Step Carving

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

veeeight, I'll be pleased to bhear what your buddy has to say. I don't have time to ask any handy italians - I just see them on the other side of the piste, but actually no clubs here at the moment anyway. I'm quite surprised there are any italians here actually ..

uktrailmonster, It sounds to me as if you and veeeight, are actually in agreement, but it's just the terminology that's differing. I would say though, that inside tip lead is something that happens, and not a manoevre (or shouldn't be), so therefore shouldn't be practised on it's own. OTOH it may be that it was an exercise to help the student concerned, and as far as that goes it worked as s/he is happy with the result and can now carve, where s/he apparently couldn't before.

You should see some of the odd things I make peeps do on the slope ... rolling eyes

You need to Login to know who's really who.

easiski, I had a long conversation with my Italian racer/instructor buddy, who categorically stated that Italian coaches work on keeping ski tips level with each other (ie; minimising and managing the tip lead that naturally occurs as a result of high edging angles, steep terrain etc.) - and do not condone advancing the inside ski at all.

I then described your observations to him - and he said that it was likely in the case of junior racers, for them to initially experience high edge angles, they lacked the co-ordination to initiate the carve with ankles, knees, but instead threw the torso/hip into the turn, with the result of large amounts of inclination and a large tip lead. Not something that is the final result, nor was it a step in getting there. Merely that they lacked the finesse to edge with the ankles/knees.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

You'll need to Register first of course.

veeeight, Apart from that it's also adult club racers, this was pretty much as I thought. It's curious though, that it's more pronounced in the italians than in the french for instance if they work against it. BTW your "white pass~" turn - is that what we'd call inclination/anglulation here??? ie start the turn by inclination and then angulate to put the outside ski down and pressured about hald way round?

uktrailmonster, I would say that the pros put themselves under a little more pressure than a recreational skier. the speed and angles are much greater so tip lead is more likely, not less. I would not like to see level tips BTW. OTOH would probably think 20cms a tad on the big side.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Can someone explain why these 'racers' try to reduce inside tip lead?
Is it something to do with being quicker edge to edge as there's less happening 'between' turns? or is there some other reason?
In escence....Why is inside tip lead such a terribly bad thing?

After all it is free

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

hellfiresliding, please let me assure you that I'm not having a go at your German acquaintances, I don't know what they were trying to achieve, or if they were just using it as a drill.

I just strongly objected to the phrase "pushing the inside ski ahead".

By pulling or holding back the inside ski through ankle flex, you ensure:

1. You keep some shin pressure on the inside ski, and thereby ensuring the shovel stays hooked up
2. The hip is in the correct position and not dropped to the inside locked up
3. The pressure buildup is dominant on the outside ski
4. The correct fore-aft relationship is maintained
5. It establishes balance on the ouside ski higher up in the turn
6. It won't disrupts the relationship for natural counter-rotation

However - most importantly - as I'm not being paid for this session (let alone being tipped Razz

) - I've now got to go out in the real world and entertain some real world clients. It's day 3 of a carving moguls clinic, and my knees and back are beginning to complain!

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

hellfiresliding, A large tip lead is often indicative of or causing an excessive counter rotation of the hips, which blocks some of the movement that should be available to you. In other words it prevents your body moving naturally. A large tip lead is virtually inevitable when the skier's body is so close to the snow (high speed and/or a steep slope are required for this) in order to accommodate two legs of roughly the same length but with different degrees of flexion as in the pic above. Our concern in your case is that you seem to have been taught something that is therefore undesirable, or that you will need to "unlearn" at some point.

veeeight, Good vids - Von Grunigen was the master of GS wasn't he? Yes - that's what I meant - aha - another translation. Very Happy

snow reports

Excellent...Thanks everyone.

veeeight, I was

a) wondering how much of the visceral objection back there was to the word/concept of 'step' that would seem to imply a block of weght transfer onto the outside ski?

b) interested in the ankle flex of part 1: how does ankle flex keep the tip hooked up, and is there a femur steering motion?

You know it makes sense.

Warning: Geek content follows:

comprex,

a) No problem with the word/concept "step" - I use step in many situations, drills etc (but mainly on what is about to become the new outside ski). It's the concept of "advancing the inside ski" that I can't quite clearly see the benefits from.

b)

i) ankle flex - for me the most important part of the ski is the shovel, I always try to engage shovels at the start of the turn. It bites, it grips, it helps bend the ski. By maintaining some shin pressure this for me helps keep the shovels in the snow (maintaining a progressively dominant outside ski). I relate shin pressure to ankle flex (holding back the inside foot), and the opposite (opening or extending the ankle) will advance the inside ski, and remove all shin pressure, and the shovel will no longer be in the snow.

ii) femur steering. Hmm. Another can. No active femur "steering" as such, as all I'm trying to do in initiate my edges using a lateral motion with the ankles and knees. However, by initiating with ankles, then knees, the actual biomechanical motion is actually pivoting the femur in the hip socket........

wink

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

veeeight, comprex, I have a problem with the idea of "femur steering" as it suggests to me that you rotate your femurs in the direction of travel and thus they are unlikely to be in line with either your hips or your feet??

veeeight, you are being uncommonly tactful there! in i) all you say is absolutely standard stuff I would have thought. It all starts from the ankle - no shin pressure, no pressure on the ski and no flex, no loading of the tip of the ski, no engagement, no engagement no turn (at least not one where the edges are concerned).

ps: I love step turns - I grew up doing them - I find it relatively hard not to do them - you even see WC racers do them these days in certain circs - but not these sorts of step turns though.

