Greatest Misconceptions and Misunderstandings & why

[Horton]

What are the most common Slalom Misconceptions & Misunderstandings?

 

[Wish]

I would add to that thread title question..... AND WHY do you feel this way? Having just a list will do no good.

 

And it would be nice if posts reflected the original questions. Please help steer it that way. I am very interested to here the best of the best chime in here. But also appreciate the insight of just about everyone. This could be really good. And please do not forget to be respectful no matter how you feel about the post. Stepping off soap box now......

[Than_Bogan]

For those just getting going in the course, the most common misconception is that it's all about the turns. The opposite is true: until you have the body position to generate the leverage to generate the speed to get across fast enough, turns can't do much for you.

[Wish]

Ok, maybe not the Greatest but if you have not tried EVERY ZO setting to see what works for you, you are risking buoy count. It is a HUGE misconception to think one setting is better then the next based on your buddy's recommendation, how you think you ski, what that really good Pro is using or what the flavor of the month is. Settings are there for a reason. It's so you can personalize and make ZO work for you and that may be vastly different then what someone else uses.

[Horton]

@wish don't you think that the perfect setting is often different from boat to boat. I mean from boat brand to band then there is engine choice and then Oooo crap prop choice.

 

This could be a huge mistake on my part but I basically take B2 on every boat because I can not imagine how to exactly get it right from boat to boat.

[Wish]

@Horton, a consideration for sure. But, this is directed at the newcomers to ZO or the ones that may not have had or don't have a ton of opportunities to ski behind multiple ZO boats with varied engine, prop options. I know there are skiers that change settings based on the boat but I believe that the vast majority do not. Hence steering folks away from doing anything but testing all the optional settings of ZO to find that one that feel just right. And, if one is lucky enough to test or ski behind multiple boats with varied engines/props, the advice still holds true and is even more important as you suggest....it may be a different setting for a different boat.

 

@Bruce_Butterfield‌ I respect your opinion immensely and would like to know why the dislike. Opposite to what I'm saying would be to do the list I gave vs finding the setting best for a skier based on how the setting felt to that individual.

[Horton]

The whole concept of counter rotation is misunderstood and multifaceted. I do not think I can cover 1/4 of it in one post (while watching the baby). Here is a start.

 

When I was a teenager (yes I just dated myself) counter rotation was the big new concept. I remember hearing "when you get out to the ball line turn your shoulders out as much as you can". Many skiers then and since work to twist their shoulders out. The key unintended consequence is that many skiers try to achieve counter by pulling back their outside shoulder. If you pull back your outside shoulder you will most likely shift most of your weight onto your back foot. That is not going to help your ball count.

 

The worst part of this for me is that at my "on side" when I am late and stressed I do the above outside shoulder move. Sure it rolls the ski over a lot and allows me to move my hip to the inside but the end of the turn is then a big wheelie and I basically have to do a deep water start to get to the other side. It is terrible.

 

I hope someone smarter then me expounds of this => in a nutshell counter about where your hips are pointing and is mostly the result of what you do with your hips from the center line to the second whitewater (roughly). It is not about your shoulders.

 

To make all of this more perplexing Nate Smith turns his shoulders into the course on his off side turn. I have heard a plausible explanation about this but do not understand enough to repeat it.

---

Ok this is the very short version. If no one else wants to fill in more details I will work on it later this week.

[Horton]

@wish this brings me to my all time favorite Will Bush story. I asked him his advice about something related to ZO. An hour later my head was full of all kinds of information that probably requires a degree from MIT to understand. About the time my ears started to bleed I said "soo I should use B2?" He said yes and that is what I have done ever since.

 

I do not doubt that it is perhaps a mistake for me to not explore. If you or someone wants to tackle writing a real guide to skiing with ZO I want to see it. I understand the difference in the letters and numbers but I do not have a good rule of thumb about why one settings is better. I mean I get the core basics I can't imagine watching a skier and knowing thier setting is wrong. Anyone...

[Luzz]

@Horton‌ Interesting topic to start this misconception thread.

 

Personally, I was never bought into it, like I am never bought into extremes... However, there are advantages, especially for people who drive to the wakes with their hips as opposed to with their body more stacked. One of these advantages is to transition to a more relaxed position. Another one is the rhythm that counter rotation gives. However, the main advantage is outward direction right out of the edge change!

