When you shouldn’t focus on early edging in your skiing | Podcast with Ski Dad Tv

Hey skiers, welcome to the Big Picture Skiing Podcast. On today's show, I got to chat with Joe Dunn. Now, you may know Joe from his YouTube channel as Ski Dad, and I wanted to get Joe on the show because Joe thinks for himself. Joe goes out and he tries things, say, cues to do with skiing, and challenges the status quo. You're going to hear a few of these challenges on today's show and reasoning behind why he views these sort of differently from other people. I'm going to give it away. A lot of the things he mentions I'm fully on board with and agree with as well. And I think that's probably a big message from today's show. Just because someone says something is the way it is, it is not necessarily the right thing to do to just assume it is that way. I think the best thing to do is be a scientist, experiment, test things for yourself as opposed to just taking someone's word for it. Joe and I go over lots of things to do with ski racing given his background, like should you be arcing the top of the turn clean, should you be looking for early pressure and early edge in the top of turns on a steep racecourse, why he doesn't really think that you need to get forward in a turn, or that there is another way of cueing someone up to be in a really good position to arc really great turns. There's some awesome stories that Joe shares as well as some equipment insights to do with tuning. But I want to leave all the details for you to discover yourself in today's show. Now, can I just ask one final favor before we get started? If you could subscribe to the Big Picture Skiing YouTube channel or podcast, I would really appreciate it. Helps support the show and keeping me interviewing really interesting people like Joe, who you're about to hear from. Let's get stuck into this really interesting episode with Joe Dunn, or Ski Dad, right now. Hey Joe, you were telling me a great story before. Can you take us back to high school Sunday River, watching a ski race, and you realize something that's going on that has actually transformed the way you ski now to this day.

So I was watching a ski race, watching a World Cup in high school, and back then we didn't watch a lot of World Cups. They were just harder to see. So we're, we're one of the few times during the season watching a full World Cup, getting to see the whole top 30 or the second run, and there was a speed guy in a GS, normal speed skier, not a great GS skier. And he came down the steep pitch and he just slid his tails all the way down. And I was like, I can do that. And he ended up 14th, 15th in the race. And I was like, well, I mean, that's good enough for 14th, 15th in a World Cup. And this is a speed guy who's not a GS guy, and he just did that to get down. Well, I'm going to go give it a go. And so the next day we went out and we were training and I just was sliding my tails into the turn, connecting it clean and getting back across the hill. And my coach is like, oh my God, this is amazing. You are doing it. And I was like, yeah, you're right. I'm doing it now. And it wasn't at all what he'd been teaching me because what I had been getting before that was all move your hips forward into the turn and, you know, ideally with a clean ski.. And I was like, no, I'm just gonna keep 'em where they are and slide my tails in. And here you go. Now I'm better.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, and this is a, an issue that you're trying to sort of bring up, like what people are seeing, what coaches are ski seeing in a ski racer, particularly in this instance, this get forward is on steeper slopes. So they're seeing an error and they've kind of just pulled from their bag the almost the one thing they think about saying or think you should do to correct that error. Yet your realization was seeing something different in someone who placed like 14th in this race in the world. And, um, yeah, is this correct? This is what— yeah, you've—

yeah. And then in my skiing for the next, you know, it was kind of end of the season, for the next month my GS points dropped by like 30. Like just one shot, I went from being like an 80-point skier, now I was a 50-point skier. And I could consistently score 50 sliding my tails in. And then as we got onto steeper terrain, the coaches just kept being more and more, you got to move forward into this turn, got to move forward into the turn. And I just knew, like, I can't possibly— I can't do that. And I also knew that I was skiing better than I ever had before not doing that, but I couldn't figure out, like, how to get faster. And so I was kind of stuck at 50 for a while with just that. And like getting better than that was another, you know, years of work. But in that, like, I got to the point, okay, now I'm sliding my tails into the turn. Now I'm making it down pitches without blowing out or chattering or slowing down. I'm scoring 50s. Um, and then everybody just wanted to keep having me do this thing, move forward, move forward, move forward. I was like, I can't, I don't know how it's, it's not gonna work. And so it wasn't until years later that on an even steeper pitch, we're in a race series. It was at Waterville. We're on the race hills, very steep at the top, and it was flat at the bottom. I was skiing pretty good on the flats, had confidence across the flats, but on the pitch I was terrible. So I was like, all right, I am just going to like throw myself into the turn, like jump into the turn. No more roll it up, no more like doing the right thing at the top of the turn. I just have to get my skis to the fall line, get back across the hill, survive, jump, rotate my skis, slide, pivot, you know, stave at everything, engage the skis in the fall and get back across. And in that race where I just given up on all of the style and stuff that I was supposed to be working on, I was second on that top split on the pitch. And that was like shocking to me.

So we, we should probably describe here, because maybe not everyone's that familiar with race coaching, we should describe the common beliefs about what is great, perfect, ideal skiing in the top, top part of a turn. So you're more familiar than me, what are the things that are said that you sort of now finding, like in that run you got second fastest on the steep, you're doing different to this common kind of phrasing terminology of great skiing at the top of the turn?

So I think the most common thing you hear is roll it up, early edge pressure. And it's a lot of coaches talking, you're coming across the hill through completion, you want to roll the edges on roll the skis on edge cleanly, get the ski carving early, and you're moving forward into the turn. And I hear it coached all the time. I see it in kids when they're warming up. Um, you know, if you watch a U14 warm up for a race or even for training, they are in a GS— they are— their turn goes 40 meters down the hill. And because what you see is them rising up in the transition, moving the hips forward, so they're going through that progression that they have in their head of, okay, up, over, engage, ride, roll, all those things, all the, you know, cues they have for the top of the turn. Now they're 25 meters down the hill going a million miles an hour, and then they hook out of it, and now they try and do it again, and they're, they're not even close to making a realistic GS turn, or one that's going to translate into the course that they're about to skate.

So, so, like, why do you think this is being said? Because, like, if the top— because I hear, I've heard it a lot as well, and I'll speak to it later, but I've been through this same bit of epiphany realization Why do you think it's being, being said? What do you think, like, if we put ourselves in their shoes, what are the coaches trying to say, or what are they believing they're doing that's helpful with that cueing? Roll on early, pressure early, clean, as clean as you can be at the top of the turn.