A snowHead

A snowHead

I agree with you, in the sense that the closest parts of the anatomy to the ski are the most important to focus on. When being trained by BASI in 1975 the emphasis was on knee steering, but when another instructor mentioned 'pressing the button' with the big toe I thought that was brilliant - it's such a simple concept to get over to a pupil.

Whatever the femur does should - I'd have thought - be a function of what goes on below the femur. The subtle but powerful actions in controlling a ski should come from the foot.

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

Quick thanks to veeeight and easiski for their comments in this thread, I've found their explanations and video links very interesting (and I hope one day to find them helpful as well although I think the angles shown in some of those photos are beyond me). veeeight would you consider my thanks as a virtual tip? Wink

You need to Login to know who's really who.

veeeight, Not on a chairlift. If I'm standing on my skis, or skiing along and I rotate my femur, my hip joint goes out (ie: rotation). The foot might follow the femur, but as David Goldsmith, says, the feet are more important as everything starts there. I just find this an odd concept.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

rob@rar, Gratefully received wink

It's gratifying to know that someone reads and digests this rubbish lol!

easiski, try it on a chairlift. You can't rotate the hip then! But 100% agree with you that it starts with the feet, I only mentioned femur turning because comprex, brought it up, and I also said "another can (of worms)"......

There are various people out there who promote thigh steering (eg; Warren Smith), I myself play with it from time to time.

When you try it on a chairlift, start the kinetic chain with the feet, and you should find that the femur pivots in the hip socket.

But here's the interesting thing. Edging, with the ankles and knees in a lateral motion, *will* bring about pivoting of the femur in the hip socket, as the knee joint has no sideways movement.

You'll need to Register first of course.

veeeight, I do that on a chairlift every ride as a stretch.

I asked because I had two problems with the explanations to that point:

1) I was not sure whether you wanted to pressure the shovel of the inside ski or not. If you did, that presented a natural cap to weight tranfer to the outside, because the inside boot must be flexed to pull it back. Thus we have two pressured skis on the ground, and, since the arcs don't match, one or the other must be steered.

2) The problem with subtle but powerful actions in controlling a ski coming from the foot is that the muscles there aren't remotely big enough or strong enough. How many skiers go through the ankle strength training speed skaters do? How many can actually flex their ski boots fully with the soles off the ground?

What makes far more sense is that the action is up high and the feedback of the effects of the action is at the foot. 'Step' moves therefore interrupt feedback (not action) and the system is run open-loop until pressured contact reoccurs.

Does this happen anywhere else? Absolutely, and the first example to mind is step climbing. The problems with step climbing as a teaching move for skiing are
a) there is a forward motion, indeed, to eliminate forward motion, one must turn the femur in socket (or lean back to create a virtual 'forward motion' as with ladder climbing).

b) timing- as soon as contact occurs there is weight transfer to the stepping foot and it doesn't stop (making it hard to finish ski turns)

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

veeeight, "start the kinetic chain with the feet, and you should find that the femur pivots in the hip socket. " that's the point surely?

comprex, There is mostly no need to pressure the inside shovel. If you do, as you say, you get two unequal arcs which is why a racer, for instance would do it to gain height into the new turn etc. The inside ski will carve quite nicely, thank you, without much weight on it.

I'm not quite sure why you want to use strength to turn though? Certainly in Europe, and I gather in Canada, NZ and Oz we all think that it all starts at the foot as that's the bit of you that's actually on the ground (or nearly). I don't quite get why you would flex your boots with the soles off the ground?

What do you mean by step climbing? Do you mean beginners climbing up the hill? I don't think so, another translation is required methinks!

petemillis, hard as we try we may both be wrong, but the difference in tilt is not sufficient to overcome the difference in flex between 90% body weight and 10% body weight, so we're restricted to having the arcs match by tilt to only the teeny tiny area around transition, unless we devise L and R skis. 30cm apart might be a reasonable low-speed assumption, but with one knee flexed and the outside leg extended at high speeds, the gap becomes quite a bit bigger, 90cm possible.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

comprex, Actually I never tell peeps to pull the inside ski back - I work on getting a natural stance on the point of balance and do my "signpost arm" thing which sorts out the body position and foot pressure a treat. I suspect that the idea of pulling back the inside ski is actaully to stop them advancing it - not sure, but...

I reckon nearly all learners are kinesthetic learners - except Little Tiger of course.

