I seemingly have a ingrained bad habit of rotating my inner ski at the start of a carving turn. If I do J turns and look at my tracks I actually see 3 lines, as the tip and tail of the inside ski take different lines
I can see it now as diverging tips at the start of a carved turn.
Looking back at videos it's been there for years (now I can see it)
and this is where Carv becomes useful to me, so I'm working on Early Edging (as that measures inside ski angle) and also % of turn carved.
Question for the experts. I want to see if I can nail this in a snowdome over summer (especially as I retire 30th May). Any tips on drills/things to try?
I'm planning on two drills, any others folk think would be useful:
1. single leg skiing to get the feel of the inside ankle rolling over and not skidding, can self check that with the line in snow.
2. Simple J turns, check for 2 clean lines in the snow
cheers,
Greg
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@kitenski, Mrs Swskier has had a breakthrough in the last month of our season where she's now carving. This is often the case for her, she takes her time to understand and learn something and then it clicks and she'll really progress quickly.
Her left turn though is similar to your issue, she rotates her inside (left) foot and has the skis diverging, a sort of reverse snowplough shape. On her right turn her inside right leg doesn't do this. Really common as you'll know to have one stronger than the other.
So, i'll be interested in thoughts, but I agree with the J turn idea. Single leg skiing i'm not convinced you'll find as useful, but i'll be glad to hear your feedback.
Something I've never done myself but might be worth considering for your user case though is roller blading. Firstly it'll be great for your balance, but also if you can "carve" a pair of roller blades that should be useful movements for your skiing too.
Deb Armstrong has a video where she talks about placing a pole in the snow next to your inside leg and you have to bend it by rolling the leg/knee in to the pole. That's also a feeling that will help. I'll try and find the video when i'm at home not in the office.
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Have you tried leading with your inside knee and pushing down on inside little toe? When you see this problem it is often in combination with dissimilar edge angles, inside ski a lower angle. If you are committed with the ski on edge then it will be more difficult to rotate and you will start to be more conscious of how the skis are tracking.
Another one that could help is ditch the poles, make a fist with both hands and put them between you knees basically locking your knees two fist widths apart, on easy terrain rail edges one side to the other.
Have you tried leading with your inside knee and pushing down on inside little toe?
Another one that could help is ditch the poles, make a fist with both hands and put them between you knees basically locking your knees two fist widths apart, on easy terrain rail edges one side to the other.
Yes, I feel very "blocked" with my left hand inside ski turn rolling onto the edge. One thing I didn't mention is I smashed up my femur on my right leg many years ago skiing, so wonder if this is a long term "protecting" of that knee as my left hand turn I managed J turns with 2 clean lines fairly quickly, the right hand turn about 50% success in Cervinia 2 weeks ago.
I'll try the fists, cheers!
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@kitenski, Have you done any boot alignment work? Worth checking whether your legs are still the same length too if you have broken a femur. I may have suggested this when watching you even before you broke the leg.
@rjs, yes had all that checked at the boot lab in Meribel and by the high level instructor on snow with boots undone and done up.
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@kitenski, thinking about this some more, if you think about how you'd teach someone to carve, which no doubt will have come up during your BASI exams.
You'd do garlands/swings to the hill, then in to J turns, then you'd move on to rail tracks and work it up in to full skiing. I think following that same route would be good for you. Dialing it back, not starting again, but perfecting the basics before moving it up.
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After all it is free
@rjs, Mrs Swskier is in boots fitted by Colin at Solutions4feet. They're very much end of life now, so we'll be sure to find a decent local fitter that can look at her alignment. It rings a bell that Colin mentioned one leg being ever so slightly longer, but I can't remember the details now 3.5 years on.
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@swskier, yeah cheers, I was lapping the flat bits of the glacier doing garlands, J turns and some one legged stuff as well. I think the feeling of rolling the ankle onto the inside edge single legged helps me....
