Ryan wrote: I have ben skiing for 24 years and I will say however that FEET APART IS BETTER. It is more stable and balanced. It makes it easier to stack your weight cleanly and move in any direction faster....
Also to address the statment that there is one and only one way to approach bumps is out of their mind. The same line can be approached from a multitude of different approaches. You can attack the fronts, you can turn over the backs, you can go top to top and spend most of your time in the air. Some people even enjoy carving through the troughs. No one approach is better than any other.
Wow, things are happening fast here. You guys slipped three or four comments in while I was writing that last one. (Hey Joe. Hey Jim.)
I really don't want to make this pick-on-Ryan day, but, Ryan, I have to disagree with you again.
Firstly, you can get only so far in the bumps with your feet apart, because you can't fit a wide stance into a narrow trough. Try some aggressive, fall-line skiing through deep, tight moguls with your wide stance; one foot will drop low in the trough while the other climbs up high on the bump somewhere. This height-split or altitude-split between your feet will destroy your fluid, coordinated absorption and extension, and without absorption and extension, you lose balance and speed control.
Secondly, moguls can, of course, be skied in a bunch of different ways. If, however, you want to ski moguls with maximum smoothness, control comfort and confidence (and speed, if you like), and with minimal punishment to your body, the methods that competitive mogul skiing has identified and refined over the last 20-30 years are definitely the best methods. I know a 13 year old mogul skier who, because he knows mogul technique, skis moguls faster, more smoothly, more cleanly and with far more control and grace than any instructor / PSIA clinician / PSIA examiner I have ever seen. And aren't these qualities (smoothness, control, etc) exactly what instructors should be teaching aspiring mogul skiers?
Thirdly, true carving down the fall line in tight moguls is a physical, mechanical impossibilty.
-Dan DiPiro