The Ski Industry's
Reformation &
MissInformation
"Good evening, Mr Heins. What is on our agenda tonight? Another most interesting segment, I'm sure."
"Yes, Mr Buntline, tonight we take a close look at the way-too-complicated but perhaps not-controversial-enough . . . Reformation . . . and that most voluptuous seductive beauty, the Ski Industry's MissInfor-mation--man, is she good-lookin'! and sweet, . . . always pleasant."
"Oh, yes, my, she is pretty."
"I tell you, Mr Buntline, the amount of misinformation running rampant in the ski business rivals what you see on the National News concerning our country's economic crisis and President Obama's proposed Health Care Plan."
"It's all a silly game, isn't it?--how everyone distorts the facts and hides the truth. The poor viewers and readers don't know what to think, even if they think they know--most of them are kept ignorant, and they don't even know it. I guess, if they did know they were ignorant, then they wouldn't be ignorant anymore. Oh, it's a mess, with populace deliberately kept ignorant by a few in power. Thank God, we can stick with simpler more innocent topics for now, like teaching skiing."
"If we get this done right, Mr Buntline, it'll be that much better than Martin Luther Skiing's 'There was a time' speech."
"Oh, my, yes, indeed. But, first, Mr Heins, what to you mean by 'Reformation'?"
"Oh, right, I don't want you to be misled by that one. On the surface, I use that word for something fairly obvious, the reformation of the new ski-technology, skis having more shape, 'parabolics' as they are often called, which can lead to more parabolic turns like we find in the Ox-Bow Incidents. The new shapelier skis have turned out to be generally good overall, . . . but the Powers-That-Ski tend to take things way too far, as you'll see, mainly in the minds of the people, which then again manifests itself as major problems out on the ski slopes. So it's more the Reformation of the minds, the warping of their minds, . . . that I'm not happy with."
"Interesting . . . and clever, Mr Heins. Your work will go down in history."
"I tell you, Mr Buntline, this Reformation in the ski business rivals what went on with the churches hundreds of years ago, and we are right in the middle of it now."
"--With you starting to be a key player in exposing what the Powers-That-Ski are up to."
"Yeah, I mean, they have so many people brainwashed or in the dark about things, that the average guy is liable to go to a Chinese Roamin' Catholic priest for 'confussion' before too long--that's how strange and silly it is, this reshaping of the average ski-n-teacher's brain. It's like they've got their Turn Commandments written in stone, and being carried around by the Arc of the Covenant, that only an elite few are privy to. --Nobody but me dares talk about the Skid of the Covenant."
"Okay, Mr Heins, I know you are excited, . . . but, so that I can keep my own mind straight, and the readers', first let's talk about the skis themselves, the reformation of them . . . and the resulting misinformation surrounding ski equipment."
'Shaped Skis' versus 'Straight Skis'
"First of all, when it comes to 'Shaped Skis' versus 'Straight Skis'--they won't admit it, but 'Straight Skis' have always had shape. Just look at the name 'Shaped Skis,' Mr Buntline; and then look at the misnomer . . . 'Straight Skis.' --By calling them 'straight,' they imply that the old '60s, '70s, '80s, and early '90s technology didn't have any hour-glass shape or side-cut at all; all downhill skis have always had side-cut ever since I can remember!--it's just that the new 'shaped skis' have more of a good thing, and sometimes too much. Ski instruction shouldn't change much: we've always taught students to tip the ski on its edge to get the wider tip-n-tail digging first; then, when you add pressure, you decamber the ski and get a carved turn--which is just easier to attain now with the shapelier shorter skis. In fact, some of the newer skis are too shapely and short, lacking some much-needed stability, but we'll talk about that later."
"I have heard . . . that this is why the ranching families, the Carvers and the Turners, are always feuding."
"Yeah, and the ironic thing about that, Mr Buntline, they are feuding more now . . . during the Reformation . . . than they did during the Dark Edges."
"The 'Dark Edges,' Mr Heins?"
"Oh, it's easy to see, Mr Buntline: tip a newer shapelier ski on its edge, and tip an old less-shapely ski on its edge, and, before you add pressure to decamber them, there is more daylight under the new ski . . . and less daylight showing under the old ski."
"Ahhh, hence your term, the Dark Edges--that's easy enough."