I've been doing rail tracks for years and told by people following me I was leaving 2 clean lines, but clearly the feedback was incorrect!!!
I've also worked out my right leg has a huge imbalance muscular wise, so doing lots of single leg work in the gym to address htat.
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doesn't look to be anything massively out alignment wise, could be a slight leg length difference that doesn't allow you to move over the new turning ski, but it looks more like a separation issue, try retracting the uphill leg a bit, it seems very straight and that will block you
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@kitenski, Mine is in no way a professional opinion in the example from Cervinia, it looks like your skis are, marginally, toeing out (front wider that rear stance) consistently, even when not initiating a turn.
If so, would that give you more acceptance of the stance you are querying now ?
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
@ski3, interesting thanks, I don't think I notice that when straight running....I assume I'd get issues if it were an alignment issue?? Anyway of proving it either way?
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So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
@kitenski, I have that same problem with my skiing - a couple of things that are helping me improve it:
1) Asking my teenage kids to tell me whenever I do it (they tell me I'm doing "penguin" again) - they're hard taskmasters.
2) Forcing my knees apart as suggested upthread - two fists between the knees, to get used to the feeling of correct leg positioning.
I tend to drop my outside knee when I do it, so my skis are apart but my thighs are together. A sort of hybrid of carving and 1980s Italian ski instructor style.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
So I can see a couple of things, mostly what you're already aware of, but I'm going to suggest that the wandering inside ski is an effect, not a cause, of your problem.
What appears to be happening, and this is not at all unusual - I recall the trainer really working on this for a couple of candidates when I first did (and failed) my BASI L3 15-odd years ago - is that your hips are not perpendicular to the direction of travel.
This will often happen when you get the skis on edge, as the outside ski is having to describe a longer arc but both skis are moving at the same speed across the snow, so unless you take some positive action it will drop back, and we can see this happening on the videos, particularly noticeable on the one from behind. So now you've got the inside ski tip some way ahead of the outside, and it's carving a different radius from the outside one as a result. As you try to correct this by lifting it slightly to allow more pressure on the outside ski it will then skid as you describe.
Another thing that is evident is the almost complete lack of any up/down movement in the body, and a concomitant lack of lateral separation, by which I mean: you want the legs to be angled outwards wrt the body, allowing the CoM of the body to remain inside the line of the skis, and this must by definition bring the hips lower towards the snow surface through the turn and then up a little as we prepare to transition to the next one.
So there's a couple of things we can do to help with this, which in essence are different aspects of the same thing.
We need to keep the skis in line, and it's very easy to see that they are not just by looking down at your ski tips, which ideally should be at the same distance in front of you when measured along the line of travel. To do this we will have to dynamically move either the inside ski backwards or the outside ski forwards (it's the same thing, of course, but some people find it easier to think in one way or the other). To do that we need the hips to be brought into line with the shoulders (they're currently facing outwards) and to do that we need to move the hips up and forward.
So thrust those hips forward as you roll the skis, this will also lift them, than as pressure builds you'll be much more able to move the skis outwards at a much greater angle and thence control the turn radius more effectively, at the same time as the hips are moving downwards wrt the snow. Repeat ad infinitum.
To see what I mean take a look at the official BASI L3 standards video,
https://vimeo.com/236754989?fl=pl&fe=cm#t=1m30s
looking at long turn from about 1m 20s, but particularly the exact moment we can see the hips coming up and forward at 1:40 1:47 and 1:56. Also note how the tips are the same distance in front of the body as I described above and look at the angle of the skis wrt the body (the lateral separation) compared with what you're achieving.
I hope that's clear and may be helpful, and I reserve the right to have possibly not explained it all 100% correctly. But good luck.
Last edited by You know it makes sense. on Wed 6-05-26 18:03; edited 4 times in total
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
@Chaletbeauroc, yes thanks, that is also something I am working on. If I start with them parallel and just ankle roll on cat tracks it still happens so I'm leaning towards thinking its the ankle roll (or lack of) that is the root cause.
