Good steered turns vs. good carved turns - which is harder?

A snowHead

dode, In that case no, but applying the same logic all turns are accident prevention

A snowHead

you turn to control your speed and direction. Failing to control your speed and direction will eventually lead to pain. (Which is worse than a missed gate....IMHO) Toofy Grin

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Do you not turn for the fun? For the pleasure? I can see why if you are trying to hit a series of gates a steered turn might avoid disaster, but it's not something that I would utilise if I didn't have to. Just can't get my head around it as I have said, might be the time of day/night, might be the wine....

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dode, It's the cheap wine.

Do you throw in a few turns on an nearly flat green when you will end up pushing yourself with your poles for 10 minutes?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Cooo! A thread where the imagery of racing is pertinent and appropriate . . . dode, It is exactly like driving a car on a dirt track or rally road, you approach the turn at the highest speed possible and then brake (and if you're very good, set the car up for the turn and scrubbing speed off with both the brakes and lateral friction. Once you hit the beginning of the turn you feed in power to begin the track around the apex and once all lateral drift is done, full power can be used to complete the turn and power down to the next one. The only thing that's difficult to see in the skiers is the mass shift drive toward the front of the skis to hook them into the carve and accelerate toward the next gate. You can do it on a snowboard but it doesn't look half as elegant as it does on skis . . . and it's nigh on impossible to get that drive out on tele.

What I'd like to experiment with and/or get more information about is the weighting of the skis in the braking section of the turn and how quickly as the skis begin their carve does the weight come off the inner ski.

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Thornyhill, of course I don't turn if the piste dictates that turning will result in poling. If you are on a nearly flat green would you steer turn? I'm not looking for an argument, more an explanation, but if you insist my wine is cheap... Let's take this outside Twisted Evil

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Cheers Masque, that explains it more than the previous posts, but still accident prevention???

After all it is free

Masque, trust me, I'm not a 'bam'zai kinda guy, if I'm outta control then I ain't skiing, IMO. But I think I'm getting the drift

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dode, did you read the text accompanying the video? The courses are set such that you couldn't maintain a carve on race spec'd skis. The technique isn't being used to prevent an accident because they are about to miss the gate it's being used because the fastest way through the gate is as Masque points out above a power slide.

IMO it's not very good at illustrating a steered turn because the ski rotation portions occur before and at the end of the much more spectacular slide. The pivot slip video is much better but has you concentrating on the wrong bit. We're not looking at the guys awesome side slipping but at the way he rotates the skis 180 degrees without having to really change direction much. A feat you couldn't achieve carving! It also neatly illustrates the point of steering a turn which is the make the ski turn faster than you can by carving which is fundamentally useful from day 0 through to the highest levels of skiing.

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An article from a recent PSIA magazine which might help to understand the difference;

http://www.32degreesmagazine.org/lookinside32degrees/fall2013/?lm=1381447776000&pg=88#pg88

You know it makes sense.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

rob@rar, you really like being a perverse booger don't you Toofy Grin

Yes the 'stivot' is extreme . . . but I didn't add it or the video to thread . . . and we see the first part of it all the time with people doing 'hockey stops'. The blend of the skid into the carve is a simple and very obvious change in the use of the ski's edges and while it is not being used to set an example to follow it does illustrate that there is a technique to learn and finesse. Fine edge control and weight positioning to define and adjust a turn shape, be it a right angle or a straight line down the fall line and everything in between is, I agree, an absolute fundamental part of skiing.

A snowHead

Thanks for the link stewart woodward, and the explanation rob@rar got a grasp of it now. I think what confused me was the terminology. As steering the ski occurs in all types of turn, I was thrown by steering v carving.

A snowHead

Even in recreational skiing, if you just take it back to the vid of using skidding to control speed in a straight line, if you are on an icy narrow schuss path then I find doing that much easier than snowplowing, and for skiing rocky tight gullies where it is not steep enough for a jump turn... also handy.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

dode, I think the rally driving technique example was good too, you really see them using that to set up lines on tight corners, there is a similar technique on a mountain bike to slide the back sideways on really tight corners that you can't really steer round.

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Masque, yeah, but the first part of a hockey stop has a well defined end that many people seem to get away with, more or less. Stivoting at speed on and icy race course with millimetric precision has little to do with a hockey stop...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I really look forward to the day when I understand all of this complex terminology, at least to a given extent. Is stivoting where you are carving fast turns and quickly apply a very small amount of skid to scrub of a bit of speed and make the turn sharper, then dropping back onto your edges again? (really not sure what this would be called, I've just referred to it as 'throwing an edge in' in the past). Certainly I've found that technique useful when getting up to high speeds when carving.

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rasmanisar, The way I understand it that's about right, but more of a larger amount of sideways skid and without scrubbing much speed off (when used by racers anyhow). The times I've found something similar useful is when you suddenly find yourself heading towards a line of frozen ruts or death cookies at high speed and you can't quite manage to turn smoothly away from them Laughing

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After all it is free

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under a new name, I never said that completing a stivot turn was easy! Jeeez!!! what is it with you lot? The thread is about fine edge control within a turn shape and NOT the holy f' grail of fast race turning. And yes a Hockey stop is just edge and direction control and frequently performed poorly. The fact is many people do not come to a full stop but release the edge to pootle into the lift queue or gate. The vid illustrates the change from skid to carve in a clear and easily discerned way, using a vid that has racing in it is irrelevant in this case what isn't is the need to learn and use steering and your edges in all ways to dictate your speed and direction.

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Let's now introduce the 'stazit', where you watch a race video, attempt to emulate it and stack it big time Twisted Evil

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rob@rar, so the ESF crocodile of quick skiers joining a piste at speed from your flank never happens? There are plenty of occasions when a 'stivot' turn is a handy skill to have. You are reading too much into my post, I'm on your side in saying that all forms of turn technique need to be learned and practised. That is just one where a change in edge can be clearly seen. I'm not saying we should attempt to copy it.

You know it makes sense.

rob@rar, From my limited perspective it does look like the difference between a skidded/pivoted turn, even at high speed and a true stivot is such that it would take a high degree of technical skill to pull one off. Beyond me anyhow. I think if you were to get into racing classes than that may be a different matter.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

rob@rar, what's your beef? At the end of the day nothing is necessary in recreational skiing, it's all for fun. The video shows some great carving followed by some very deliberate and extreme skidding and steering - what the OP was all about wasn't it? Nothing wrong with chucking the skis sideways to kill off some speed or control your direction, whether any snowhead could actually stivot is a different matter. But maybe that fact top racers deliberately skid and not always carve is good for the recreational skier to make them realise they don't need to try and carve all the time.

A snowHead

waynos, no beef, just about to have pizza in fact. The OP was about the opposite of extreme skidding and steering - it was about smooth skidding and steering, without creating a massive steering angle and the start of the turn and then making a sudden change so the edges of the skis engage in a clean carve. As I have said a couple of times, stivot turns are fine and a fun thing to do, but they have nothing to do with the OP (not a problem of course, as threads drift all the time on snowHeads).