". . . The problem is, the Carvers, and all the people like them, don't want the millions of skiers . . . to have Real-Edgeous Freedom! There still comes a point, probably somewhere on the steeper part of an intermediate blue-square run for even an expert, you had better crank some skidding in there to shut some speed down, or you're liable to carve sixty-miles-an-hour right into a fellow skier! . . . or an endangered-species tree or something. It's a choice every skier needs to be free to make, when to carve or skid, at their own level!"
"Oh, yes, Mr Heins, the 'Ox-Bow' Incidents you told me about just last night.' And the fear factor for each individual."
"I tried to sit down with many of them, you know, for a nice turn-to-turn talk, but they wouldn't hear of it."
"So they wouldn't even negotiate."
"And, when you stop to consider beginners and low intermediates, they're not going to want to carve much of anything for a while--it'll scare the crap out of them. Oh, they can go as fast as they dare to on the flat; but, once they find a little pitch below them, they need to know they can slow down and stop, which means getting the skis turned and skidding them sideways. I tell you, these ski schools that banned wedges for a couple of seasons, reprimanding instructors who kept teaching the right stuff!--I found out later it was the ski-equipment manufacturers' executives themselves, in cahoots with the 'Steering' Committee, who made the ski schools sign a contract stating there would be no wedging going on. Absolutely Criminal!"
"The Ike and Billy Clanton, the McLaurys, Turn Marshal John Behan, Sheriff Cotton Wilson, Frank Stillwell, Billy Claiborne, Johnny Ringo, Curly Bill Bro-cius, and the like, I presume. Maybe the Turns-Town Epitaph's John Clum has written something about it."
"Yeah, let's hope so. . . . And J. Edger Hoover might have been the committee chairman, who's hardly ever skied a day in his life." He stopped for a moment to shake his head. . . . "Another part of the problem was, even when you taught them a wedge, the skis were being manufactured so short . . . that beginners didn't have anything underneath them to work with--they were top-heavy. It was ridiculous, some of their skis barely came up to their waste, when the standing length probably ought to be up to one's chest or neck or even your nose. There's such a thing as going too short, Mr Buntline. One of the ugliest things I've ever witnessed . . . is two-hunderd-pound men on 123-cm skis. . . . Back in the 1980s, an instructor could do it all on your 205s, including teaching beginners who were wearing 150s; but, now, if you don't chuck your 170s for some 123s, you're GUILTY! The one winter I spent at Green Acres Ski School, it was like they weren't even planning on being ready to teach advanced lessons."
"Oh, yes, I can see how that would be pretty awkward. Are you required to have a Concealed Carry Permit if your skis are exceptionally short?"
"Hey, that's a good one, Mr Buntline. That's the next bit of misinformation I want to clarify: when you really look at them, 'short' skis aren't necessarily that short, and 'long' skis aren't necessarily that long. Look at the new 'Shaped Skis': the tip is totally cut off, and right there you lose maybe four or five centimeters, so suddenly rounded ski-tips mean 'shorter skis'; likewise the pointed tip on an older ski really didn't do much other than add a few centimeters, so no wonder pointed tips mean 'longer skis.' Then you have the numbers game: 203cm sounds like a lot more than 199cm, and 179cm sounds a lot shorter than 181cm. That's why, when I sell a book, I want the price to be a full $10, not the ridiculous price of $9.99. The Heinsian Way is Honest, and the other way, the status quo way, is nothing but smoke and mirrors. "
"That's why sales tax might be 7.5%--it can really mean 8% on the billions of smaller purchases."
"An interesting little tid-bit that a lot of people don't know about or understand is the recent so-called 'need' for beveled edges, making the bottom of your ski convex rather than good old-fashioned flat. Think about it: now that the skis are shorter and shapelier and much easier to turn, maybe too easy to turn, let's make them less turny by taking some of the edge off. Maybe Olympic racers need this kind of strategy or performance, but, for the general public, it's nothing but a smoke-n-mirrors game. Being a layman do-it-yourself ski instructor, I like being able to go out in the garage and file my own ski-bottoms flat; put beveled edges into the equation, and all of a sudden you can't do it yourself anymore, you need the ski-shop's certified technician--it's criminal, just like the Big-Three Auto Makers and the way they over-engineer their automobile parts."
"It's all designed to take the peoples' money--isn't it, Mr Heins?"