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Poster: A snowHead
kitenski wrote:
@Chaletbeauroc, yes thanks, that is also something I am working on. If I start with them parallel and just ankle roll on cat tracks it still happens so I'm leaning towards thinking its the ankle roll (or lack of) that is the root cause.
Has it got worse over time? I note that the 11-y-old clip shows a marked level of hip movement and lateral separation compared with the recent one.
No, I don't think you should focus on the ankle roll. As you roll the ankles you _must_ make the outside ski move faster than the inside one. If you can get your tips at the same level the rest will follow. Trust me on this.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
@Chaletbeauroc, I think it has got worse over time as I've got older. the 11 year old video is trying to do performance longs, the more recent ones are me just trying to get a clean carve, so focusing on that one task....at the expense of other things at the moment!
But on a flat track with my tips level, I tip onto my edge and get the issue....with tips level.....
Doing an easy J turn, even from a traverse so more like a single garland with tips level the issue still happens.......more so on the turn to the right.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Yes, I thought I could see moer of an issue with the left-ski turn, but difficult to be sure from the video.
@kitenski, on your one ski video (and apologies that this is tearing you apart, but you did ask for it ) it looks to me like you're quite in the back, and when you look at the final turn you make to your left, look at your inside ski, you're even holding it in a diverged position in the air. If you're going to do the drill, try to do so absolutely perfectly with the inside ski still.
Really picking at it, but i'm sure that's probably what you want in order to improve!?
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
@swskier, no worries at all - more feedback the merrier:) have at it!
This is all stuff I can hopefully do indoors over summer
@swskier, do you reckon you can ski on one ski with the other held parallel and not held “out” for counter balance?
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@kitenski, my one ski skiing is nothing special so I don't know. I'd have to give it a go, but certainly if I wasn't keeping it parallel, i'd be aiming more for a javelin turn than diverging.
I'll give it a go, but won't likely be on skis until October/November now.
After all it is free
After all it is free
Chaletbeauroc wrote:
What appears to be happening, and this is not at all unusual - I recall the trainer really working on this for a couple of candidates when I first did (and failed) my BASI L3 15-odd years ago - is that your hips are not perpendicular to the direction of travel.
This is the key to carving turns for me.
I think there is a bit of a danger in telling a student to aim for level tips that they will settle for getting them as level as they can without turning their pelvis, when you really do want them to try to keep the pelvis square to the skis.
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As you've been given advice by several Instructors on here, I am simply going to highlight 2 connected Videos from Deb Armstrong in case it proves useful. In them, she analyzes what is going on in the hips and CoM of a Level 3 Instructor....both videos are really helpful, but the second one (imo) is particularly enlightening.
IME. Sometimes changing emphasis and concentrating on different areas allows the correction to take place naturally, as it gets you away from doing what you've always done.
I'm wondering if there is a lateral balance issue and you are using the i/s ski for support. In the first video your speed looks a bit slow for what you are trying to do. See the first video at the apex \ 8 sec mark.
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@kitenski, @Chaletbeauroc makes a lot of sense! For me, being in the middle of the ski solves a lot of issues. So dig out all those slow drills, especially braquage. Then do them slower.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
rjs wrote:
I think there is a bit of a danger in telling a student to aim for level tips that they will settle for getting them as level as they can without turning their pelvis, when you really do want them to try to keep the pelvis square to the skis.
They're either level or they're not. But yes, it's important to properly define what you mean when using such terms (and for example I really like your use of 'pelvis' rather than 'hips') .
I tend to suggest this one is used as a check, once it feels right, does it look right too? Then on a day-to-day basis as an indicator that one may be falling back into old bad habits.
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Poster: A snowHead
in the example from Cervinia, it looks like your skis are, marginally, toeing out (front wider that rear stance) consistently, even when not initiating a turn.
