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Reprints From The Professional Skier

Fall 1997 - "Calm In The Midst Of Chaos: The Art Of The Mogul Pole Plant" by John Clendenin

This article is reprinted from The Professional Skier. All copyrights apply. Please see our copyright and disclaimer notice page.

Twenty-five years ago when I was World Champion, freestyle had a following like the Grateful Dead's and bump skiing was as wild and loose as the decade. Times have changed. Today's champions ski monster mogul runs with knees pressed together tight enough to carry gloves and heads steady enough to balance a tray of cocktails. The best of the best tame bumps with economy of motion. Controlled calm in the midst of chaos has become an art, and I its student.

I interviewed several top professional mogul skiers last season in Aspen. We discussed cutting-edge mogul technique, inside-ski power, subtleties of knee pressure, and weight-bearing ratios between skis. When I asked what they believed to be the most basic element for good bump skiing, they all agreed: the pole plant.

Deceptively simple in appearance, the mechanics of a successful mogul pole plant can seem overwhelming to understand and frustrating to learn for many skiers. To ease the learning progression for my clients, I break the pole lesson into four phases. When these skiers practice each phase in progression, they find bump skiing easier, safer, and a lot more fun.

Phase I: The Pasta Pot (Photo 1)

The first phase in the pole plant learning progression involves a little taste of Italy. Imagine a large pot full of hot spaghetti sauce. Visualize your hands holding the pot handles, knuckles facing the floor, arms hanging comfortably, shoulder-width apart, elbows bent to keep the pot level and away from your hips. Call this the "home" position (photo 2 below).

If you want to learn something quickly about the home position, take a large pot, fill it with hot water, and walk down some stairs. Pretend that each step is a turn. Keep your shoulders and hands facing straight down the stairway, always in the home position. Hold the pot level and centered over the weight-bearing leg on each step. When performed correctly, this exercise will help you develop the feeling you should experience when your upper body faces down the mountain, anticipating each direction change from a balanced stance.

When the feeling of holding your hands in the home position becomes natural, take your imaginary pasta pot to a groomed green or blue slope. The slope should have a constant fall line, one where a ball would roll down in a straight line. This is your training ground.

While making easy "S" turns or even wedge turns, pretend your ski pole grips are the pot handles. Imagine holding the pot comfortably over the outside ski, which helps you center yourself over your edges. Just as when you walked down those stairs, your torso and hips should be slightly countering the movement of your lower body. Don't worry about pole plants yet; simply ski while holding your poles horizontal, almost parallel to the snow surface, tips behind you. If you held your poles in the traditional vertical position, you would dump that hot sauce. Yuck!

Hold that image.

After several runs you'll begin to feel your skis cross under the pasta pot (photo 1 above). With your hands comfortably in the home position, you are now ready to add the hand-flick and drive.

Phase II: Hand Flick And Drive

Still on your training slope, make slightly longer "S" turns, initiating the first turn with an actual pole plant. From home, flick your hand up, bringing the pole from horizontal to vertical. If you find that you have to lift your hand to bring the pole to a vertical position, you may want to consider using shorter poles. Plant or-better-touch the snow. This hand flick-touch sequence begins the turn without forcing or even allowing you to reach down the hill.

Next comes the hand drive, arguably the most important element of high-performance mogul skiing. Just as the pole touches the snow, drive your hand forward in front of your hip, straight down the fall line, to the pot handle position. Feel this as "flick-touch-drive" with the hand in one continuous motion. While you are learning, keep the flick-touch light and smooth, but make sure the drive is strong and forceful. This forward-driving action after the touch to home (where your hands hold the pot handles) prevents any backward jerking of the hand, arm, torso, or hips. Hand retraction causes a domino effect, throwing your weight back, turning your torso out of the fall line, and forcing your skis to skid sideways into a traverse. Conversely, the hand drive commits your posture to a well-balanced stance in which your hips and shoulders face down the mountain. Ski with your hands in, or returning to, the home position. This keeps you instantly ready for the next flick-touch-drive sequence.

Phase III: Mechanical Hands

It's time for the next course, so you can toss the pot and the sauce. When you ski bumps well, both of your hands are in motion with the pole touch. At first, this will feel like trying to tap your head and rub your stomach at the same time. Don't give up; change is always unsettling and awkward at first. If it doesn't feel different, nothing is changing.

As you flick-touch-drive to home with one hand, bring the other hand simultaneously into the ready position, in which your pole is perpendicular to the snow. You are now skiing with one hand in the home position and the other in ready (photo 3 below). Developing this move protects you from being late for a pole plant.

Ski gentle "S" turns on your training ground. At first you'll probably have to move your poles in a deliberate mechanical fashion, skiing like a toy soldier. To an observer, the poles will appear to be simply switching positions repeatedly, one vertical, the other horizontal. As you touch and drive one hand to home, you simultaneously flick the other into ready. When traversing between long turns, carry one pole in the ready (vertical) position and the other in the home (parallel) position. As you touch the snow to begin a new turn, the other hand immediately flicks into ready, As you initiate yet another turn, the hands switch positions again. The process soon becomes fluid, seamless, and rhythmic-like good bump skiing (photo 4 below).

Phase IV: Fluid Hands

When you become comfortable with the "home-to-ready" alternating motions, start varying the size of your turns. Make quick short-radius turns, followed by longer turns, and revert to short ones again until you feel the rhythm in your hands.

With "home-to-ready" incorporated firmly into your technique, add a slight wrist extension to the hand flick. From the ready position, give the wrist a little extra flick to move the basket forward so that it leads the hand. This extension allows you to touch farther down the mountain without "reaching."

Reaching causes the shoulder to extend, which causes the torso to turn out of the fall line, resulting in an uncontrolled skid. In the mogul coaching trade we call this "riding the wild pony." As a bonus, the subtle flick of the hand will loosen a skier's death grip on a pole, which causes banging or harsh, jerky planting habits.

Remember, as you extend your wrist, pushing the basket in front of your hand, feel the plant as a "touch." Top mogul skiers work hard on touching the basket just over the crest of the bump at a slightly deflected angle (away from the body), which minimizes the possibility of the dreaded shoulder extension or retraction. If you're not a World Cup mogul contender, feet satisfied in knowing that how you touch is more important than where you touch. Most students get into trouble when they try to reach for a particular spot to plant on a mogul. Concentrate on how you touch, and you will find freedom in where you can turn in the bumps.

Here's the best part. As your hand movements quicken and become natural, you will not need to drive the hand mechanically all the way to "almost parallel." As long as you drive your hand forward down the fall line directly in front of your waist, it will perform all its magic. This translates to quicker, more stable turns--the essence of dynamic, efficient bump skiing.

You have nearly mastered the complexities of an efficient pole plant in the moguls. Now for dessert. To go the final step, let your own style emerge, It is not critical whether you hold your hands high or low or whether they are wide or narrow. As long as your hand movements embrace the fundamentals of the home and ready positions, you will be able to respond immediately in the bumps from a balanced athletic stance. Move to a gentle mogul run and find calm in the midst of chaos.

John Clendenin, former two-time World Freestyle Champion, is a Level III certified alpine instructor who works for the Ski Schools of Aspen in Colorado.