Aah - much too simple!! there was me looking for some wierdo different thing to do with stepping! Laughing

snow reports

Clearly the outside ski is doing most of the work and the inside ski is going where it's being told to go within the radius of the outside.

You know it makes sense.

Since this thread is still going I thought I'd have a look at it.

I don't get it...which ski is advocated as advanced..inside ski...? It only becomes inside to me once into the turn otherwise its downhill. Surely we aren't talking about that as it would put you in a crap position getting into the turn. Even for short turns, I can't see this being any use.

I can see the point of advancing the uphill, for sure, which becomes the outside ski.......

Otherwise, very confused

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

JT, so am I.

Remember, skiing is fun snowHead

A snowHead

It's not hard to understand - the "inside" is the ski on the inside of the turn. It is perfectly normal for this to slightly lead the outside ski, then during the transition the skis become level as a result of the movement of the legs and body relative to the skis, and the old outside ski becomes the new inside ski at which point it slightly leads the new outside ski. I don't see how it can be referred to as the uphill or downhill ski.
I think the idea of deliberately advancing or pulling back one ski or the other is a red herring and in fact the position of one relative to the other is more a result of the leg position and flexing and body position during the turn. Surely this position will vary from person to person as it all has to do with leg and body geometry?!?!?!

A snowHead

JT, I'm sure you do get it and are just stirring the pot, but just in case. the inside ski becomes the new uphill ski at the end of the turn. Since you don't traverse in between each turn, to think of uphill and downhill skis is, in fact, the red herring - you have inside and outside (that being the turning ski), and hardly ever uphill and downhill!!! Your inside ski would be slightly advanced to help your torso stay fcing slightly to the outside of the turn, but to advance it too much would be to have a negative effect on your body position. Very Happy

petemillis, I agree that deliberately advancing or retarding either ski is probably not a good idea, except that many beginners do need to learn to advance the uphill everything in traverse as otherwise they'd turn their bodies right up the hill! Shocked

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

I've thought about this thigh steering thing a little more, and I've realised that whilst the initiation is done from the ankles, the power needed to steer the skis through demanding terrain (eg: deep heavy snow) comes from the thighs (femur).

You need to Login to know who's really who.

veeeight, the reason I've been thinking about it is fatigue, not the fatigue that occurs through activation of a muscle over a large range of motion, but the fatigue that occurs in holding steady and compensating for external input, much like those vibrating gym machines. A super-sidecut ski (metron, siam, xwing, supershape, magfire) in rutted random density piles would be the worst case scenario, because of the large rotating moment.

The bike no longer cuts it for fitness with modern ski technology; we have to develop t. anterior, hip abductors, gluteals, iliopsoas, r.femoris, the entirety of the ankle assembly almost in preference to the large muscles, and stretch them during the ski day. Another can, but I haven't seen it addressed even in the fitness threads.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

comprex, Good point. Which is why I've always shyed away from gadgets like The Skiers Edge, great for conditioning some muscles, but lacking in conditioning all skiing muscles, no fore-aft component to the device.

You'll need to Register first of course.

I've been doing that "step forward" turn conciously for quite sometime before giving it up. My experience has been, by putting the inside legs forward, it forces me to move my body a bit more forward than I otherwise would. That resulted in helping me to put more weight forward on the outside ski, which helps carving.

But this "step" process totally mess up mogul skiing and powder skiing. I felt it was a crutch to overcome the "sitting back" habit of many skiers. Eventually, I found by concentrating on flexing the ankle and puttting my hands forward, I'm able to pressure my shine on the tongue of the boot without resorting to the "step forward".

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

I've been giving this a bit more thought (should be working really!) in the context of an intermediate skier learning to get away from making a narrow pizza at the start of each turn. If anyone has seen Phil Smith's videos, he talks about "toppling" over into the turn i.e taking support away from the inside foot and allowing yourself to literally topple into the turn. He uses an analogy with walking or stepping forward, where you take away all the support from the foot you are about to step forward and then commit yourself to toppling forward onto it. I'm fairly sure this is along the lines of what hellfiresliding meant by "step carving". He goes on to distinguish this technique from pure carving, where both skis are simply rolled onto their edges without any deliberate toppling over onto the inside ski.

Interestingly if you watch rob@rar's excellent helmet cam video, you can clearly see his inside tip lead through each turn. He almost looks like he's skating in some parts of the footage. I'm not saying this is desirable, just an observation. I think my own "natural" inside tip lead is less pronounced.

veeeight, I see your point about not deliberately forcing, pushing or literally stepping your inside ski forward. That's not something I do anyway. My inside tip lead simply happens by itself as I tip into the turn. I've never consciously made any attempt to reduce my inside tip lead, but I will certainly try this in future. Looking again at some of the top pro racers, it does appear that most of them make an effort to do this. Thanks for the insight on this.

After all it is free

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Help!!

Step Carving

snowHeads Forum Index >>> Bend ze Knees