 

The big point is that you want your body to direct the ski where it needs to go. Your body should second the trajectories you want the ski to take. That's why being counter rotated at the end of the turn does not make sense to me. If you keep direction off the edge change and the ski is out of the buoy line, the next step is starting to turn, not forcing the ski to keep going out!

 

The problem, of course, is that the position of our feet on the ski is so asymmetric that the whole body has to find strange ways to second the trajectory of the ski. The challenge is to find a comfortable and simple set of movements to achieve this, but since we already have a ton of things to do between 16 and 17 seconds, I like to keep movements to the bare minimum. To me, counter rotation was always too much moving...

 

 

 

[Wish]

@Horton that's just it. My opinion is there is NO one is better then the other based on what ZO is supposed to do. B2 may actually be what you end up on after going through them all...but maybe not. I cannot tell you how many folks told me to pick a certain letter because it would be closest to PP. I quit skiing tournaments in 2011 because of this bad advice for me. I'm sure it worked for other. After a week of skiing them all I was amazed by on setting. And it was opposite of what I was being told. It fit me. I could care less what it was supposed to be doing or if it is was called W setting for Wish. The science of it and having a real guide will not help. It can in fact make it worse in some cases. Best bet would be to have the driver just randomly run though them and take note of what the skier says. I think a "guide" just puts preconceived and possibly misguided interpretations/notions into the skiers head and they start trying to "feel" what the boat is "supposed" to be doing rather then paying attention to what the boat is doing to them while they are skiing their normal style.

 

I had a skier out this morning on my lake that was frustrated with ZO. He's been told what setting to try and worse, what setting not to try and never really tried them all. I gave him my 2 cents based on what I know and how it would relate to his style, when he loads etc...coupled with being behind my PP so I could feel what he was doing. But, after my 2 cents of advice on a letter, I was very direct and left him with one though...TRY THEM ALL then decide.

[Horton]

@Wish‌ I think you make a really good point. I just don't want to hear it :-)

 

denial is not just a river in Egypt

[Bruce_Butterfield]

@wish, my dislike was simply that for the vast majority of skiers, chasing ZO is like adjusting your fin between every set. They will be far better off picking a setting and going with it than fixating on the speed control. Remember each skier has a weak link that needs the most attention. For 99% of the skiers out there, ZO isn't the weak link.

[Horton]

ZO philosophy. maybe that is a future thread. I've got opinions about a lot of things but when it comes to ZO I am just not sure.

[Wish]

@Bruce_Butterfield‌ could not agree more with your last statement. It's just that the thread is about misconceptions not what the biggest weak link might be. My suggestion being; feeling out all the ZO settings vs misconception of being told or assuming what's best. Essentially 9 settings could be gone through by just about any skier in an afternoon with little to no fixation I suspect. The almost infinite number of fin settings could take well....forever with obsessive behavior often linked. :smile: If it takes longer then an afternoon or a couple sets then ya, not worth it. Maybe there's just not enough skier self awareness to notice. But A1 and C3 are waaaay different and the likelyhood of a skier connecting with a setting for them is greater in my opinion if they go through them. If I had to stick with the setting(s) I was being told to stay with I'd still be done with tournaments or the setting would have changed how I ski. Also agree with @Horten in that ZO could be a thread in itself outside of suggesting a misconception with it. And it certainly is not the biggest misconception but hopefully will help many...so I'll drop it :smile:

[6balls]

@wish agree. I don't get much ZO time (tourneys and one other week per season) so in FL when we met you I had tried all settings in the days prior. It was nice to have the time to have some fun skiing with the system.

They were all interesting and my loading style certainly worked better with some than others. At longer lines I thought I was going to make a preference switch but it was tougher for me when short.

I say try 'em out if you get a chance...it doesn't take that long and hopefully you find a preferred spot.

[Horton]

Part of the problem is that I do not think you can really know if a setting works for you without spending a lot of time with it One thing I have learned from reviewing skis is that my impression after 2 or 5 rides is rarely the same as after 15 or 20 rides. For me just going through the settings seems unlikely to provide the ultimate answer. That said I do not have a better solution.

[AdamCord]

One of the biggest misconception is certainly how much angle we really take across the course and the line we take to the ball. We move DOWN the lake much further than we move ACROSS the lake. We're basically racing the boat from ball to ball. You start to wrap your head around that and your entire world changes.