I, so I think it started with Bode Miller, actually. I think it was 2002, Bode at the Salt Lake Olympics in slalom, in the second run of the super combined, made like one of the greatest runs anybody had ever seen in slalom. And it was a 14-meter course on the Shape slalom skis, pretty early in the game for the Shape slalom skis. And he just carved the whole thing and just looped a slalom course and everybody was like blown away and like, this is the future of skiing. And then a bunch of years later, we got Ted Ligety, who like redefined the ability to carve a GS turn, especially on the 40-meter skis, like those big loopy turns. Everyone's like, this is the way. And there's always been a stigma against sliding into the top of the turn. Like the stivet has always been like a bad word. Like if you even mention stivet around coaches, they'll be like, oh no, no, we can't talk about that. We're not going to talk about that. Like, I don't know, I'm seeing it on the World Cup every day, you know, at least once or twice a run from every athlete. Why can't we talk about— oh, then the kids will just do it all the time. And so there's like a negative around a slid turn or a stivet or a pivot or schmear or butter. Even saying the words gets people like anxiety, and they think of those beautiful— that awesome run that Bode had to win the Olympics. And like, no, no, if you want to win the Olympics, you have to ski like Bode. If you want to dominate the World Cup, you have to ski like Ted. And so it's like they're clinging on to an ideology of this like mythical amazing turn that is clean, rolled up at the top. And, and so they've kind of pushed everything to that. And any kind of description of it any other way is a, is a negative or going in the wrong direction. If you're going in the wrong direction, you're not getting better and you're not doing good. And so it's, it's a, it's dogma at this point.

Yeah. So I got some, some to throw in here because I think an important realization— I know I've seen a video where I think we've commented about it, one of the ones you made— there's a big difference between like an early edge angle, which you I believe call present the ski kind of, or, or, you know, you can place it and pressure. Yeah, because I think that's, that's also a big thing that maybe gets some people confused. And with, with the speeds World Cup skiers are coming down, if you actually take it to super, super slow-mo and you watch the ski from the end of one turn into the start of next one on a steeper slope, that's where you can actually see what's going on. And it's not what is being described, which is rolling it up clean. And so do you want to maybe speak to that, that like there's a difference between also like you like, maybe even what you felt trying to go up and forward and pressure early with the edges engaged, like what happens versus—

Yeah, yeah. If you're trying to roll onto the edge or do the up and over, trying to move forward down the hill on a steeper slope, you, you end up too far inside usually. But like you're diving down the hill now with all this speed and you're, you're losing the ability to come back across the hill right away because now you got more speed. And when more speed takes more strength to stand on the ski and bring it back across. And so when it gets steeper, there's a threshold where your strength can't keep up with a rolled turn anymore. Like on the greens, you're going to be able to roll your ankle and carve the ski into the turn perfectly clean, leave the perfect railroad tracks down the hill. Yes, you should have that. You want to feel that, you want to do that, right? Like, yeah, it's just like another trick you need to have or an arrow in your quiver. Like, to be able to do railroad tracks on a green, totally important, necessary. It's a real thing. As you get to the blue, it's going to get tougher to hold that railroad track because now you're going to have more speed. If you railroad track onto a blue into the turn, you're going to have more speed through the fall line, coming back across the hill. Now you need the leg strength to hold up to that, to continue that radius. Next turn, it's going to be amplified even more, even more, even more. So at some point, and then if you're strong enough to still roll the turns on blues, which World Cup guys are, then you're going to get to a black and now you're going to have the same— no matter how strong you are, you're going to get to a pitch that's too steep and you can't maintain that turn, that turn shape, that turn radius. With your strength. And so once you hit that threshold, you have to start deviating the skis into the turn or letting the tails slide. But it doesn't have to be a slide. It could be a jump, it could be a little hop, it could be anything. But you— the turn stops looking like a C and turns into a comma where you still have the long completion across, and then you've got to do whatever you got to do to get the skis aimed a little more downhill than your tracking ski would, and then you can bring it back across. And now you can maintain the same radius on that pitch without, you know, blowing through your leg strength.

Yeah. And I think— do you think part of it, a problem that's been created, is that it's all about like, where can you keep— like, almost they talk about like generating speed. You can only generate speed in the top, so we don't want to be losing speed there. Is that fair to say as well?

Well, there's a big, like, got to generate speed attitude out there too, right? That you got— that you're— if you're not building speed, you're not going fast, you know? And there's nobody's willing to say, or I don't talk to too many coaches that are willing to say, maintain speed. Like, you just need to make it through this section at this speed Don't lose any of that speed. Keep it. You know, the, the— is it Adelboden? Um, no, Adelbadia. Adelbadia.

Um, Altabadia. There you go.

Altabadia, in that middle pitch, right? It's 10 gates of extreme steepness. Nobody's accelerating through those turns. They hit a threshold speed and they keep it. And then when they come out of it, yeah, okay, they'll gain more speed again. So there's, in my mind, there's no negative to sliding or losing speed at the top of the turn on a really big pitch because you can make it up once you hit the fall line. You have gravity to speed you back up, get you across the hill. But if you roll into that and take speed through the top and then hit the bottom, now you can't make it. Now you're going to throw the skis, chatter, chatter, chunk, chunk, chunk. Now you've got to get across the hill without your speed. And so now you've actually slowed down and you've lost time in your race run. So what you need is clean completions top to bottom. Every single apex to completion has got to be clean. Every race run, every slalom, GS, Super-G, downhill in your life. And then what, what you do above that is variable.

Yeah, nice. So do you want to talk to us about this moment where you went and did some instructor training? Because there was a point where you'd basically just been exposed to ski racing, coaching, the cues that come from that world. You then go and take an instructor course and learn about the Stem Christie, because you said that was a pretty key moment to you going, I can teach this and coach this different.