". . . So, beveled edges, in one way, make skis behave less turny or 'longer,' but they are not longer; one simple fact remains: in the steep-n-narrow, when you need to shut your speed down in a hurry, or turn your skis pretty-much perpendicular to the fall line, the longer the ski, the more rubber there is to meet the road---oh, I know, the shorter skis, with their extra shape, dig in more like a knobbier tread, but then they may not have the same finesse of the old long-ski technology. Why do you think extreme skier Glenn Plake was still using 210s when everyone else was touting 180s? The 'amount of tread' a ski has 'on the road' . . . will always matter--for stability . . . and stopping power. You follow me, Mr Buntline? In my School-Bus Book, about The Greatest School Bus Driver Ever, I talked about the 'stopping power' of a 'loaded' school bus--it goes over some peoples' heads; I would hope that, when I say 'Don't underestimate the stopping power of longer skis'--that should be a bit easier to grasp."
"Oh, yes, yes, I do, Mr Heins. You make so much sense, and you explain it so well."
"Of course, width of the ski and how it is applied are also factors, as well as the snow condition, so it is not an absolute, but it is generally true . . . and practical. But one basic common-sense factor we haven't even mentioned is this: all other things being equal, the longer the ski, the more out of balance fore-n-aft a skier can get without having an egg-beater--this is why many expert skiers don't require the same precision balance as a Russian Gymnast. . . . Weight of the ski is a related factor: the heavier the ski, the more stable it is, all other things being equal--less maneu-verable probably, but more stable, . . . like a freight train versus a sports car. All the rage about lighter skis, I notice it most when I'm transporting my skis in and out of the locker room. But, to say that weight is not a factor in the actual skiing, well, that's downright ignorant--it's like saying an empty airplane doesn't handle any different than a fully-loaded airplane. There are plenty of expert skiers, Mr Buntline, who don't even know this, but that doesn't make it any less of a fact. You're average expert can ski on anything, and they won't be caught off-guard by a change in weight or length or something like that; but the students need a bit more tender-skiing-care, as they are quite sensitive to these factors."
"Although, Mr Heins, we did hear of even expert skiers getting launched head-first into trees and so on when the 'shaped skis' were a new phenomenon."
"You are, right, Mr Buntline, but it may be less common now, now that the new technology is not so new anymore--but it would always be wise to remain vigilant with regard to trying out new pairs of skis. . . . I didn't mean to go on-n-on-n-on about beveled edges, but I couldn't help it."
"That's quite all right, Mr Heins. The bevel made you do it."
So that was basically the exposition of the reformation concerning ski equipment. Now, like no one else dares, and "as never seen on television," . . . we move into the more clandestine and sinister world of . . . the reformation of the people's brains in the ski industry, the main myths and half-truths, the dilemmas and dangers, and the outright lies and abuses caused by the Powers-That-Ski in the Ski Industry.
The 'Forward-Moving' Myth
--& Sonny Bono Tragedy
"To 'help' people better understand the new technology of Shaped Skis, the Powers-That-Ski put out a national communiqué stating that 'shaped skis are more forward-moving than straight skis'--what I call The 'Forward-Moving' Myth. Well, in that statement, they're trying to legislate the 'proper' way to ski; and implicit in that statement was that 'carving is good,' and 'skidding is evil.' In fact, in the earlier years of shaped skis, it was often too difficult to get them to skid, as they would too easily get locked on an edge; hence, a big reason the Powers deemed skidding to be no-good anyhow--never mind the high number of 15-year-old girls and boys blowing their knee out . . . and the number of middle-aged men colliding with trees and each other ever since the Sonny Bono Tragedy."
"Uh, Mr Heins, did you say 'middle-aged'? or 'middle-edged'?"
"Doesn't matter, they mean about the same thing in most cases."
"Oh, that's right, the celebrity Sonny Bono died in a tragic ski accident in the late 1990s--skiing alone, he apparently launched himself head-first into a tree, didn't he?"
"I believe that is what happened, Mr Buntline--I doubt it was his typical wipe-out. And I have always been suspicious of his equipment. My theory goes like this: he was an advanced skier who could afford plenty of days skiing each year, he was in his early 60s, he wasn't a wild man, but, . . . when he got some brand-new 'shaped skis' for Christmas that year, . . . it was like going from a Cadillac to a Porsche, . . . and he was caught off-guard--the skis were probably too 'edgy' or 'hooky' and not very forgiving. That's my theory, but I wish I could have seen his tracks, and I wish I knew what he was skiing on before and what he was skiing on when it happened."
"Like you say, Mr Heins, Sonny Bono was no wild man."
