The Bobski Blog

ALI RAINBACK. BASI Trainer. British Association of Snowsport Instructors.

It is with the very greatest regret that I hear from David Tapley that Ali Rainback has recently died.

If you never met Ali, you missed something. Ali was as yet only a young man, and a very decent one. He was one of the intelligent and thougtful souls in BASI. I don't think he was qualified as a coach, perhaps he was but in any case he acted like one.

Ali cared about his clients and pupils, and put a lot of thought into how he and his closer colleagues might best help them learn.

I did not know Ali well, but I was very impressed with him every time we met and talked.

BASI is much the less for his going, and so is skiing. It is always tragic when a young person dies, especially when they are as kindly as Ali Rainback.

Bob Trueman

There is an interesting conversation going on in the "comments" section of the "Ski Coaching" category, much of it relating to whether or not skis really can be skied truly parallel. There is a mixture of enlightenment and confusion. If skiing interests you, you could do worse than take a look.

In reply to David's comment (no.9) I'd say that what John Shedden so wisely observed about the skis, after the initiation of the change of direction, having to respond to centripetal (and presumably other) forces, then perhaps the forces on the inner and outer skis are different.

We might expect them to be, whether or not the two arcs were congruently centred, but certainly so if they are because the "moment arms" will be different. I think. Perhaps!.

If this is the case, and if the force on the inner ski were to be automatically more than that on the outer ski because of its tighter radius, then it would bend more. In that instance it would then perhaps be able to describe an arc parallel to the outer one, which at the same time could have its centre point the same as the outer ski.

What do you think? What do our resident physicist suggest? Is there anybody there? Knock three times for yes.

Bob

In very minor response to John Shedden's post, [ it's immediately below and you really should take a look ] the only thing I have to say that might be worth listening to is that the skis' parallelism would not I think be related to the shape-outcome of the arc; not at any rate if the timing, the rate, and the amplitude of the skis' tilting and other responses were the same as one another.

Does this make any sense? If I'm not careful I might get so far up my bum that I won't be able to get out and ski!

Bob

I see from our local service station forecourt that petrol is now about £1.20 per litre and diesel about £1.34. I work that out to be roughly £5.46 a gallon for petrol and over £6 a gallon for diesel.

Ever since I was born, my generation here in the wealthy west has been able to enjoy pretty well everything we wanted, and most certainly everything we need. The result seems to have been that we have lost the ability to distinguish what is important from what isn't. 

We know the price of everything and the value of not much at all. Take petrol or diesel for example. We have come to think of them only as transport fuels, and have lost sight of all the other things our society has done and continues to do with oil.

We complain about £5 or £6 petrol or diesel, but we happily pay something like £36 for a gallon of so-so wine; some folk happily spend £21 a gallon on bottled water which is no better for you than tap water and comes in a container made of an oil derivative; and while it is a rather silly calculation it still makes a point - we spend about £5200 per gallon for computer printer ink.

Don't even think about Chanel No 5 or some poncy aftershave lotion.

And yet a gallon of petrol or diesel will do the work which it would otherwise take three man-weeks of work to do.

At £5 or £6, I'd say we're getting it cheap - but we're wasting it and using what is undoubtedly the west's most precious commodity very unwisely.

Do you do any walking, in the countryside? Sometimes off the footpath or to the side of it? If so, you can be preparing for next season right now, in the height of summer.

Every time you are out walking, deliberately seek out some down-slopes on grassy terrain. They don't have to be long, and they don't have to be massively steep; all we're trying to do is get used to the feelings.

As you walk down the slope, deliberately get your weight onto your toes or the balls of your feet - no further back at all! FEEL yourself being held back from sliding down the slope by the pressure against these front parts of your feet. Concentrate on that feeling. Every time your concentration lapses (and it will), use that lapse as your cue to bring it back to your toes.

When you succeed in this little game, and you can feel yourself being supported by your toes or balls of your feet, you will be able to notice something else: you cannot do it while leaning back. And you cannot do it with your legs straight. It will feel horribly unstable and risky.

So now I'm going to suggest you find another bit of slope, or some more of the same one, and GRADUALLY, VERY GRADUALLY, make an attempt to lean slightly backward as you walk down, and let the pressure under the soles of your feet move rearward towards your heels.

I want you to investigate how this FEELS. Does it feel more, or less safe than its predecessor? Please write to me if it feels safer - if it does, you are phenomenon!

Go back to having the pressure forward under your foot. Do you notice that you INSTINCTIVELY flex your legs?

You will find that you can keep your body fairly upright (you don't have to lean forward, although sometimes it helps). You might imagine a straight vertical line going down through your body and continuing into the ground. I'll bet it passes through the forward pressure point you can feel under your feet.

Each time you go out, play this game, and make sure you include some of the leaning back occasions too so that you can calibrate your feelings.

If anyone would like to comment on this when you've tried it, I'd love to see them, and they might help other folk too - you'll find the link to click to enable you to do this at the end of this article.

Let us know how you get on.

As aye
Bob