Yep. It— I had never heard of the wedge Christie before, and we were getting instructed and I had to take kids through, or anyone through, from a wedge all the way to parallel and up through. And so the guy was like, all right, what do you do once you're ready to get out of the wedge into parallel? And the kid's like, oh, wedge Christie. I'm like, what? What is a wedge Christie? What is this thing? And then, so then learning like, okay, you take— to teach the next step, you do it at the bottom of the turn. So you bring a parallel through completion back to the wedge. So you got old skill top of the turn, new skill through completion, back to old school top of the turn, new skill through completion. And then you build that up eventually till it's the top. Now you parallel top to bottom. And then sort of take that philosophy into racing. I was like, oh, this is— that was what really put me over the edge, to realize that it's as simple as clean completions. Because it's the bottom of your turn that's got to be stacked solid good, and then you build that up from there. And if, if you're making really easy completions out of the turn, then you can probably start adding more carve into the top of the turn. Well, you want to do that just above the apex, so you might slide in a little bit but then hook it up and carve. Now, okay, you're still doing good, you're doing better. Now you're good. I'm gonna just deviate my tails just slightly and move right into the carve.. And then until you finally get to that like Ted Ligety level where you're full roll all the way through initiation, all the way through completion. But you wanted to have built that or learned that from the completion up to the top, not which is the way it's being super described everywhere, top of the turn down. And so we like, the top of the turn is the sexy part of the turn. It's the part everybody wants to talk about. It's the part everybody wants to look at. You see someone come into a turn, they do great, come out of it, you're like, woohoo, yeah, that was it. That was the, the top of the turn's the reason you're fast. And just the, the bottom of the turn is boring. It's ugly. It's, it's just that ride thing where you just stand there on the skis and they just ignore it.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to sort of summarize some key points here. You've mentioned. One, I think a really important point is that there is a, like, a human threshold to how much force we can deal with. This is like a huge piece, right? Like, you're being told, Joe, that steep pitch in New Hampshire, just get more forward. Well, we need you to take the speed in. You're doing it and you're going, this is pushing, I, I can't, I can't do this. You're feeling the forces. Those, those kids too, the ones who are practicing for the GS and they're doing 40-meter arcs instead of 20-meter ones. They get to a point and there's— geez, like, they're not, not able to stand up against. So then they don't tighten the arc more, they just make a longer arc to sort of dissipate the force. So that's a big one. There's a, there's a certain amount we can deal with. So if there's a certain amount we can deal with, starting from the bottom and making sure that part is clean, because out through the end there, that's where we really can't afford to lose speed. Because we've always— for the next turn, we've got this sort of untapped potential from gravity in the top. So make sure that the bottoms are clean and work your way sort of backwards from there, improving your skill and your ability to handle the, the forces that come from carving on steeper slopes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay, so then how— because so now if we're like Okay, the top of the turn we can look at in terms of just not just the roll on clean, we can maybe— we're stiveting, sliding, smearing, um, buttering it a bit. Have you refined, uh, that part of your skiing and, and maybe even helped others refine that part of their things? You like doing, um, like any drills or feelings you, you look for there, and maybe give it in context of like Hey, picture maybe not everyone will know Deer Valley, but you know, like a steep black or, and then versus a blue. Do you want to have a crack at that?

So I, I tend to hit it with just a philosophical approach with people because I think this, this notion of carving the top of the turn and that it's the top of the turn down is actually pretty pervasive out there. And so a lot of times. I'll just ski with somebody. I'll make my turns. They're making theirs. They're, you know, I really rely on my skiing to, like, inspire the lesson. And so I, like, light it up and, like, give it. And then we'll get down there. We're on the next turn, next run, you know, a great one is like Perseverance at Deer Valley. Like, I've carved it and then we're doing it again and I'm like, all right, you want my spiel? And they're like, yeah, I want it. And I'm like, okay, I'm not carving my turns. And they're like, yeah, you are. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. I'm sliding the top of my turns. I'm not carving the top. And they're like, no, no, I'm watching you. You are carving your turns. I'm like, dude, like, okay. So just start sliding your tails. And right away I'm just like, slide your tails into the turn, come across clean on the bottom. And I'm not even talking fall line, bringing it through at that point. It's really like slide around, slide around, get to where you're going across the hill. Now grab on that edge clean, move across the hill, slide, slide, slide, and bring it across like that. Just like the wedge Christie. And they, it just instantly clicks most of the time. They go and slide it and right away you can see the dynamics, their balance, they're coming across in a good position. Now they're carving and they feel great about it. And then pretty quickly they figure out how high up in the turn they can start that carve and still achieve their objective of getting across the hill to the next one. And most of the time they're skiing just like Elevates in one shot just by thinking about it differently and by being, you know, honest with themselves.

To, to skid a bit in a part of the—

right, yeah, permission to slide. You know, I'm doing it, okay? It doesn't look like I'm doing it, maybe to you from the untrained eye, but I'm telling you that my whole game on these steep pitches is slide as much as I can and then just hook back across. And that's where the big edge angle comes in, and it feels super awesome. And it's at the— I'm at the, the limits of my strength, right? Like, it— I'm definitely, when I'm going hard at this age, I am on my strength threshold on those. But it's by getting— by sliding into them, I can get there and I can get comfortable and hold it. And so it's— if it's what I'm doing, then why shouldn't everybody be trying it like that? Yeah. Or someone with less skill be trying it like that?

Yes. Yeah, perfect. So yeah, it's that you really set up, hey, this is not what I'm doing. You might think it because you see me making hip-to-snow turns and going really fast, but I'll tell you it's not what I'm actually doing. And I guess that leads to my question, like, how have you worked on it? You've worked on it to the point where unless you're good have a good eye, people can't really see it in, like, in real life at normal speed, not slow motion speed video. It's harder to see it. Um, yeah, because I would— like, that's one thing I've enjoyed working on is, is really crafting that, that stivet so it's really nicely blended in there instead of just like chucking a bunch of snow or rough. Because I know if, like, that run at Deer Valley Is it Reward? Is that a really steep black run they sometimes groom? Yeah, yeah. And I know, like, if someone has come in hot going, yeah, let's do this, and then one turn, second turn, I'm going, you know, like I've slid it but then tried to jam the edges on too soon. And every— just the mountain and me are not having it that way. So refining that, that schmear, I guess the timing of when you really lay the pressure into the edge and make it carve, like that becomes the art and the thing you're practicing as you get better.

Yep. Yeah, yeah. The, the sting is what I call— and I got that, I heard that from Brace Bennett, who he was talking about Marco Odermatt, and he's like, dude, nobody stings fall line better than him. And I was like, there it is. You know, like, we watch Odermatt ski. It cracks me up watching Odermatt. Now everybody loves the way he skis, but nobody's willing to admit that he jumps, pivots in the air, and lands in the fall line on a clean arc every time. Literally jumping in the air. And yeah, we're supposed to clean ski to snow contact, roll the ankles, early edge pressure. It's like, that's not what's beating up the World Cup right now. Yeah.

So then let's get on to another one that has— you sort of alluded to it before, but what about this whole like, get forward, get forward? You've, you've did a good video on YouTube around this, but Maybe you can give us another way at viewing this, because that's all we're trying to say is like both of us sort of agree there's some things out there that are said in skiing that when you look at it and take it on face value, like we took our friend who never skied before and said, watch this video, I'm going to tell you they're moving forward and they're doing this, and they've never seen video, that would that person be able to see what we're describing?

