Halfpipe skiing lacking style

codizzle

codizzle

Member
So I watched a bunch of video from the recent Dew Tour halfpipe comp, which was held at Breckenridge over the weekend (Dec. 2011).

OK, first things first: These skiers' tricks are really, really technical. There's no denying it. They're spinning both ways; they're hitting both walls switch; they're doing two or three doubles in each run; they're even doing switch doubles. None of this was commonplace four years ago.

But I gotta admit, just because you grab your skis when you're throwing a trick, and just because you wear baggy outerwear and listen to your iPod during your run doesn't mean you have style. And sadly, I saw very little style throughout the skiers' halfpipe runs.

So what's it mean to have style anyway? Freeskiers, snowboarders, surfers and skateboarders have only been talking about it for decades now. Somebody has it, and they're the shit; others lack it, and they're wack. But what is it?

To me, style is the ability communicate a thought, feeling or idea through the physical gesture of skiing.

Take for example Eric Pollard. His safety grabs of 10 years ago communicated simplicity, modesty, understatement and a laid-back indifference.

Candide's super-tweaked mute grabs are aggressive and bawdy.

Henrik Harlaut's afterbang let's us know he's boss and that's skiing is fuckin' easy for him ... kinda irreverent, too.

Tom Wallisch's pretzels off rails mess with your expectations and suggest playfullness. Same goes with his shifty rodeo 540s.

Sadly, a majority of the tricks I saw from the Dew Tour Halfpipe reel had a robotic likeness to them. Sure, this style conveys mastery of the trick itself, but little more. Isn't this kind of sad?
 
Came here to say this. In my opinion Duncan Adams is the perfect example that having good style can get you far in competitions.
 
this. i was pleasantly surprised when he podiumed with that run. finally getting the credit he deserves
 
LOLwut?

Yeah lets just let them keep knee grabbing and rewarding them for it. Is it not part of the contest to do your tricks WELL?

Style isn't just in edits or movies, and should not be limited to such.
 
Im just saying, top half pipe athletes usually don't have very much style. Slope style is a little different, but if you want to watch something with style watch a movie or edit, not a contest. Of course grabs and style should be attempted for contests, but when you're doing 2 dubs and both 9s in a run thats 30 seconds, it can be tough.
 
well according to your post...

contests are not the place for style.

so i can only assume that edits/video parts are the places for style.

yet, i still see people in edits/movies with atrocious styles.

quite the conundrum, i'd say.
 
fair enough, I don't think we are arguing the same issue.

But yes, it is a known fact pipe skiers normally don't have very good style. (Duncan is obv the exception)

But remember when the tanner vs dumont pipe war was going on, and Simon started throwing that busted ass leftside 1260 no grab like 4 feet out of the pipe? Everyone was claiming tanner rightfully won because he spun both ways and grabbed all of his tricks.

JW where are all of those people now?? Did we just ditch that train of thought?
 
Haha, OP reads like a last-minute 100 level humanities paper. Style is the way you ski, not some deep metaphorical expression of your soul.
 
sure, style is the way you ski. and it's simultaneously the expression of what you want your skiing to say.

i actually believe that most skiers, both pros and ams, consciously and unconsciously do a lot of thinking about this.
 
it's all up to the community to be honest. i don't really care if people are chucking aerialist spins in competitions that they train in their private water ramp facilities for, but i'd rather it stay out of ski movies.

the more you guys support superpipe/bigair skiers releasing parts of the same shit you can watch in their competition runs then obviously they are going to continue to put them in year after year.

i'm glad that phil casabon/henrik harlaut are getting a lot of hype from their skiing, because that's who the ski community should be going after!
 
im not too sure. for example, when they started doing dub 12s in pipe they looked hucked and sketchy, now most of them looked higher and more comfortable with more style. i think pipe style is getting better.
 
To me, ______ is the ability communicate a thought, feeling or idea through the physical gesture of _______.

Take it down a notch there, dude. If I had to fill in those two blanks they would be making love and fucking like rabbits respectively. This is skiing we are talking about- sliding down snow covered hills on wooden planks. Don't overly romanticize the thing, just have fun.
 
just because some edits dont have style doesnt meen no edits dont have style. theres always gonna be people putting out shitty edits with no style, but you cant condemn all edits for having no style just because of those
 
If you can throw a dub in the pipe with style, then go for it. Until then, stop bitching about pipe skiers having no style. Like you said, the tricks are extremely technical and difficult. The riders are performing to the best of their abilities in order to win. If they can make it look stylish (which many of them do in my opinion), then they sure as hell will. Pipe is a completely different aspect of freestyle skiing. In pipe skiing amplitude and technicality are extremely important, whereas style counts for more in slopestyle.

In the end, if you don't like Simont's amplitude, Torin's cleanliness, or Duncan's style, then you have a strange view of style.
 
i created this thread six weeks ago after the first stop of the Dew Tour. but i take it back now after watching the top runs from Winter X 16. I thought the skiers killed it with a lot of style. kudos to them.

 
it's as if skateboarders loved that kook that does frontflips onto his board.

not everything in your favorite sport is AWESOME.
 
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