"Yeah, I mean, it would be nice to find out the ski ballistics, the caliber of his skis before and after, how flat the trajectory was and all that. I'll bet the authorities would be surprised at what I might find."
"Oh, yes, Mr Heins, you know so much about recreational skiing and teaching . . . that you could star in the foremost CSI program pertaining to downhill skiing, as a Crime Scene Investigator."
"That's right, Mr Buntline. As we continue, the more you'll find out that's true."
"And I believe you could be compared to that other current popular series on prime-time television, detailing the adventures of a grumpy old all-knowing Doctor . . . by the name of 'House.'"
"Right again, Mr Buntline, . . . except I don't have to walk with a cane--yet."
"But they do use ski-poles to walk with sometimes don't they?--the hikers, I mean."
"That's worth pointing out, Mr Buntline, again, because it makes their life easier. But I'm afraid we may be getting off track."
"Oh, uh, sorry, Mr Heins. Back to The 'Forward-Moving' Myth:"
"When it comes to sliding moving-forward . . . versus slipping sideways, Mr Buntline, the simple truth is this: we need to be able to do either at will, often a combination skidding, and it should be the skier making these editorial decisions, not the ski. . .. When we talk about these topics, context is everything--the skier's needs and intentions, the slope difficulties or characteristics, the snow conditions. If a guy were to insist on carving every turn, there would soon be a possibly fatal catastrophe--for some the inevitable crash would happen under 25mph, others might make it to well over 60. Remember, pretty-much all FIS World-Cup Olympic Downhill events, the 90mph variety, take place on predominantly blue-square intermediate slopes, very few short black-diamond stretches if any; in fact, some Downhills have a fair amount of green-circle 'beginner' terrain in them."
"Good Gravy! you make sense, Mr Heins. You're like that Indian tracker in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Lord Baltimore, and nothing escapes you."
"Why, thank you for noticing, Mr Buntline. . . . The Half-Truth 'Turning slows us down' comes to mind now. This is almost down-right silly when you stop to think about it, because it really doesn't take much to notice that, out in the real world . . . turning can actually speed us up--skate-boarders show this, and little kids on a bicycle climbing a steep hill demonstrate this!"
"Oh, my you make it so obvious. Even the winding switch-back on a mountain road: the turns help the motorists go slower going down, . . . but they enable them to go faster going up. Turning can slow you down . . . or speed you up, depending on your intentions."
"When you hold a carve as long as it takes to go 'forward' in a full C-shaped turn, starting across the hill, then gaining speed down, then way back across the hill and even back up the hill, yes, you will eventually slow down; but now comes the problem, starting the next new carved turn, you with be in the inside edge of an uphill ski gaining grave speed even faster. It's a perpetual pendulum, with the mountain's more positive gravity added to the mix, and every turn tends to become bigger and faster, bigger and faster, the pendulum swinging ever higher and higher till it doesn't make sense anymore--a pendulum sitting on a table doesn't have a mountain's gravity to worry about. Let's face it: every skier has a point of no return, a certain steepness where carving becomes too dangerous to be feasible, and skidding becomes necessary. We have expert skiers in the world right now, Mr Buntline, who can't skid a turn when you sometimes when you ask them to, not because they don't have the skills to do it, but because they are brainwashed into thinking that skidding is against the law--even fully-certified instructors who are older than me and been in the business for years."
"The Ignorance is frightening, Mr Heins."
"Most beginners may not have any business carving on green runs until after they've been able to skid their turns as low-intermediates on intermediate runs, which means they're not beginners anymore. In order to not terrorize the mountain, the point of no more carving for most experts comes on the steeper parts of blue-square intermediate runs--otherwise, they need to be entered in a Sanctioned Downhill Event with the run all to themselves."
"Yes, you know, Mr Heins, your Periodic Chart of Downhill Ski Turns, in your Heinsian DOWNHILL SKIING manual, is and will continue to be . . . the most fool-proof way of knowing where ski students are at in their progress."
"Thank you, Mr Buntline. And more than ten years ago, in my book THE GREATEST SKI INSTRUCTOR, one of my savvy sayin's said this: 'Ski down the mountain, not across it, and make thy turns multiply!'--I still mean that now more than ever. When I said that sayin', other experts and instructors shrugged their shoulders and dismissed it as such a simple sayin' that there was nothing to say or talk about. Well, the best skiers are the ones who can ski straight down the steep and narrow, which means skidded turns--it's not how sharp the turns are, it's how well finished they are, and a turn's finish in this context is less than one millimeter away from the start of the next rhythmic turn. The steep-n-narrow will always demand skis moving sideways down the mountain--any forward moving here, following your ski tips, . . . and you're in the rocks. The Powers-That-Ski have done beginners and intermediates a great disservice not giving them 'permission' to skid when they need to, which prepares them for the steep-n-narrow!"
