Messages posted by : Trencher
Now you are getting into the philosophical part of carving. For me the joy is in linking carved turns. Having to make some skided turns around other people just ruins the run for me. The commitment to a serious carved turn makes mid turn direction changes difficult. So I stop and wait for the crowd on the run to thin out. Then I can really go for it. There are carvers on skis and boards, and then there are skiers and boarders who can carve. Trencher |
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As pavelski says, there is no set rule for stance width and for me depends on conditions and need.
Racers will often adopt a seemingly wide stance and this makes sense, in that they are looking to increase stability and reduce risk often on icey and rutted courses. I prefer a medium stance for free carving, but this is really only in the transitions. Once your legs start to incline beyond a certain point, the skis must move farther apart. How far the skis move apart depends on how extreme you tilt them. It takes a while to get the inside ski out from underneath you and trust your edges (two of them). At some point you may discover boot out from the inside boot once it starts getting out there. Angulation gives stability.To start angulating you will need to adopt a little hip counter. This means that the hips face a little toward the outside of the turn. (Interestingly in that extreme carving snowboard video, you will see little angualtion) Most skiers, even those that carve well, will only carve a turn through 60 to 90 degrees. The real joy of carving is taking the turn beyond that and railing through 120 to 180 degrees. The forces are greater and so is the thrill. Most skiers talk about pressuring the ski. What beomes more important is how much downward pressure you can apply to the edge/s. This is an equal and opposite reaction physics thingy. You have a big mass, your body and to lift it up a little, you have to press downwards on the ski edges. This is a downward pressure, not an outward pressure. Here's the weird part, the lower your body is, the more pressure you can apply and the more your edges grip. You will also need outward pressure on the ski (esp the front) to flex the ski and determine somewhat the turn shape. I like to think of these two presures seperately - downward and outward. What makes a lot of skiers skid the end of the turn is (in part) that they are standing so tall, that they can't maintain the downward pressure). Just your weight is not enough to do it at the end of a turn when the forces are greatest. There are basically two ways to apply this downward pressure. First is a "cross over" turn. Named because the body crosses over the skis during transition. In this turn the skier stands tall at transition, but sinks into the turn and rises out to transition again. The important point to understand is that "the sinking" is downward not outward. The sink must happen very fast - as soon as the skis are on the new edges. The second way is a "cross under" turn. Here the skier has legs flexed at transition and actively extends the legs outwards and downwards as the skis roll onto the new edge. The body shouldn't rise through this extension of the legs. In both turns, there should be little weight on the skis at transition and and the edge change should be fast. I hope that makes some sense. Like so many skills, it's a matter of finding the trigger to understanding. If it's hard to find good models to copy, try resorts that have the most racing, which tend to have the most ski carvers off the race courses as well. I'm loath to link to this video, as this was my first time out this season and shows it. Certainly not a model for the best technique. It does show my stance width and the difference between turns that are purely inclinated (due ot some lower back pain, fun, but less stable) and those with some hip counter/angulation. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5521147838682881679&q=ski+carving+-+no+poles&hl=en Trencher |
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I would try to ask this question on a back country dedicated forum. Try
http://forums.epicski.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13 http://www.telemarktalk.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?forum=1 Trencher |
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Check these out as well http://www.pureboarding.com/pureboarding/fileadmin/user_upload/publisher/videos/carveitup/carveitup_dsl.wmv http://carving.onedge.ru/HTML/vi1.htm A lot more can be found on the Carver's Almanac site http://www.alpinecarving.com/ovid.html |
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Spent some time canvassing opinions on left/right and there were a lot of answers. Most of the people I spoke to were racers of some experience.
The most common answer was symetrical tuning, but often with a twist. That is, while not designating a left and right ski as such, they would practice on one set of edges and then switch ski sides befor the race. This they thought would give them a less worn edge when they needed it. These people were mainly using skis in the 14m to 16m sidecut range. Racers using longer, stiffer, less side cut skis (traditional GS) would dull thier outside edges as they needed all the pressure on that outside ski to bend it. Slalom racers wanted sharp outside edges as they pressure the inside ski more. Trencher |
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Max is very correct and echoes my experience with my daughter.
Some classes appear no more than baby sitting, with terrible instructor/student ratios. Not only does this make for a poor learning (and general) experience for the kid, but the duty of care often poor. Kids benefit hugely from an occasional private lesson (as do we all). It really makes them feel special. Girls do better with female instructors and single sex classes ( as do boys, with no one to show off to). Getting together with other people for a semi private lesson is a good way to go. As Max says, checking to see how things are going is very important. Last year my daughter started snowboarding (having skied for four years). We bought a block of three weekly lessons. I was a little disapointed with the first group lesson, size of group, group control, poor instruction technique. It went further downhill the next week with the instructor totally overwelmed by the group of ten 8/9 year olds. I called the ski school director and detailed the problems. Ended up with the third lesson being replaced by three hours of private instruction, which made a huge difference. The hardest thing with your own kids, is to understand that you can not teach them yourself. You maybe can plant seeds of ideas, point out someone who is good, but you are flogging a dead horse directly trying to teach them. Trencher |
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This reminds of the asymmetric snowboards of the mid nineties.
This was when people started pointing both feet forward at an diagonal angle across the board. The obvious body movement was diagonal as well. To compensate for the asymmetric transfer of mass from one side to the otherside, boards were made with the sidecut of one edge ahead of the other. It wasn't too long befor people figured out the what was needed was not an asymmetric snowboard, but symmetric movement. That was the end of asym boards. Trencher |
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That's very perceptive Dshenberger.
The extreme ski carvers do actually rely on that outside edge.You can see in this video that the outside ski is often bouncing around while the inside ski maintains the carve. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5sGvthsclw&NR If you try to (or accidently) pressure that inside ski too early in the turn, befor you are commited to the the turn, it wiil try to take off. I find the key is a very progressive tranfer of weight. I sometimes on a first run of the day, find myself over weighting the inside ski too early esp if I start out on a gentle slope. As you say, lack of speed and inclination. Pavelski has forgotten more than I'll ever know about skiing. The one thing I have learned about adventure sports in recent years is that conventional wisdom has a date stamp. Just when you think, this is the way it's done, everything changes. In the next several years, most people will learn to carve on skis. That sounds crazy now, but there are places like my my local hill, where it has happened already. The change in the last two seasons is amazing and you can see that people are having much more fun. Trencher |
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