 

I've been up at 3AM every morning with a crying baby so I used my time to throw together a crude representation of the handle and skier's path in the course to try and show this. This is not measured from anything, it's just my idea of what the path should look like. Everything is to scale though and that's a 38off rope. If you are prone to seizures or are easily hypnotized I suggest you look away.

 

 

 

 

[Wish]

@AdamCord‌ that is the coolest animation I have seen. What a great visual.!!! We can only hope the baby keeps you up long hours so we can appreciate your knowledge even more.

[The_MS]

Top 5 post @AdamCord

[AdamCord]

@Wish @MS thanks just remember than anything I say in the coming weeks is after little sleep and has been poorly thought through. I tried to make a GIF to show how much the ski slips but I think watching this one might make me throw up.

The blue line is the path the ski is actually travelling on. You can see why it looks like we take so much more angle than we really do. The ski is slipping (smearing?) a LOT. Again this is not measured from anything, just my approximation of what I think is happening.

 

 

[Wish]

@AdamCord‌ ....smear.... But that is a discussion for another thread..oh wait there is one on that. ;-)

[6balls]

@adamcord cool stuff. I have typed on occasion not sure why everyone is talking about getting more angle out of the ball...I can get way more than I need with problematic results. I also feel as the line gets shorter as in your animation above...the game is much more going "with" the boat on a 45, not trying to get against the boat in a 75. Keeps tension without overload and makes the most of efficient acceleration.

[Horton]

@Luzz I just went back to re-read what you wrote back in the 7th.

 

It really surprises me that you said “…. being counter rotated at the end of the turn does not make sense ...” That is contrary to a corner stone of my coaching and something I wish I did better in my skiing. Please be gentle when you tell me how totally wrong I am.

 

I am right foot forward and at apex of off side the more/longer I keep my right shoulder countered the more I will rotate my right hip and right foot. The result is not just angle it is also a stable stacked exit from the ball.

 

If I allow my right shoulder to close and or If I bring my right hand back to the handle too fast my right hip will under rotate / my left knee will be bent more than my right knee and I am basically stuck in a crappy stack all the way back to the wake.

 

I often tell skiers to try to feel their feet turning at a faster rate than their hips and hips at a faster rate than their shoulders.

 

---

Bi-Polar Horton Semi-Self Contradiction

If I am over countered (If my hands are too far apart) at apex (especially off side) that means my free hand has farther to travel to get back to the handle. If I am in trouble and my hands are far apart I am going to have more upper body action to get my free hand back to the handle. A panic big effort to get my free hand back to the handle results again in a crap stack and lack of control back to the wakes.

---

Do I miss understand what you were saying? Can you straighten me out?

[Luzz]

@Horton‌, my understanding of counter rotation is probably very raw and not precise, but what I have always got out of it is a rotation of the body to compensate the negative consequences that come with our body being not symmetric on the ski.

 

Bring it back to two skis, IF everything goes well when you leave the wakes, and you are wide and ready to turn, the most logical thing to do is to follow your skis with your body, both in direction of your weight and rotation.

 

Same thing with one ski, although the whole leaving the wakes appropriately is 100 times harder. However, if it does happen and out of the edge-change you are wide, fast (which allows you to be wide), and in control, I don't see why you would block the rotation of your body. And by rotation of your body I simply mean following your ski with your hips.

 

One of the things I feel working best in keeping my direction off the second wake is feeling my inside arm connected to my inside hip. If I stay counter rotated at the end of the turn, I know I will not have that connection for the next pull.

 

I should probably stop here before polluting the post even more. I spent the whole season seeing the end of the turn as a mere consequence of my pull and edge-change, so I may not be the best expert at what needs to be done at the end of the turn...

[AdamCord]

OK @Horton what you're bringing up here points out another big misconception: PERCEPTION...Just because you perceive something one way doesn't necessarily mean that's what's happening, and it definitely doesn't mean someone else will perceive it the same way. I'll use your question above to try and illustrate my point.

 

You focus on staying countered at the end of off side, and that's great if that's what's working for you. But what does that mean? Countered compared to what? I personally try to stay with the rotation of my ski on offside, without getting ahead of it. @Luzz, who is a much better skier than either one of us, says he's not trying to counter and he's trying to stay in line with his ski. So we have 3 somewhat different approaches and we are each probably telling people to do what we are trying to do whenever we coach. But are we really doing what we say? Or is that just how we perceive it...