"I see. So unassertive students tend to think they need to carve more often than they really should--they don't feel they have permission to do what they need to do when they need to do it, namely skidding."
He stopped for a moment . . . and looked around almost as if he felt we were being spied upon: "There something much more sinister going on here, Mr Buntline."
I leaned over . . . and quietly begged, "Tell me."
"It's almost as if . . . the Powers-That-Ski . . . want the new skis to be making all the skier's decisions, instead of the skiers themselves."
"Not unlike the computers that seem to be taking over our lives. It could be like West World, starring Yul Brunner--dangerous."
"That's right, Mr Buntline. I pretty much like a lot of skis the way they are right now just fine, . . . but I don't want them to be programmed by Bill Gates to do everything for me, nor to do a bunch of nonsense I don't want them to do."
"Oh, I know, Bill Gates has added all kinds of features on the computer programs that we don't want or even need; in fact, some of it doesn't even make sense: like that 'over-type mode,' when your typing replaces the text that is already there--it took me three days to figure out, in the far corners of my computer, how to disenable that one, three days of total paralysis."
"Yeah, paralyzed from the neck up," he smiled. "Sometimes I think Bill Gates thinks he's related to Pearl E. Gates, playing God in the computer industry."
"While the Powers-That-Ski play God in the ski industry."
He lightened up a bit and resumed his dispelling of 'The Forward-Moving' Myth, ". . . And this resulting unnecessary 'Across-the-Mountain versus Down' Dilemma is a major Safety Issue in another dimension. Imagine skiing down the mountain, like you're supposed to, say 25mph, . . . and suddenly one of the Carver Clan coming uphill straight at you at a measly 25mph--that's a 50mph head-on collision! The Carver clan is raising havoc with our very Skier's Responsibility Code: sure, he's 'down the hill' from the other skier, but he's an 'uphill skier' at this point; in the old days, everybody was a 'downhill skier,' and the one downhill the most had the right-of-way; but today a big chunk of the downhill skiers are part of their time uphill skiers, which is illegal. It's the same thing we talked about earlier concerning The 'Ox-Bow' Incidents."
"Oh, Mr Heins, you do know how to expose what F. Tupper Saussy would call . . . the Skiers of Evil."
"While we are at it, it wouldn't hurt mentioning the old 'Weight-On-the-Downhill-Ski' Half-Truth, one of the oldest myths of all time in skiing. I don't hear this one being spouted off as often as I used to, Thank God, but it is worth dispelling once again. . . . Hand me another beer, Mr Buntline, and let's get this explanation started off on the right foot."
"Here you are, Mr Heins, I am ready."
"If a skier starts out straight down, the first turn he makes is 90-degrees at the most; . . . but then his second turn could be as much as 180-degrees, as well as the next, and the next."
"Ah, I see: and those 'Ox-Bow' Incidents are more like 270-degree turns. I'm with you, keep going."
"So the first turn may be J-shaped, Mr Buntline, but the turns that follow . . . are each C-shaped; or, if you will, S-turns are two turns linked."
"Oh, I must say," I smiled, "you are a man of letters, Mr Heins."
"So, in that first J-turn, the weight will go to the downhill ski, but the C-shaped turn after that . . . actually starts with the new uphill ski! And, except for the rare occasion of the tightest turns possible, that new outside ski up-the-hill there . . . will require weight on it in order for it to do its job!"
"I am with you, Mr Heins, and I hardly ski. It's the way the wheels on your car work: the outside wheels get the brunt of the work-load."
"Anyhow, the skiing I'm describing here . . . is just good sound skiing, nothing fancy, attainable by even beginners and low-intermediates in their proper slopes and snow-conditions."
"So what's on your mind, Mr Heins. What's really bugging you now?"
"Well, not much really. But understanding this half-truth, pertaining to where a skier's weight belongs for easy balance, . . . may help people understand many of the other issues we are talking about, including the next one."
"Yes, let's have it."