And so the forward thing So I think what people hear when they hear move forward into the turn is some kind of like hip extension into the turn where they're trying to actually push their pelvis down the hill. And what I see in World Cup skiing and what I feel on myself and what I figured out in my own skiing was that, that your, your gait, your, your spine to femur angle doesn't change through the transition. Really doesn't change much at all through any part of the turn. You're sitting there crouched or hunched in your crouch position. Legs are moving laterally, right? And as you move into the turn, you— yeah, your, your center of mass does end up downhill of your base of support, but it's not from a forward move from the hip. You don't I'm not coming across the hill and thinking launch my hips down the hill, because if I do that, I take momentum and I push it down the hill, when in reality I need all my momentum to grip in the snow out to the side, because I need to claw the side of the hill on a steep pitch going fast. GS arcs, claw into the side of the hill and brace against that, almost like you're in the Gravitron at the fair, you know, where you get spins around really fast, and then you can sit up and you're sitting on the side of the wall. You've got to take your momentum and grip them into the hill at that angle to the outside, and then you ride that around. Now you're in the middle of the Gravitron riding through a completion. And then when you get to the next turn completion, if you again throw your hips down the hill or move forward into the turn, you're going to be out of balance once you get your skis gripped into the side of the hill, and you're not going to be able to stand on the wall, the Gravitron. So it's— I was having dinner with an old college teammate of mine and we were laughing about my YouTube videos because, you know, my college buddies can't believe I'm on YouTube. But they— my coach was like, dude, well, did moving forward ever work for you? He goes, no. Why did they say that to us? And he goes, they should have just told us to move our feet behind us. I was like, yeah, that's a much better description of how to get into that turn is as you're coming across again, you don't want to take your momentum and throw it down because that's going and it's taking that ability to have power away. So if you're, as you're coming across the hill, keeping your momentum going to the outside, but just take your feet and lift them and go up the hill with your feet. Now your feet settle and now you have the ability to grab that snow. Because you're still— your momentum is still going out across the hill.

Yeah. So I think, yeah, and I've almost had a little bit of a good epiphany now in terms of description and why it's so important to not maybe cue that move forward part. Um, and yeah, I, I, I— because that's basically it. It's, it's when you tell someone a specific thing, it's the actions that come from those words that really— that's where problems already start occurring. Like you said, when you think that, you're going to push against the hill, you're going to make movements, extension, stand in a certain way that is then going to muck up that clawing the side of the wall, all those other things. So it's, it's this description. Even though we do want our feet ahead— sorry, our body ahead of our feet. We want this, you know, we want to balance to the slope. We don't want to get left behind. All those are things we want to commit to the turn. All those things are good. But it's just a different description is what you're saying is really important and necessary to, like, convey to someone.

Yeah, I, I like to think of it just the reality, right? Like that. I think that there's a— that a lot of people say move forward into the turn, and in their mind they've got a vision of something that works for them. And they've probably coached somebody somewhere along the way and they said move forward into the turn, and that person improved. And now they're skiing the pitch better, but they're really like, did that movement, did that change in skiing really develop from an actual move? And I think the actual move is where it becomes confusing to people, is that like, if you ask me to get out of a chair, I make a move out of the chair. But if it, if you're just talking about like, in that turn, and specifically the hips, move the hips. But really what you're saying is just change the, the, um, relationship between your hips and your feet. There was no move from the hips. They stayed static, and you achieved this thing that was supposed to be move forward into the turn.

Yeah, and I think like a lot of it just makes me think of like you and I, because we love asking, we love pushing it, we've gone through these phases of we hit a brick wall, something is not working with what we're being told of how to fix that thing. And then you eventually discover something. And like, perhaps there's a problem in terms of more coaches need to be thrown on a steep icy run, try and move forward and, and get video and see can they do it? Because like, that's the thing I've noticed with, with coaching. When I— like, it's so easy when like, if you send me a video of your skiing, Joe, and I look at it and I see an error or something, I can just describe that to you. And I can just— as long as I describe what it is and we— oh yeah, can I see that's happening? Like, my job is done. However, your experience of what you're doing, how you got there, could be completely different to the description I put on it. You're not moving forward. And I think there's a big disconnect there. And I think good coaching, the person coaching you can feel it, like you've done, you've tested it, you've had some success, you've moved on, and you're putting some different words, cues behind it.

Yeah, that's kind of what I'm trying to— that's my shtick, right? Is, is like, I, I've got some ideas that kind of tear down some old thoughts and there's people gravitate to it. There's people who are like, I knew it. I knew that that was not right. And there's people— it's in the comments section all the time of like, oh yeah, dude, I gave up on that a long time ago and I make the best turns in my ski group. And I think, I think that the— maybe there is still value in saying move forward into the turn, but maybe there's half of the ski community. I'd argue it's more they could value from hearing it another way and from not having to go down this dogmatic route. Or, you know, I'm not tied to an organization that's like, no, no, we are a forward move group. This is how we do it. This is what we say. It's in our, it's in our handbook. See, it's right here. It's in the handbook. And I'm just out on my own and my little YouTube channel and just like, no, there isn't one. And so I've got the freedom to be able to say something that's inflammatory like that. And I'm also willing to be wrong, right? Like, I'm not— I'm ready for someone to, you know, challenge me and push in. Okay, yeah, maybe my thinking's a little off on that. Maybe there is a better way to describe this, you know, like, but I, I do think that just being honest with people and just trying to show the reality of, hey, you've been trying for your skiing for so long to get it good and get it right. Well, maybe stop trying it that way.

Yeah, on, on that, you know, you are now, as your friends were joking about, you're a YouTuber. He was like, we could maybe talk a little bit, a bit about that. But yeah, it's hard sometimes, isn't it? You— well, actually, I would say you get a really good perspective on the world, how there are a lot of people that do not want to change the way they think. But then you also get, like you said, exposed to a bunch of people who are not— don't have the voice because they also aren't on YouTube with however many thousands of people following them or whatever, or they just don't want to say it. Um, that's, uh, it— do you want to speak to that at all? Because I find that challenging at times. Like, I get, you know, like, I put up, for example, on Instagram video, here's me skiing some steeper runs in Canada, Silver Star, and they are like steep black groomed runs, you know. Sure, there's not bumps on it, but steep black groomed runs, you pick up speed really quick. The things we're talking about there, I've been working on, and I was sort of proud that I'd improved that and done it better like this last season than before. And, and you know what, half the comments in there like, dude, that's not a black run, that's like a green run in, in Italy or something like that. And I'm just like For one, you don't know, like, the video is so bad at showing the angle of a slope, for one. And like, what are you trying to prove by telling me that that situation I've experienced is not valid? Like, I don't know, do you want to speak to that? I just wanted to get that off my chest because that really bugs me.