 

We are all right foot forward and the first 3 videos I pulled up all started at 32off so that makes this comparison very easy:

 

Here's John at offside. My analysis of this is that you are sorta open in the first frame, and by the third frame you are pretty much in line with the ski, or "closed off". It's hard to tell in these 3 frames but this was a very nice smooth turn on video and you ended in a great position.

 

 

Me...never really "open" per se, and I let my hips get behind me, but that's not the point. The point is in my mind I'm fairly "square" to the course at apex, and I'm in line with the ski at the finish. You can see in reality I'm probably a little too closed off at the start and the result is I lose my inside shoulder a bit at the finish.

 

 

And then we have Matteo. Now Matteo is a much better skier than either of us, so it's interesting to see that he looks to be more "open" than either one of us. Goes to show that what he may mean by "countered" and what you may mean are not necessarily the same thing. It's all about how we perceive what we're doing.

I was too lazy to try and find clearer shots for Matteo, but if you can't tell he's making a much smoother turn than John or me...

 

The point is that you may perceive yourself to be open, but maybe aren't as much as you think. I may perceive myself to be square with the ski, but maybe I'm not. It's more valuable to get video and really watch what we are doing and evaluate, as opposed to going off what we think we're doing.

 

[Luzz]

@AdamCord‌ that was a 35off for me, so not fair :smiley:

 

I agree with you about perception of what we do as opposed to what we are actually doing.

However, perception is what we ultimately base our skiing when we are out on the water. Watching video really helps when it comes to comparisons, whether it is between different skiers or, better, between you on video and your perceptions of what is happening.

 

I was asked to develop on a sentence, and I did my best to try and explain what I think. However, when I coach, the challenge is twofold. On one side, I have my understanding of technique (which I try not to pollute with what I am doing with my skiing), on the other I have to work with what I see and especially what the athlete feels.

 

So I am not sure that perception per se is a misconception.

Is coaching someone else based on your perception of your own skiing deceiving? Probably....

[AdamCord]

@Luzz very good point. I suppose we could file this under "Misunderstanding" as opposed to "Misconception".

[Razorskier1]

@AdamCord great visual way up in the thread. That jives with one of my mental constructs. Most people focus on getting width at shortline . . . I say you need height at shortline. Height is width, in other words. This follows (for me) your comment about racing the boat. If I don't catch up with the boat I'm not going to be high enough/wide enough to make the next buoy.

 

@Horton and @Luzz -- comments on open and closed are always open to lots of interpretation. As a RFF skier, I will tell you I make an effort to keep my left shoulder up and my right shoulder back from the release of the handle all the way through connection and load on the 1/3/5. This could be interpreted as staying open, or being countered. However, I think all it is really doing is compensating for the fact that my feet are in a position on that side where I will naturally be more closed than I would be on the onside. So I'm not really trying to be countered or open, but trying to create some symmetry with the onside turn position (upper body). This gets to your point about what I feel or think, vs. what you see. Additionally, this thought process helps me avoid what can be a bad habit, which is to twist with my shoulders at the completion of the turn, causing my left shoulder to be down on the water, my head to be down, and the loads to be unmanageable. So in the end all I'm really doing by all these mental gymnastics is keeping my head and shoulders level! If only it were so easy to execute!

[Wish]

Agree with @Razorskier1‌ as a positional thing. Stand feet shoulder with apart facing an imaginary boat. Now place your front foot in front of the other..for me RFF. Your shoulders and hips will follow your foot. Stand like that and imagine looking down the buoy lines. You will be "closed" on one side and "open" on the other..naturally.

[Razorskier1]

While we are on the topic, one other comment. Recent threads have talked about Terry keeping the handle close off the second wake, and how important that is. Totally agree. But . . . how to achieve it???

 

I can tell you how not to do it. When my handle gets away from me, it is a result of an uncontrolled edge change. Typically this occurs from too much load too late in the pull (like at the second wake), causing my stiff-legged self to be pulled up fast as my ski does a rapid, and large move from edge to edge with the boat pulling the handle away from me. To control the handle, I need to control the edge change. To control the edge change, I need to control (or at least manage) the load. Done right, the edge change becomes a process instead of an event. Transition from leaning edge, to flat, to inside edge occurs in a more measured fashion, the handle stays in close and everything is great.

