It's impossible to really compare how "hard" it feels for two people to correct imbalance, because, outside video games, which don't model things very well, they can't exchange bodies - and if they could, they wouldn't be used to the new ones.

Your DS probably has to work harder than his partner because he is a guy, and his center of gravity is probably proportionately higher, relative to his height - though because we can't exchange bodies, it is hard to tell. Being a guy also gives him, on average, more muscle power to do stuff with, and less flexibility to move gracefully (e.g., a women's hip allows her to regain balance in ways that are much more difficult for men). If more energy is available, and less flexibility, it is natural that he would learn use the strength more. I believe that is part of why women usually look more graceful, and men usually use their strength more. Men and women are designed better to move the ways they tend to move. Plus, women learn that looking graceful is feminine, and men learn that looking strong is masculine, so most men/women want to move those ways, and are to some extant judged accordingly.

YES it takes more energy to regain balance for the taller skater - proportionate to his/her mass, which is to say proportionate to his/her height to the 3rd power. But he/she also has the same factor more energy available from his/her muscles, all other things being equal and given equal conditioning.

It doesn't take less energy to place a tall skater out of balance. If both skaters start with their centers of gravity centered over their bases of support, than to move the center of gravity beyond that base requires overcoming inertia and perhaps potential energy (depending on the movement) - which are proportionate to his/her mass, and therefore takes more energy for the taller skater.

Suppose two skaters are 1 inch out (at the top) of balance in some direction. Each skater might temporally regain that balance, for example, by thrusting their bent arms in that direction by the same number of inches at the same acceleration. The taller skater requires more energy to do that - by a factor proportionate to their weight ratio. And he/she has that same factor more energy available from his/her muscles. And in fact, he/she can thrust those arms a longer distance in that direction, and regain more inches of balance.

Balance compensations are of course more complex than that, because as soon as an arm thrust stops, the rest of our bodies re-absorb the momentum the arm thrust temporally absorbed. I think we use a sequence of many small motions (e.g., bent arm/leg thrust, extended arm/leg swing, hip thrust/swing, knee bend, angle bend, etc.) and muscle tensions to delay the fall that an imbalance would produce, and then we take a step (establishing a new base of support) or use a complex multi-axis internal body motion to place ourselves back in balance (the same way a cat or diver can swing down and twirl his/her upper body to flip mid-air, a type of zero net angular momentum spin).

In all of these motions, each skater needs an amount of energy that is proportionate to his/her mass. And his/her muscles can supply an amount of energy proportionate to his/her mass. It balances out.

I think the claim that short people have all the advantages in balance is just an excuse tall people use. Short people have other advantages, as noted, but, given equal practice, training and conditioning, tall people can do the same things, relative to balance.

Taller people are often afraid to do things involving delicate balance, because they have to absorb a harder fall. And people keep telling them it is harder for them to balance. So they get less practice compensating for imbalance. I claim that is the reason shorter people have better balance, on average.

I used to have very poor balance, in spite of being short, and I compensated for imbalance in ways that would hurt myself. But fall practice, and the concentration on relaxing and creating faster reactions that entailed, together with the discovery that there are many low energy safe ways to regain balance, and practicing those, has helped a lot. Tall people can do that too. Strength and flexibility limitations have proved much more difficult for me to overcome, and are now a bigger issue.

__________________
Mitch Grunes ModifyingBoots FallingGently HomePage

I made a major miscalculation, and have to correct myself.

When you move into or through a position of balance, there are two factors involving strength. First, you have to lift your weight, which is indeed roughly proportional to your muscle strength, given equal conditioning. But to move to the same pose in about the same time, you have to move faster if you are taller, which requires still more muscle strength.

In addition, a lot of balance poses, like spirals, shoot-the-duck and sit-spins, are also strength and flexibility poses. (And flexibility requires strength for some).

So, short people should indeed have a big advantage in balance.

Of course it gets a lot more complicated in pairs and dance, where a lot of balance poses require one person to support all or part of another's weight, or lean into or away from them. Your ideal height and weight in a given pose or move will depend on your partner's height and weight.

Maybe math isn't the right approach to these questions.

__________________
Mitch Grunes ModifyingBoots FallingGently HomePage

I think the greatest disadvantage to tall skaters yet is that people who are tall also tend to be slender built with longer, but narrower muscles... Have you ever observed that? I have, with drawing of people. It's like they have the same muscles shorter people do only stretched out over longer bones.