CROSS COUNTRY SKIING with POSE METHOD

Cross country skiing has a 'traditional' || and 'ski skating' \ / techniques , where the latter one is considered to be the more efficient one. While there are differences between the two styles of skiing, the fundamental parts of movement are the same. Let's use the ski skating technique to look at what's going on in the technical department of skiing, since certain things are more obvious and easier noticed, while ski skating. While same things are happening in traditional skiing, as far as technique is concerned, they are less obvious there, as the straight || position of the skies deceives us into believing that something else is going on. But at the end of the day, just like in swimming, running, cycling, and other sports - it's all about gravity and your proper interaction with it.

While the big picture is that all sports are the same as far as gravity and your movement are concerned, almost every sport has certain specific features that add a little bit of a twist to the individual picture of each sport. In swimming it's water, in cycling it's the bicycle, and so on, in skiing it's the snow and the skis. The snow and the skis, both individually and combined, force our movement into a particular frame and require the development of very specific skills in order to produce a high quality efficient movement.

In the Pose Method, all movement consists of poses - some are key and some are filler, and your ability to focus on and execute only the key poses will make you a better skier.

In Pose Skiing, just like in Pose Running, there is one key pose – one-legged stance with a slightly bent knee of the support leg, your body-weight centered on the ball of foot. The other similarities are: "requirement of very little vertical movement, to avoid unnecessary movements, balance on each ski for a short period time, with the body nearly totally erect, very little bending at the hips, transferring (shifting) weight from one leg to another..."(Svensson, Einar "Ski Skating With Champions, How to Ski With Least Energy", 1994, p.33).

There are, however, two things that make a difference - the lift of the ankle is much lower and falling happens mostly to the side and slightly forward. The body moves in a sway motion of speed skating or roller blading, thus allowing the body weight to fall more on the support leg side to side to produce higher speed. The presence of the ski sliding in a diagonal direction allows for longer time on support and through it a better fall. Longer support in skiing, unlike in running, does not deteriorate the movement but reduces energy expenditure and helps to transfer it into a forward movement.

The same line of thinking should be applied to traditional skiing ( || ) but without the diagonal direction of movement (to the side and forward).

Good drills to practice Pose Skiing could be borrowed from Pose Running. Until the release of Pose Ski specific drills, try change of support drill and balance on one leg with body weight on the ball of the foot.

Interestingly, a change of support with balance on one leg was successfully taught in Russia for skiing only in the 60s by Dr. Romanov's sport-school coach Vladimir Yakovlevich Grigoriev.

Article by Dr. Nicholas Romanov
Composed by L. Romanov