 

So . . . if I'm perfect at load management, this can occur without tremendous management effort. However, to be consistent I need to focus more on control at the point of change. Let's face it, pulling hard is easy. Transitioning from pulling hard, to controlled outbound travel, to inside edge and hook up, is far more challenging. For me it all starts with not allowing the ski to just skip straight from leaning edge to inside edge. The better I control that transition, the more space I create, the tighter the line, and the better I am at back-siding the buoy.

[Horton]

Here is a classic. Nate Smith does not lean very hard and or "light on the line" means not leaning very hard. I do not think i am the right person to author the definition of "Light on the Line"

[6balls]

@horton you posted a cool pic of Nate at the ball...head and shoulders level, hair showing that he's moving briskly inward, ski on edge because his hips were low not because his upper body was low.

 

With that he accepts the initial load without being heavy and is efficient into/out of the ball. It seems to me, however, both at the gate turn in to the wake and his work behind the boat that he is giving it hell behind the boat into the wake...stacked and leveraged. Because he is stacked and leveraged he is efficient, not heavy. Energy management up and out of center line to wide...stuff I can understand but just can't seem to do. Can't wait to try some more come spring if my post-op neck allows.

[Horton]

@6balls‌ Again I am semi - fuzzy on this but as I understand it => Nate makes as much speed as he can and he puts a lot of load on the rope for a brief distance. Maybe 25 feet from the center line to the center line. The mistake must of us make is to lean hard off the ball and create load but not extra speed.

 

Nate has huge speed and a lot of load but not more load than he can manage.

 

It is a ROI thing. We all load the line. The best skiers in the world convert more of the load into speed => are efficient. The rest of us build load that makes some speed but we are also plowing more water (converting calories into unnecessarily spray). In my case my center of mass is farther back than it should be. The ski itself is less efficient. With the tail deeper and the tip higher I am making more spray and challenging the boat driver to go straight.

[Horton]

The misunderstanding that I hear is that we want to not lean. I am pretty darn sure that you have to lean and resist the boat to get around 6 balls at any speed and line length.

[Razorskier1]

I think it is managing load that lead to the not lean school of thought. For a guy my size, I think about not leaning, but I'm still giving it plenty - trust me! When the skied PP drivers used to tell me it felt like I was pulling the boat backwards when I was between the wakes. I think that level of load is not speed generating.

[Wish]

Thinking light on the line but actually loading is 3 things for the most part (short line);

 

1. Ski does not over turn essentially slowing down to much and redirecting ski.

2. Skier does not get full load until ski tip is at first white water.

3. Highest load point is when ski is within white water through first wake.

 

If you have these three elements, load as much as you want or can IMHO. It will feel light to the driver. Misconception is leaning more or less, loading more or less, or being light on the line are simply vague terms with to much interpretation.

[Horton]

@Wish‌ I think I disagree with your statement that if you do everything else right you can go as hard as you want.

 

Side Note:

I see TOTAL LOAD as being a product if skier input, ski design and ski setup. Take the skier out of the equation and have a fin that is too long and too deep. The result may be that the amount of grip the ski has at the wakes will force the skier to separate. I hear this described as being "Peeled Apart". Take some depth or length out and the ski will slip toward the boat a little and have less TOTAL LOAD.

 

I think too much load can do a number of bad things. Peel the skier apart (break connection) resulting in a narrow and fast approach to the next ball. Even if the skier keeps all of the connection and the handle at their hip, excessive load makes it harder to do a progressive and controlled edge change => more like a transition. A big radical / abrupt edge change looks cool but I am pretty sure it is a bad idea.

 

 

[Wish]

Semantics I know but I said load as much as you want, not go as hard you can. To be honest, what more can you really do after 2 and 3 in my previous post. You're already at a point of no return and little chance to increase load/lean by much if at all. Was a bit of tongue and cheek statement. My piont being.,say all you want on how much or not enough load but in my book if one or the other is occurring, you're doing something wrong before it with 1,2 or 3. But then again, I am on pretty good muscle relaxer sooooo....

[Horton]

Semantics are critical to this thread. The whole point is finding and clearing misunderstandings.

