Abstem

 

Time Order - first to last

1 2 3 4

Ryan is demonstrating an almost classic abstem. He finishes his previous turn in frame 1 with his skis parallel. As he starts swinging his arm forward to prepare for the pole touch for the next turn, he starts pushing his downhill heel out. Although the downhill tip is beginning to get covered up in frame 2, the ski tips stay relatively the same distance apart. But the tails are getting farther apart.  This movement continues in frame 3 as the pole swings forward. In frame 4 you can clearly see the downhill ski on a high uphill edge angle and in a wedge position. Because the tails move much more than the tips the pivot point for this movement is close to the ski tip.

The only "problem" with this example is that Ryan is only using this as a braking maneuver to avoid drifting into the tree that is downhill from where his pole is pointing in frames 3 and 4 (the tree is out of the picture). Normally, an abstem would be used to allow a push off the downhill foot to aggressively transfer weight onto the new outside ski (e.g. to make a turn to get into the open space in the background of frame 4). However, in the next frames after this sequence, Ryan simply releases the stemmed ski and slowly drifts into a long lazy right hand turn on flat skis to bite off vertical and get around the tree into the next open space below. Sometimes those old tricks can come in pretty handy! Way to go Ryan!

Spatial Ordering - skier traveling from viewer's right to left

4 3 2 1

 

This animated gif is sloppy, but it might be helpful. 

 

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