"This one topic that I feel necessitates discussion . . . is a low intermediate-to-advanced maneuver commonly referred to as . . . 'RailRoad-Track Turns.' I have actually taught this task ever since I can remember, to thousands of advanced and even low-intermediate skiers, on beginner green-circle terrain, only I don't abuse it the way the Powers-That-Ski do--they try to make it so complificated that even experts have trouble getting it right. Now, with the advances in shorter-ski technology, the Powers-That-Ski have taken RailRoad Track Turns and derailed their spirit somewhat; they've come up with what I call the 'RailRoad-Track Turn' Lie. This is going to take me a little while to explain, because of how much they've muddied the powder. --They've taken a not-too-difficult maneuver with practical purposes for certain contexts . . . and made it complex and misunderstood, even unattainable sometimes--they force it on skiers in a number of contrived contexts."
"It sounds like Organized Real-Edgeon, and how the Kings and Queens over hundreds or thousands of years have manipulated the Holy Bible in order to control the common man."
"That's right. First, let's look at what RailRoad-Track Turns are in their simplest sense. On a green-circle beginner run, on hard-pack or just an inch or so of powder, engage the inside edge of your outside ski, and ride it . . . in a pure carve--do one gradual arc at a time at first in order to focus on the task, don't micro-manage by steering, just edge and pressure your outside ski, and let the ski take you in its engineered arc. In fact, most ski models nowadays, have a big number labeled on them, often somewhere between 10.? and into the upper teens, referring to the radius of turn it would take (in meters) under certain specified laboratory conditions pertaining to slope, speed, skier's weight, edge angle, and so on--the higher the number, generally, the more skill it will take to get that ski to carve."
"But we don't need to get into that--do we, Mr Heins?"
"No, we don't. Anyway, this RailRoad-Track Turn is basically the first turn you show someone the day you want them to understand their future with pure carving added to their repertoire. As a teacher, you'll notice most students don't have much danger of applying too much edge or pressure; almost all skiers have to fight to keep too much from getting on the inside ski--it's like fighting weeds in the garden, that inside ski robbing pressure and edge nutrients from the outside ski. . . . Stay with me, Mr Buntline. So far, so good?"
"I'm with you."
". . . Until the Powers-That-Ski threw a big monkey wrench onto the tracks. They decided, in their infinite ignorant wisdom, 'Now that Shaped Skis are so easy to carve with (maybe too easy), let's make the turn half the radius . . . and much more difficult . . . by telling the student to 'ride the inside ski . . . equal to the outside ski.' . . . Remember, most skiers are already too much on the inside ski most of their ski life, and now we're supposed to deliberately tell them to do it?!"
"Oh, my, I do see what you mean, Mr Heins. They really got off track with their over-emphasis of the RailRoad-Track Turns."
"Now, realize, Mr Buntline, except for mine and a few others' lessons, the message of the simplest RailRoad-Track Turns has never gotten enough to the right people at the right time in the right snow conditions. Besides introducing it to new skiers to explain ski design, on one ski on gentle groomed snow, . . . the times I like to teach it the most are later on, . . . to strong intermediates and advanced skiers in easy green powder, say six or ten inches of powder on green terrain, with both skis--in this context, I am using it to teach a much neglected snow-condition perhaps more than reinforcing their understanding of ski design. But the Powers-That-Ski?--well, they like to abuse their apprentice ski instructors with it when it may not be the most natural thing to be focusing on. With a good instructor, RR-Track Turns are great tool to focus on learning a snow condition, like a few inches of powder or crud they've been scared of for too many years, without having to really turn to control speed . . . ; but, with the Powers-That-Ski, they are known to use it on harder snow and steeper slopes, where they can abuse the apprenti with it, when RR-Track Turns are not even feasible."
"Is that it for the RR-Turn Lie, Mr Heins?"
"Well, not quite. . . . With their over-emphasis of the RR-Track Turns, Mr Buntline, they have almost totally erased a most-important task at the other end of the spectrum: . . . Short-Swing Turns."
"Okay, Mr Heins, tell us about the Sorry Absence of Short-Swing Turns."
"As you'll see, Mr Buntline, short-swing turns are just as needed by advanced and expert skiers . . . as the basic wedge is to first-day beginners. Remember, once you get up on advanced terrain and even just the steeper parts of intermediate terrain, . . . pure carving is no longer feasible--the dreaded Ox-Bow Incidents don't happen up on the steeper parts of the mountain, they happen where the terrain is still pretty easy. One of the best things you can teach an advanced skier is to challenge him to make more turns from A to B--it's a simple straight