Thinking about skiing physics lead to more buoys?

[Than_Bogan]

Nerd roll call! :)

[thager]

Bazinga!!

[jayski]

Thinking is a small part, understanding and application is imperative...

[crashman]

I'm thinking about it... I think it's helping my skiing... it's shooting me through the entrance gate... it's not leading to more buoys... yet!

[SkiJay]

It often helps, but not always. I've "thought" myself into a few blind alleys.

[thompjs]

Either way it leads to fewer buoys for me now.

 

 

[Taperflex]

As a friend of mine states quite often, you can get "paralysis by analysis".

[Chef23]

I think about technique but I don't think about it as physics. I realize angle and speed are physics but I don't think about it that way.

[Deke]

It gives you something to do when you're not skiing.

[rayn]

I have enough to think about already

[pugs]

I haven't thought about physics since high school, and that was over 40 years ago.

[Than_Bogan]

@chef23 Yeah, that's part of what I was wondering with this poll.

 

One thing that sometimes holds me back in any athletic endeavor is that I can't do something until I understand WHY. This is true even when the source of the advice is the world's leading expert -- I just have some weird mental block where my body won't do it until I've understood why it should help.

 

On the other hand, this over-analysis is sometimes helpful and I think it also makes me a better coach (at least for certain audience) because general physics can apply to anyone's skiing, and form a basis to help them tune up their technique, as opposed to just telling them to do exactly what I'm doing.

 

I'm actually pretty surprised at how positively the respondents view their time thinking about skiing physics. I was expecting most to consider it a waste of time. (Btw, the respondents may be wrong -- just because they think it helped them doesn't mean it actually did...)

[tsixam]

If you can visualize it, there’s a good chance you can do it..

Tsixam

[9400]

I find that during a skiing conversation, if the word physics comes up my brain shuts down. I think in terms of execution of techniques that make the process of skiing easier for me...which is physics...I just don't think of it by name because it complicates my simple mind.

[Chef23]

@Than Bogan I am a bit more of an intuitive athlete who learns by watching then trying to emulate rather than an analytic one. If I have too many thoughts in my head I get tangled up and don't do anything well.

[Drago]

There are two physics "rules" I never forget: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (this can be used in a positive and negative); To go a greater distance in the same amount of time (let's say 16 to 17 seconds...) one must go faster.

[RichardDoane]

@than - don't think, just ski

[Razorskier1]

I try to save my thinking for when I'm on land. When I'm on the water I don't want to have more than one thought in my head at a time. Anything more and I have the "thinking too much splashdown".

[Than_Bogan]

Exactly what @Razorskier1 said. The reason to think so hard on land is because there simply isn't time in the course.

 

Then again, thinking is all I have. Take that away and I'm just weak and a mediocre athlete with maybe above average dedication.

[Razorskier1]

@Than -- you have to come to MN and ski sometime!

[Than_Bogan]

@Razorskier That really does sound like fun! Lotta "like minds" out there it seems.

 

Hard to imagine where I'm gonna fit that, but my older daughter has been pretty interested in smallmouth and nothern pike recently. (She got some brochure from a place in Canada and got mildly obsessed.)