The internet trolling is real. The YouTube comments are the worst. The amount of people that are like critical of my inside hand is just ridiculous. And like, I have a lazy left hand and I don't care. Like, I'm pushing hard to the outside. My core is tight. Like, I worked so long on keeping my hands up as a racer that I can do it. I can just hold them out there and they can stay exactly where they need to be the whole way down. I don't want to anymore. I have a little style in my skiing. So the number of people that are, you know, critic— like, I show a video, I'm skiing Big Stick at Deer Valley, it's one of my favorite pitches ever, and it's just this perfect bowling alley on a pitch, and I'm arcing it top to bottom, and they're complaining about my inside hand position. And it's like, dude, this, this doesn't matter. This isn't important. What's important is how to achieve this, this feeling that I want. Like, I want to feel those G-forces. I want to control it all the way down. I wanna be being aggressive, using my strength all the way down the hill. I'm thrilled. And they're like, no, no, no.

Inside hand is a little lazy. Yeah. Oh God. It's just, it's just sort of interesting that a lot of people, that's where they go to for, you know, for a comment. I don't know if it's because they're trying to look for something that brings you down to the level they're at or I don't know what, what they're trying to show, like share that they know something about skiing as well. Um, there's perhaps some of that going on though. Anyway, keep, keep putting your— I love your style, man. I love it. Like, it's really fun to watch. It's very exciting, and it would be boring if we all skied the same.

Thank you. Um, there's another group of people on YouTube that are going to YouTube looking to validate what they've been thinking. And so there's move forward into the turns videos on YouTube and they want to watch those and be like, yeah, I'm doing it right. And so I played into that a little bit. I made a video about rolling the ankles and so I kind of clickbaited everybody and was like, rolling the ankles is how you do it. They all thought they were going to get the like, here's how you roll your ankles. It's the best thing in the world and you do it. And like, so I show me rolling ankles and, and then I'm like, guys, this is like kissing your sister. Like, these turns don't matter when you get to a blue hill. I don't do these anymore. And, and the number of people that were just like, like offended by it— offended. They were like, how? I like— you got me in there to talk about rolling ankles, then you talked about something different. Like, it's because it doesn't keep going as it gets steeper, you know? Yes, rolling ankles happens on the green, and yes, you could use rolling your ankles to describe a movement on a black diamond. But as far as, you know, in general, I think rolling ankles, people associate with a clean carved ski. And so I was trying to separate those two and really just stop the, you know, roll it up, early edge pressure mentality. You know, rolling your ankles is a great thing, but like it's got its limitations.

Certainly not what I— not even close to what I think about when I get anywhere beyond a green run. It's like, no, you can't do it far from my— yeah, it's just far.

It's not—

it's just not a necessary thing at all to be going on. So, um, Joe, I've found a video of yours where you are going through meticulous detail of tuning your skis. And I'm a big fan of people learning how to tune their own skis and how important it is. Do you want to speak to your journey of realizing that importance and maybe, yeah, bring in the, the Blizzard demo guy thing?

Sure. So tuning skis-wise, I'd say as a racer, I was like, as I was improving as a racer, my tuning was improving, but I was never like the best tuner ever. I can remember one time feeling my friend's skis in the tuning room and like, they felt pretty good. And he felt mine was like, dude, why are these so rough? And like, you ran your finger down and they were like bumpy the whole way. But mine were sharp, really, really sharp. And I was like, I'm getting them sharp. This is what you do. And but then also I like, well, from that, I was like, my God, like, my skis are rougher than his. What do I do? So I was definitely trying to improve my tuning at that point and like, getting my skis smoother. But it wasn't until I was working for Blizzard and I was tuning whole demo fleets and just spending like a full day tuning 30 pairs of skis, wake up the next day, finish them up, like just tuning and tuning, that I really dialed it in and, and got the feeling with tuning and, you know, improved my technique to the point where I can put together a really great ski, a top-notch ski, a ski that that anybody can get on and feel comfortable, um, until I had all the repetition. But where— so what I found in that, and what I think makes a great ski tune, is yes, of course, sharpness, right? You need to get the edge filed to a, a, a good enough sharpness. But then it's the diamond stones, and I run through a progression. I go 200, 400, 600, and then I'm all the way out to a 1500. I'm a 1500 because that's what I own. If I, if I bought another stone, I'd buy a 1000 just because it's more in line with those numbers. Um, but to— and I do most of that by hand at this point. I will leave those on, uh, a file guide if it's a real race ski, but even on a real race ski, my last pass on the 1000 grit or 1500 grit is going to be totally by hand. Why is that? Um, I think because at this point I trust that feel. And the, and, and like also there's just, I, there's, when you're doing the side edge of the ski by hand, you definitely take the stone and push it towards the outside a little bit. And so you're getting the, the point of the edge. Absolutely. Where if you're on the file guide and there's a dip in the edge as you're going over it, you're not going to get that with the file guide because it's going to ride over it.

I see what you mean. I just had, yeah, that image almost like if you're just tuning a knife, like you might kind of get to a point where it's the end is still like has a slight square, it doesn't have a brought to a point. So that hand where you can just maybe like the fraction you're just bringing Is that— am I correct?

Yeah, yeah, you're just leaning on it. Just, you know, you're trying to hold it as flat to the edges as you can, but you're leaning on it just slightly to the base side of the edge. So you're making sure you're pinning it right down it. And it's the same thing when you're doing your base edge. I always run diamond stones on my base edge by hand, and you're just pulling up on the diamond stone so you're catching that outside most part of the edge.

Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. So, um, yeah, what do you feel? Because I know you, you went to Austria and you, your skis didn't show up because of the, the airplane, um, and you had to rent some. Maybe that's the most recent case where you haven't been on these pristinely tuned skis. What do you feel is a different— is the difference? Because yeah, people sometimes just don't know what a good tune feels like.

The first thing I feel with any kind of machine tune is that they're sticky, that the, the edges, because they're serrated a little bit, anything goes across the machine has a little bit of a serration because the wheel is spinning, you know, perpendicular to the edge as it travels. And so there's a little bit of a sticky feel with it too, and that can also be due to the sidewalls.

So on that, going— go further into that. Like, say we've got really quiet grippy snow, how would— in a turn, what do you not like about the stickiness?

