Been watching lessons on carving but a little confused about something!

A snowHead

Hi,

Happy new year to all.

Ok, so I have been watching a few videos on youtube around carving - hoping to learn how to do it this year.

I've seen/heard on multiple videos now that when rolling your ankles your shoulders should point in the opposite direction - example if I roll my ankles to the left, shoulders should turn to the right. Some videos even say as a drill to roll ankles to the left, then take your left hand and place it on your right nee cap - this forces your shoulders to turn right and also help to roll your ankles to roll left by pushing your nee cap left also.

Question is, if your shoulders are turning to the opposite direction (45 degrees say) doesn't this mean your not now pointing down the fall line? All videos on posture say your upper body should point down the hill and your hips and legs should do all the work.

Any thoughts or advice on this?

Thanks very much.

A snowHead

I'd keep shoulders fairly in line with the fall line. No expert but I would say find an easy green or blue to practice on, you can pick up quite a bit of speed even on those.

Hopefully one of the instructors who post will be along soon.

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

open_sesame, in carving, your shoulders stay broadly in line with your skis all the way round the turn (as opposed to always down the fall line as your skis rotate underneath you across the fall line in short turns).

However, the most effective "stacked" natural carving position places your chest/shoulders slightly outside the line that your skis are taking. It is slight, nothing like 45 degrees. That drill is an effective one to stop people who have rotational issues when trying to carve but you must be careful not to slat your skis with the inside ski a long way forward of the outer one. If you do that you'll end up in the 45 degree position which is not strong.

If you look at this still, you can clearly see that his skis are pointing directly at the camera but his chest is still outside the line.

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Thanks very much for both your reply and specially raceplate for the detailed advice.

So your saying a slight turn is correct but maybe only a few degrees - I have to admit when I do turn my shoulders a little and plant my weight more I feel a lot more balanced and stable, like my weight is distributed correctly.

What im looking to do is take some of the speed out of skiing steep runs without having to do parallel turns as this usually kills off speed completely.

I assume there is a time to carve and a time to parallel ski even for the pros, or are they carving all the time just with a little bit of skidding as well?

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Carving and skiing parallell are not two separate things. the skier in the picture is carving a parallel turn.

I am guessing that at this moment in the picture, he is going at his fastest ate downhill. As the turn continues, his speed will be the same, but his rate of travel downhill could reduce to zero if he points his skis straight across the slope. Then he rolls his skis over the other way, speeds up downhill going round a semicircle and repeats.

Possibly, when you refer to a 'parallel turn' killing speed completely, you are referring to skidded parallel ?

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open_sesame, by the sound of things, you're not that experienced and are perhaps getting ahead of yourself and confused about terminology. A lot of youtube carving videos are bollox so I wouldn't rely too much on them. Good shoulder/chest direction is a natural occurrence in carving but not something to concentrate on when first learning. Carving starts from the feet up and it's your foot/leg movements you should be concentrating on.

This is as good an explanation as any: http://www.realskiers.com/shapeshifter.html

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

+1 A private lesson with some practice suggestions is money well spent.

After all it is free

Hi Open_sesame,
Im not an instructor but have been on the piste for many years and made the transition from punter to racer in my youth. IMHO there are 2 types of skiing, one that slows you down and one that speeds you up! If you ski for pleasure you will be wanting to use the latter more often than not which does not really involve carving turns as they should if executed correctly accelerate you. If you do want to learn carved turns then most of the advice about turning the shoulders against the direction of turn is correct to a certain degree and is extreemely usefull in drills and over extensions during the learning process.
Old style skis of yesteryear needed a huge amount of commitment and pressure to form the correct shape to carve and as such it was a leap of faith that had to be done at reasonable speed. With todays modern carver skis just trying a few simple exercises at low speed on green runs can give you the basics of how to do it but in order to be on the inside edge especially at lower speeds the upper body has to haging out in order to maintain balance. A good starting exercise for me was to go into a very loose tuck position and the rotate the uper body one way or the other slightly on a nice gentle slope. If you rotate to the right and alow the hips to follow they will go insde the line of the skis, the inner ski will naturally slide forward and you will find the inside edge of both skis if you maintain good balance. This should set you off on a nice gentle carving turn and its all downhill from there on!

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

open_sesame, And if you want to slow down, just turn further into the hill, whether carving or slipping. Carried to extreme this will bring you to a stop.

