the question?

"What's the matter Plake, something change down there?"

So If I understand correctly, the idea is to move the CG (CC?), and in doing so the body moves as a unit? For the indoor exercise, 'what' moves, or propels, the CG? Is this 'mover' similarly employed once you get on the snow, or is it replaced with something else?

Marco, are these Christian's actual words? If so, did he provide any suggestions on how one is to do this? Or was it more of a conceptual suggestion, along the lines of 'visualize your hips moving across the board'? Rather than thinking in terms of edge change mechanics and body positions, might I suggest the goal of minimal surface disturbance from point A to B?

Well, you could just bluff, and attempt to help via involved exercise lines, progressions, and encouragement. Or, you can identify the one most crucial element and do something about it. You can't fool the CNS. When you institute an appropriate 'fix', more often than not, it sticks, because the body recognizes that particular movement/ sensation, whatever, as being appropriate, and more effective than previous efforts. Sometimes the fix is mechanical, sometimes procedural, and sometimes context. Often a combination. If I had a dollar for every time I facilitated progress with just a screwdriver, without saying anything about riding, I would have a lot of dollars. 'Practical' often has a lot to do with viewpoint, and expectations. I suspect that many SES/ECES attendees are accustomed to reading all sorts of quick tips on BOL and elsewhere, and their expectation is that they will (and often do) receive the same in the flesh. Hopefully, I can leave a person with a bit of insight that might help them examine their own riding in my absence. I feel that is more practical than a situational comment about hand position or body angles. Obviously,we don't all agree with that approach, and that's fine. At the time, exercises like that would forcibly move us past the problems we had with our equipment. So while dramatically contorted postures can be an effective way to experience a particular sensation or effect, there are better ways to go about it.

Well, C-dog (if I may address you as such), if such thoughts make you a heretic, then I may well be the anti-Christ. While drills and such can be an effective part of teaching, they also serve both parties as a means of feeling like something has been accomplished. One can become quite proficient at doing various drills, without improving much as a rider. With all due respect to Hilti, DeWalt, Metabo, Bosch and those who favor them, I'm not a fan of drills. They may be an expected part of teaching, but they often limit creativity, and don't often provide for the freedom/spontaneity of movement integral to learning. Moving over snow is about movement, and it's subtleties. It is not about replicating positions and postures. While there are exceptions to almost every rule, outside of a test of proficiency, most clients would likely prefer to be covering acreage with a goal in mind, rather than doing 'school figures'. And if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got.Try a different approach to a familiar situation. Succeed or fail, you may learn something of value. As we are all hardwired to walk, so too we have the capacity to glide. Children seldom learn to walk by attending a class, by watching, or by following a lecture; they learn by doing something (and failing) in a particular context, and then extending their boundaries. Some of the most important 'doing' takes place just slightly beyond the comfort zone. Sense of touch and unhindered range of articulation figure largely in the outcome.In the case of your examples, an apparent handicap is an asset. Unfortunately, too many look for flexibility in the wrong places. More often than not, if the pacing/information/context is appropriate, the client will seek to expand their 'awareness' on their own, which is to say, they will be asking you, one way or another, for additional challenge. This request may be verbal, or it may involve subtle hints in body language or carriage.A sound technical understanding should enhance a largely organic learning experience. If you want to ride at a higher level, more of your movements need to be intuitive rather than learned, and you need to make fewer of them, with greater accuracy. Vital. When enough riders actually incorporate this into their riding, the sport will experience a paradigm shift.

Not stainless, but plated. Should do the trick if you remove the bolts periodically, clean, and lubricate. http://www.boltdepot.com/product.aspx?cc=15&cs=264&cm=7 Did not look into cost per or minimums.

Pow, Long time no dojo... And in doing so, one can move seamlessly in and among those elements which would 'destroy' you.Correct me if I am wrong, but many forms of martial arts suggest the harnessing of potentially insurmountable force, rather than meeting force with force? Funny thing about snowsport; sometimes the harder you try, the further you move yourself from the desired outcome. Consider that a journey of 1K KMs begins with a single step, and that single step begins through a momentary absence of effort.

Sorry, I need to clarify: What I meant was that the footbed was not helping, but actually hindering 'balance'. I.e, the bone stack was better with nothing than with something.A better quality footbed should enhance stability through contouring and posting. The typical design of a walking footbed is not suited to snowsports, as accurate support of the forefoot is often neglected in favor of posting for heel strike. As a generalization, certainly. Plenty of circumstances though where tightening the link between athlete and sliding device has 'created' other issues. E.g., 'Why are my quads burning more now?' 'Because the ramp angle in your boots is excessive, you are providing more input to the ski with a supported foot, it has become hyperactive in the forebody, so you move further aft to compensate. More knee bend=more burn.' The boot was always an issue, it simply was not as noticeable prior to improving the communication link between skier and ski.

Well, yeah.......but effective foot support can be negated by other things. And an athlete with good conformation can do really well without support if most of the other variables are addressed. Effective foot support is different things to different people. I don't know how many times a rider has told me that they have good footbeds, only to discover that they would be better off barefoot.