I, I need like a full clean ski to be able to carve perfectly, to be balanced in the middle of the turn. As soon as— even if my wax is sticky like that, as you're carving, it's harder to find the balance point inside the turn unless that ski is fully loose and going.. And so if that edge is sticky, just that little bit, you, it doesn't move through the snow as fast or freely as a, a well hand-tuned ski. And so it holds you back a little bit, almost like having sticky wax, but it's not the same level. It's just like, you know, that little bit of a percentage that's holding you back. And sometimes you can feel it. It's almost like a buzz or like a zzz. You can almost hear it through the snow because you got a serrated edge going through the snow versus just a clean blade.

And do you really find it even more so in— if you try and do any turns with stiveting, steering, short turns, it, it really— is that where you— because that's where I do not like it. I feel like I'm going to hurt myself almost.

That's the next level of issue. Like that little bit of stickiness just in a carve, you can break through that. You get up to a certain speed, you can still carve, and it doesn't matter if it's machine-tuned. Like you're riding rails, right? You're rolling the ankles, it's no problem. You do it. But when you're trying to break the ski loose and they reconnect it, that grippiness from a machine tune, like, it doesn't want to— it won't— I can't butter or feather a ski that's machine tuned as well as I can a really slippery hand tune, because I want my edges to feel slippery. Yes, that's exactly— yeah, like side to side as well. Like, in any kind of feather or butter, like, I want to go into a feather and have it be versus— yeah. And so that slipperiness is the most important piece, really. And so you get the skis really sharp, you get them really polished all the way out to that 1500-grit stone. And then, you know, obviously you don't want a razor-sharp ski, but you get in there with the gummy stone, and that's where like the real art of ski tuning comes in, is detuning the tip and tail, but then merging that detune all the way into under your foot. And so you have a good progressive edge grip all the way through, where a shop, a machine-tuned ski is the same grip tip to tail.

Yeah. Okay. And so here's the thing, listeners, when you buy your skis and then when you get taken to the shop and they come out, this is what you are getting. Unless you ask specifically for a hand-finished tune, right? Yeah. So people like— I, I don't think people out there realize what their experience of skiing on like what they think a sharp tuned ski is like. And so maybe that, that leads to like the— do you want to tell about the story of the freeride kids?

So yeah, yeah, when I was, when I was working at Blizzard, I was running the, the Free Skier magazine test for Blizzard in Aspen and the freeride kids would go up to the rack and they would grab a Blizzard ski and they go, oh, sick, Joe Duntun, and not even care which— what brand it was. They were just psyched that they were skiing on some of the other brands and they were not happy. It was a freeride test, so people were kind of leaving the skis a little too freeride. But I showed up and I was tuning them to full race spec and just detuning them, just dulling them up to the point where they could handle them. But those kids appreciated it so much. They felt the ski with the proper grip, a really like trustworthy grip, right? It was, it was, it was responsive but predictable, you know, where some of the other stuff in a machine-tuned ski is unpredictable, that little grabbyness, you don't really know when it's going to catch you. So, you know, even I think, I think a really good tune helps everybody.

Yep.

You know, but there's people who, they, they have no idea. They feel a machine-tuned ski and they feel grip and they're like, oh yeah, sharp is good, this is what I want, I don't like ice. You know, they're more worried about that bad turn on ice than they are about making the clean turns down bottom where they don't need all that grip. Yeah, but it's a tough thing. I mean, unless you're really willing to commit the time in the tuning room and the hours and the gear. It— I don't know, I can't blame people from just getting them from the shop that much either.

Yeah, yeah, this is very true because I would say I don't go to the extent of the— like, my— the highest polish I've got is 600 grit, um, and I spent a bunch of years in Australia just with a 200. Yeah, um, yeah, but As I've learned to feel and appreciate a good, well-tuned ski more, I'm doing it more. And I'm sure, just as we're talking about your kids too, I make sure Archie's and my wife's skis are really nicely tuned because I just want them to be enjoying it and feel safe. Because that's a horrible feeling, that sticky edge, like not being able to, you know, like cleanly— oh, I need to smear it a bit here— and suddenly the skis know, no, you're not doing it, we're hanging on. Button into this system. Yeah, I hate that feeling. That's really—

it's concerning. It like jars up through your knee.

Yeah, like, that's not the grip I wanted. Yeah. So with your gut, do you do— you do your finishing stuff with the gummy stone? Yep. And do you want to describe how you would— you know, you've gotten up to the 1500, now you're at that point.

So then I take the gummy stone, and I, I take the softest gummy stone I can get. I mean, it takes a little more time, but it's easier to like slowly detune the ski than to get on with a hard gummy stone and do it. You know, you could go ching, ching, ching and be done with a hard one. But the, the error, the room for error there is like pretty tight. So I got a really soft gummy stone. I start at the tip and I'm like about 4 inches, 4 to 6 inches of the tip that I'm going fairly dull, just rubbing away the edge that I just put on there. And then I work that in another, like, I'd say I leave a pretty good footprint under the middle of the ski, as sharp as I can get it. I'll do— always do one full pass tip to tail with the gummy stone because I want to knock down any— if I've birded at all or there's any weird little things in there, I want that last 45-degree angle down it with the gummy stone just to make sure it's smooth tip to tail. So there will be that one, I don't know, anywhere from depending on the size of the ski, obviously, but like 5 to 8 inches in front of the toe piece to 2 to 6 inches behind the heel is as sharp as I got it just with that one pass of the gummy stone. And then from that point all the way out to the tail is slowly beveling the sharpness to whatever level of dullness I'm looking for tip and tail. Now, if it's like fall Utah hero powder, I'm going almost— it's not butter knife dull at the tip and the tail, but it's pretty— it's dull, right?

Tip and tail, you could wear it away. If you run your back of your fingernail, would it peel it?

I think if you push hard, okay, you'd probably get some pressure. But if you was like— it'll go—

no, definitely not.

Yeah.

And then come back like closer to under the binding. It is shaving with the lightest pressure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Even when it's— well, if it's really, really good Utah snow, I'll definitely take it down under the foot there as well, more. But it's definitely sharper under the foot. But even, you know, East Coast ice, or even here when we get that boilerplate, like linoleum snow, I'm doing that same procedure, just detuning less. Yeah. You know, and so where the tip and tail are like just like 3 back and forths with the soft gummy stone, a little bit of progression up into the ski, and then the absolute lightest pass tip to tail with the gummy stone through the middle, because I want to keep all that grip, but I still like to have the confidence that it's totally smooth tip to tail. Yeah, nice. And I think you can— you figure it out pretty quick, like when you're doing your own skis and you're tuning them, then going out and skiing on them, and you've really thought about while you're tuning what you're doing, you get a pretty good sense of, okay, that was sharp enough, that's not sharp enough. It's harder to tell when skis are too sharp, I think. I think that that's a feeling thing that isn't easy to feel.

Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. That's, yeah, tricky one. Um, okay, well, recommendation both of us here, if you've got the time and you really care, like, it is worth it. Yes, just get— and, and my biggest takeaway is I'm going to spend a bit more time polishing and just seeing again, like, the frame of mind back to the whole kind of part of the concept, or some— one of the themes of this, this podcast episode is like, I'm going to try it to make up my own mind. I'm not just going to go, Joe Dunn said it, so I'm I assume, you know, I like this new information. I want to go test it out in this kind of snow and the kind of style of skiing I do, and, and then, and make a decision based around what that experience is like. So thank you. I'm gonna be a little more fine-tuned. Joe, what about, uh, we've both got kids, young kids getting into skiing. As we wrap up this podcast, any tips or things? What's your approach with your kids?

So my approach early on was getting like stacking days because I wanted to get the kids out a lot, but I wasn't necessarily worried about the volume. And so to go out, get the boots on, go take a chairlift ride. If you had fun, do it again. If it wasn't fun, we're out of here. And especially when they're really young, but going through the process and just being used to going skiing, going to the mountain, what it is, you know, it's fun. I have a ton of candy in my pockets. Like at this point it's, it's, I don't know, the kids are getting older, they're 4 and 7, and at some point we can't just keep feeding them so much candy on every chairlift ride. But you get away with it for a while because now we're skiing 4 or 5 hours and it's like, dude, every chairlift ride for 4 or 5 hours of you eating candy is not healthy.

So diabetes or we like skiing.

Yeah, but early on, you know, if you're only doing 3 chairlift rides, yeah, candy every ride. So it was really important to me just to get days, just put in the time, put in the effort. And so many of those days when the kids were really young were just effort, you know, struggle. But you go out and you make the most of it. You have fun, right? And hopefully don't come home with crying kids. Um, and then as far as like their skiing and watching them and kind of what I'm looking for and how I'm hoping that they develop is I don't want them to know that I'm coaching them. I don't want to like try and be teaching them stuff on the hill. So I praise the good things that I see. If I see them make this one little like catchy turn at the bottom of a turn, I go, oh dude, that was sick. That was so good. And I'm just trying to praise the little nuggets of goodness and just build them up that way so they don't know that I've got, I've got a vision of good skiing, right? And I teach skiing all the time and like, I know drills and I know ways to get people to do things, but I can't do that to my kids and I don't want to, you know, I want it to be fun. And then outside of that, I'm changing up the kids' ski setups a lot. We have a lot of skis in the garage. We're really fortunate. We have a really good skiing grandpa. And so Grandpa supports like a lot of equipment coming through the house. And so the kids are going back and forth from different ski setups and really hoping that they get a feel for skiing more so than getting good at that setup.

Nice. Yeah, I like that one. And what about, what about boots? Maybe we should touch on that conversation because it might help others about the— what we notice both our kids in a certain just boot that they'd gone backwards.

Yep.

Yep.

I actually— I was listening to another one of your podcasts recently and you mentioned how Archie was sitting back in this boot. Bryce is in the same boot and he'd been sitting back all year and I was trying to actually— I put spoilers in the back of his boot in the cuff to get him more forward, but it didn't really work and we never really got there. But what you, what you had mentioned in the podcast was actually raising the toes inside the boot. And I was like, oh my God, I wish I'd heard this 3 months ago. Cuz I would've tried that with Bryce right away. And I think it could have made a huge difference. Cuz when, when they're in the right boot, like Dylan, my youngest, he's in the boot, he flexes his knee ankles and knees and he's just balanced and it's unbelievable. And it's just innate where Bryce was struggling with this one boot and I think the older one— Bryce is the older one.

Bryce is 7. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, you'd seen him like in the boot before not have this issue, correct?

So it was actually 2 boots before when he was flexing his ankle properly. Last year he struggled in the boot. 2 years ago he was struggling in a boot. Last year he was also struggling. A boot was an improvement, but we didn't get all the way there. Yeah, okay. But he's doing great. I mean, it was better like when he had the best ankle flexion when he was 4, and I think he's— that was when he was in the same boot that Dylan's in now as a 4-year-old, and he's now showing great ankle flexion, right?

It's unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. You gotta, you gotta do me a favor, and maybe we can put it in the notes after this, but you— we gotta have a look at this boot later on and maybe do some measurements. Yeah, I'd love to dig into that.

The little dollbello with the ratchety top strap and the really soft tongue, and he sits in it great. But then the next year we went one size bigger and I don't know, I think I also think Bryce has an issue with the length of his foot doesn't match. So I— but it's equipment. Like, I think what you've described and what I've seen is if we— if I get him set up right in that boot, I think he's going to flex his ankles perfectly.

Yeah, yeah. Well, even— I even had Archie say to me, he said, as soon as I'd put in some— cut out some cardboard from this cereal box to jack up the toe, the toe area end of his boot to make his foot flatter, and he's like, Dad, this is, this is much easier. That was the first run when I'd done it, and, you know, I could see a difference. But yeah, you know, if he can notice and feel, he's like, this is much easier, because he's saying, I was trying to do all the things, you know, like my Teacher told me about squashing the strawberries in the front of the boot. He can't do it.

Yeah, I've done that. Stuck my fingers in the tongue of the boot and like squeezed my finger, and I had done every trick that I could, but it's still kind of posting out of the back of the boot. And we, we weren't at a place of good ankle flexion for him for the season.

Yeah, so I'm gonna double check the, the, uh, the delta on the binding as well. He's got some new skis coming this season. I'm going to make sure that's not too different to when he was skiing really well. Because that was another thing I did notice this other time. He had a new pair of skis from the— from the friend runs a rental shop, planted some skis. What's going wrong? Something's not— you know, he's older, stronger, it's not going right. Have a look. There's a big difference, like the toe and heel height. It was much more, more heel high on these new skis that he wasn't skiing well on. He wasn't used to being balanced that way. He'd learnt up to this point on something flatter, and so that sort of threw him off. But yeah, I think that's important to check on with kids because it's so easy to assume like, oh, kids always a back seat. It's like, well, actually some kids are way more athletic than adults because they're all moving around like monkeys all the time. They're actually very flexible in their joints. So, you know, yeah.

Cool.

Joe, any, uh, I think probably now's a good time to— if people have never heard of you before, Joe Dunn, Joe is Ski Dad. Do you want to give people how they can find you on, on the social media channels?