[The_MS]

Someone needs to explain the definition of LOAD.

[Wish]

@MS that was my point...sorta. The term load, and if it is to much or to little, is just vague. And I think, undefinable as a stand alone phrase. There is always load. I'm sure several will go ahead and define it. They most likely will all be correct in some way or another. The term needs to go with a hell of a lot more detail when describing it to a skier. It has to be accompanied by, where, when and how. To me the misconception is to "try and load less" or "try to load more" and leave it open to interpretation. To say Nate loads a great deal or he is light on the line, and I have heard both over the yrs, creates vast misconceptions as to what he is actually doing. It can be interpreted to many ways.

[AdamCord]

Ok I'm going to try and keep this as simple as I can and not get heavily into the details. Load is a very misunderstood term, because people have different interpretations of what it means and what it encompasses. I'll try and explain what I mean. I attempted to explain this to @Horton a few weeks ago and I think he thought I was speaking Chinese, so forgive me if this is a poor explanation.

 

There are two different ways we can talk about load. There's the load on the ski that you feel through your feet and legs, and there's the load on the rope that is felt by the boat. These are NOT the same. The load through the ski is only part of the total load felt by the boat. The load on the ski is drag. Part of that drag is used to direct you across the course, part of that is used to keep you from sinking, part is just wasted inefficiency. All that drag energy is equal to the energy in the spray and other disturbed water + energy loaded into the bent/twisted ski. The additional load felt by the boat is the force caused by your acceleration. Remember force=mass x acceleration from high school physics? The bigger the mass and the faster the rate of acceleration, the higher the force, or load on the rope.

 

Generally as you come out of the turn the load through your feet is very high and the load caused by acceleration is low. By the time you get to the first wake the load through your feet will be lower and the load caused by acceleration is higher. Also generally a high load through your feet means you are being inefficient, but a high load from acceleration could mean you are very efficient. I could go more into detail about this but it goes back to understanding the geometry of what's going on (see gif above), and I promised to keep it simple.

 

So when one person says Nate Smith is light on the line, and another says he pulls his brains out, both can easily be true. Nate doesn't put a lot of load on the ski, causing drag, spray, etc, but he has very high acceleration, allowing him to be very fast and get high on the boat better than anyone else.

 

Does that make sense? I'm sorry I don't know how else to explain it.

[6balls]

@adamcord if I hear you right, Nate efficiently loads and thus generates more speed than parasitic drag like the rest of us inefficient loaders. I would like to load more efficiently, rather than load excessively in inefficient fashion in a lackluster attempt to achieve short-line results...which has been my history. Inefficient over loading only gets a skier so far.

 

It's been good to me in a sense, but to get further I need to change. The challenge for me since hitting 34 mph has to become more technical and less dependent on power. The problem is power/adrenaline are my default settings :)

[Horton]

@AdamCord‌ I am going to have to sleep off the 3 beers I have had and reread that 3 more times.

[AdamCord]

@Horton that's odd I wrote that after having 3 beers.

[Horton]

@AdamCord‌ 在我手中的負載不是在我的腳下等於負載？

[AdamCord]

@Horton exactly, the load in your hands is greater than the load in your feet.

[Horton]

@AdamCord‌

怎麼可能是真的？

[Horton]

@AdamCord‌ 如果一个滑雪者是一个简单的生物学机制从手柄到滑雪改造负载如何势力有所不同呢？在中心线处把手将要旅行下来湖以相同的速度作为所述的船。滑雪可以被定向以有效的方式或效率较低的方式。

[bishop8950]

Whats with the translation? This shit is complex enough without having to have it further confused through the chinese translation. Is winter really that boring for you guys?

 

I see some skiers so heavy on their skis into/through the wakes they are completely stuck and never get the ski moving out through the edge change. It looks like they are pushing really hard with their legs and getting no where. I have coached it by saying "concentrate on taking the load through your arms and into your lower back while being light on your feet centerline out".

 

When I am skiing my best I feel very light on my feet. I also feel the most load in my mid-lower back and my arms/hands are only holding on to what I have created. At my shorter lines I create a lot of load through my hands/arms and into my lower back but hopefully I and am in control enough to let my ski move out past the centerline.

 

So if @Adamcord was saying you are better off with more load in your hands than in your feet I would say thats exactly the way it feels to me when I am skiing well.