Indeed. However, I would suggest that Ian, and most readers of this forum, are more than capable of handling the concepts at the High School level. If you have a grasp of said concepts, and listen to enough teaching, you will hear quite a few suggestions that make absolutely no sense for the context. And if I read correctly, I concur with your notion of heavily pondering the data after, and not while, you are collecting it. Obviously applicable to snowboarding. If, however, parts of your body are tied up with a bunch of reflexive muscular activity, in response to what you (unknowingly) created underfoot, you will have a hard time finding this place. If one needs to 'try' to create stillness, is it really stillness? Better to systematically remove everything that is preventing stillness/musculo-skeletal harmony. Can you have a comprehensive understanding of something without breaking it down to it's individual components, and assigning proper relevance to each? Just as important; can you take that understanding and do something useful with it? What is it; "opportunity favors the prepared mind", or something like that? What a given teacher does with their information is up to their judgment in any given situation. The absence of information limits their options, and thus affects their ability to provide lasting value for their client. I'm not suggesting that we should all approach snowboarding with a slide rule and pocket protector, but having definitive answers based on science rather than dogma provides more consistent outcomes. Visual learning certainly has its adherents, and advantages. The primary problem is that most of what makes for good riding is not obvious to the eye. The movements easiest to see and imitate are not always the movements one should be copying.

Absolutely. And given the proper context with appropriate safety gear, they would be encouraged to slide it around and get it up on two wheels, if possible.

Perhaps I mixed up kinematics with kinetics and classical mechanics. Regardless, I don't see how a grasp of objects in motion, and what governs that motion, can be a bad idea.

And that was the point.The original post asked about teaching; and when teaching, expressing every bit of information stored in your head doesn't help your client. Quite often, when an instructor picks up a relevant bit of knowledge, there is this almost irrepressible urge to share that knowledge, whether or not it truly fits the context. This is a normal state of being. Good skiing and snowboarding is minimalist. If you are doing it well, you are doing almost nothing. Economy of motion/effort is not to be confused with 'being static'. As Steve noted, there is success in the 'subconscious'. Given the opportunity, and the means, riding can, and should be, intuitive. Achieving this state is facilitated by clearing away all the junk. Participate in almost any physical activity, and sooner or later you will make breakthroughs of one type or another, often despite yourself. This is learning by mileage, for lack of a better term. For a few, of the right physical type and disposition, this method can work out fabulously. For the rest of the population, the right information, at the right time, in the right quantity, can lead to improvement. The better your understanding of the mechanisms and systems at play, the easier it is to determine your client's needs, and the simpler the information transfer.

The advantage to teaching is that the context is constrained. If you are working with a client on shallow terrain, and your usual movements are not working well, you really have no choice other than to acknowledge the flaws in your movement pattern and find new ones. (After all, the movements used while moving very slowly in a novice class should be extremely similar to those used further up the hill.) Whereas when you are on your own, or with friends, you will tend to gravitate towards terrain that suits what you do best, even if that is not in the best interest of your technical development. The organism is inherently 'lazy', and will find the path of least resistance, as dictated by the characteristics of the board, and whatever technique is brought to bear. If your movements are not fluid and effortless while moving slowly, you are either outside the functional range of your board, your setup is messed up, or 'you are doing it wrong'. Ah, yes, the asparagus...You asked earlier about my background. Rather than bore you with my CV, I chose two seemingly disparate but related elements affecting on hill practice. I don't care for that vegetable. I know plenty who do, but I just don't see the attraction. In slidysport, as in diet, quite often it seems there is no accounting for tastes and preferences.... Machines don't have preferences. Rather, they have operating parameters and tendencies. They tend to be predictable. Once you have a comprehensive understanding of a machine, it looks different than it did the first time you laid eyes on it. As a sheet of music reads differently to a professional musician than to the beginning piano student. (As you cannot put the notes back in the piano, neither can you put the turns back into the board...) When a machine malfunctions, you set about repairing the problem, starting with the understanding of how that machine operates. The human organism "...(is) like any other machine. They're either a benefit or a hazard. If they're a benefit, it's not my problem." - Deckard So in teaching, you have the attempted integration of two 'machines': One, inanimate, with no moving parts, and one, sentient, with a lot of moving parts. On a variable, slippery surface no less. When a snowboarder or skier malfunctions, you have to take into account their tastes, preferences, philosophies, etc. They may execute truly counterproductive movements, and trigger your gag reflex, but those movements may be integral to their sense of self and identity as a winter sports athlete. This difficulty is compounded by one heck of a lot of misinformation in the industry about what is supposed to happen, and when; and the need to mark achievement through outward appearance and/or postural references, incorporating all of the necessary, codified elements of skiing/snowboarding. So despite the fact that 'you' may be keen on the slender green vegetable, and I am not, 'our' clinic outcome will be predictable and appropriate based on an understanding of the machinery, and a transfer of information relevant to 'your' stage of development. If you have not already done so, find a copy of Gray's Anatomy (or similar text) and study the skeletal structure and it's individual articulations. Then visualize how those articulations are affected by varying loads, fluctuating muscle tension, and a 'fixed' base of support. Overlay the musculature and understand that muscles are intended (if you will) to provide/attenuate movement, and not for bearing loads. Add to that the 'prime directive', which states that the need to remain upright and stable in a given context overrides most all other discretionary movements. Review your HS physics text, and resolve (to a finite end) all of your on-snow outcomes according to the chapter on introductory kinematics. To better understand the role of rotary movements, engage a few friends in a spirited game of broom ball. (Assuming you can find some ice devoid of hockeyphiles.) There is more to it than that, but it's a start. While you should not get tekky with your clients unless requested, it is important that you understand the science behind what you are attempting to do.