Sure. Uh, well, I'm just on YouTube. I, I gave up Facebook a long time ago, and like Instagram's too much work for me. I don't have the bandwidth for it. I, I started the YouTube channel as like a hobby and I wanted it to be about like me being a ski dad and this is, you know, what I'm doing with my kids. Um, but what I kind of quickly found is that my expertise in skiing is actually much more marketable than like the family side of things, kind of. Yeah, yeah. And so like, okay, I have— I think about skiing all the time, you know. I loved— I was a race coach, I love racing, you know. And so I have these thoughts and I was like, oh, what great way. I'm gonna use this channel as an avenue to kind of put out, you know, uh, what I think or hope is a better way to think about skiing, to improve people's skiing and to like get people to achieve the, the high edge angle ripping carving that like I always wanted, but I had to go figure it out on my own, my own way. And so like, you you know, help people in that way as much as I can while also still making it a channel about me and my family. Like, we are going to go— we, this season, went up to Nordic Valley, a really small Utah area, and just did like a fun family day. And I want to take my kids to more small resorts so they can feel ownership of the mountain and document it and YouTube. So if you're into the, the family side of it, I think it's fun. But most people are into the, the high-end teaching side, which I'm definitely going to continue to do. And I got a lot of good stuff lined up for next season. Um, I actually just shot a video this last year of where I messed with my ramp angle on the skis and I changed the shims and I do it in real time and then get video of it, talk about in the lift video. And I was— I came out of that with a totally different perspective than I had had as a racer.

Wow, that one I want to see because I've wanted to do that.

Yeah.

It was, it was really eye-opening. Can you give away one little thing that you learned from that then?

So I found that, um, I think if I were to like really test this and set up my race equipment again, slalom and GS skis, then my GS ski would be more toe high than my slalom ski.

And as a racer level, you would actually go toe higher, or—

oh, I, I don't know, but comparison to the slalom ski I think that, I think that my GS ski would be more toe high, whether it be, you know, fully positive or if it would be, you know, the toe would still be 2 mils lower than the heel. But I always thought as a racer that a slalom ski should be more toe high than a GS ski.

That's what I would have thought too. And from hearing everyone else describe it, yet how cool is this? This is, this is the message. You went out and you bloody tested it yourself. Because your style, your approach, your body shape, blah blah blah, all these things give you unique ski on the snow. And so yeah, what it is for you. Wow, okay. And so do you— yeah, okay. And what was the— what was the feeling? Why, like, what did you feel from that setup you liked?

So what I realized after the— my first run, I was all— I was ramped way forward. So I put a shim under the heel. I think I had 2 shims under the heel, nothing under the toe. And I was so— so I was ramped so far forward, I had to sit my hips really far back to balance in the middle of the ski. And so I had to ski with like full quad strength, like all quad strength. And it was terrible. It was, it was like really hard and I didn't like it at all. And so I got out of that and as I started ramping the toe, I thought as I gasped, pedaled more on the toe, I was going to get more bite out of the tip, but it was the opposite. And so when you're ramped far forward, I had the two shims under my heel and nothing under the toe. My knee was closer to the tip of my ski. Yes. And so as I pushed the front of the boot, because you still need forward pressure on the boot to get everything to work right, the tip is coming closer to my knee faster. Yes. And so the tip was actually digging and driving across the hill extremely hard. So I have more tip grip further ramp forward. And so as I ramped it back, I was able to, I could come out of the old turn and I could release and move into the new turn. Cleaner the more I raised my toe up. And so like, because it— when the— when you really ramp forward and your knee is really close to the tip of the ski and that tip's gripping and driving across the hill on you, it takes— it pops really hard. And I would have to sit my hips back and absorb it and that pop from the ski coming up, and it was tough to set the ski down and be clean again. Versus— and I think it all comes from more of a bottom of the turn assessment of the gear versus top of the turn, right? Like, because I was always thinking in college, I was thinking ramp the toe so that on initiation I get more toe grip from— or tip grip from the ski. But ramp far forward, hip driving across the hill. Now at the completion of the turn, the ski's loaded super hard and it explodes, pops out from under. Hips are dropped back, so it's tough to engage top of the turn next turn. As I brought the tip up—

or sorry, brought the toe up with shims further away from the tip of the ski tip.

So now I'm coming through completion in more of a balanced position. I was able to extend my legs longer, and then as I could go longer with the legs, then I could just bring them back underneath me. And instead of that tip driving up under me, it's just staying and being more casual. And then I could pull them in, absorb, and then push into the next turn. And the top of my turn got better and better as I raised my toes up.

Yeah, yeah, because I wasn't getting as much load at the bottom of the turn. Yeah, I like the description of the, like, relationship of, of tip of ski and knee. That's a cool way to, to think about what you're changing there, because you know how I was mentioning my experience with, um, Well, it wasn't because I guess you're playing with delta, which is you're changing the entire boot's relationship with the ski. So when you lifted the heel, the ramp— sorry, the forward lean of the boot was also altered and made more forward, and then, and then vice versa versus inside the boot changing the ramp angle, which doesn't change the forward lean. Yeah, so my experience of mucking around with this has always been inside the boot, never actually changing the entire boot. And, um, yeah, and I find the experience is almost the opposite of what, uh, you've said, or I felt I was getting with, with gas pedaling. So the toes being higher inside the boot but not changing the forward lean, I was getting more tip engagement. The tip was pushing into me sooner, and then the other way around, which, you know, I think playing it through mental image here makes, makes sense with this kind of relationship of like different parts of your body with the ski and how they're— if they're getting closer or further away reactive-wise. Yeah. Um, yeah. Oh, that's a cool experiment. I can't wait to see the video. That's going to be really interesting.

Yeah, I was shocked. I, I was— I totally— at the end of it, I was like, I think I was wrong the whole time.

I was a racer. This is why we should experiment.

This is exactly what we're doing.

Yeah, it was fun to do them. Yep. Joe, I really appreciate your time, your insights, your courage to ski dad it up out there on YouTube and deal with the keyboard warriors. I really empathize with you there because that's something I deal with as well.

I want to let I want to let the people I've blocked buy their way back into the channel.

That's a good, that's a good deal. Yeah, what you've got, like bounties. Yeah, that's it. But I think everyone should go there, should subscribe to, to Joe's, uh, to Ski Dad TV on YouTube. And you should just also subscribe to the Big Picture Skiing YouTube channel as well. Leave comments below if you enjoyed this, uh, this chat with Joe and I. Looking forward to some, some new videos from Joe coming this next winter.

Well, thanks, Tom. I've been a huge fan of yours channel for a lot of years, and actually, like, I remember messaging you a long time ago.

Nice. Yeah, keep doing it. I love it.

Thank you. You too.