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Ok so just a big thank you to everyone on this thread. All responses are great and I have taken note of some of the advice given, ta.

So everyone knows this is my fourth time going skiing (in Jan) off to Avoriaz.

Another question is this: My girlfriend has skied from a very young age, we worked it out and she has been about 25 times - when she skies she keeps her boots almost touching all the time even on reds and blacks but another thing she does is alternate her skies one in front of the other (which I don't do).

So it looks like she is almost going straight down with no turns but as she goes down one ski moves maybe half a foot in front then the other moves half a foot in front and so on.

I asked her why she does it and she said she honestly doesn't no.

Anyone know what she is doing her and why? Im going to guess and say she is turning but so little I cant see it - instead of actually turning like I do she is use to the speed and therefore only needs to snake slightly which is what the ski in front of the other is doing.

Thanks.

snow reports

open_sesame, your girlfriend sounds like she skis like an old Frenchman. wink

My son skied with a young Frenchman some years ago and I followed them, at more elderly speed, down the slopes. I noticed that they got to the bottom round about the same time. they were both very good skiers but the French guy went down in the manner you describe (a kind of sashay bum wiggle) and my son carved huge great arcs. I'd say my son had twice the fun - he certainly did twice the distance in the same time. I don't think you can carve turns with your boots glued together. The French guy, who was fairly penniless, had borrowed old rear entry boots and huge long skinny skis from a mate. He only came a bit unstuck on a mogul field made by people on much shorter skis. wink

Your girl friend might enjoy a few private lessons to bring her technique up to date.

You know it makes sense.

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

Maybe so, she did mention about getting some lessons to get better.

I personally would be more than happy to ski like these old boys, to me they look amazing -
http://youtube.com/v/gwJ7fuA3fsM

A snowHead

open_sesame,

A snowHead

I resisted the transition to carvers longer than most, prefering to stick with the supposed better straight line stability of 2m GS skis which did carve turns but with a half mile radius at mach1!. I was hooked on the new carvers within hours of putting them on. Being a biker, I love the sensation of cornering, getting my butt as close to the ground as possble getting close to the limit of tyre / ski grip.
When a ski carves, it's like going from a speedway bike sliding inefficiently round the corners, to a gp bike on a fairly fixed path with little or no side slippage. It's very difficult to get skis to carve if they are very close. Your GF will enjoy the ski holiday more if she opens her legs a bit Toofy Grin

To get skis to carve, I find I really do need to get my weight forward, really putting pressure on my shins and ball of the foot all the way through the turn to keep the ski gripping the snow. A hard part is not losing your nerve as the skis accelerate when they point straight down the slope, just stick with it and continue the turn back "uphill" to lose the speed

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

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Definitely get lessons. I would recommend focussing much more on stance, how your body weight is distributed and flexing the knees so that the skis to do the hard work, rather than worrying about finer points of technique, about which, as you will see from the responses, opinions vary.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

[quote="tangowaggon"] Your GF will enjoy the ski holiday more if she opens her legs a bit Toofy Grin

quote]

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Got to say good luck to your girlfriend, dropping the 'bum wiggle, boots glued together technique' was the most difficult thing I have ever had to learn on a slope.

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

After all it is free

Get a day with fresh powder on the pistes and persuade her to demo a pair of 120mm underfoot fat skis and it'll be impossible for her not to have a nice shoulder width stance Laughing

Some funny responses here, good to see a little humour among the ski crowd.

So final question: Is this instructor doing it wrong? Almost every pole plant lesson I have seen is doing it like this, im not questioning anyone's advice im just trying to understand it better.

http://youtube.com/v/pY8z1hTeG0w

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open_sesame, I think that's a good drill. Use it sometimes myself.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

open_sesame, that drill/video is for short turns, your asking about longer turns/carving aren't you??

snow reports

That's interesting, haven't had a lesson since the early 90's but now on carvers I find myself doing exactly as shown. Up till now I had been worried that even though it felt OK, I was incorrectly trailing my pole through the turns, but that is just how it looks in the video.

open_sesame, I used to ski like your GF and got ridiculed by my kids and their instructor, but that's how we used to ski and I had done it for 20 years. I then took the plunge and struggled to adapt.

For me it was really hard I spent all my free time on a two weeks course trying perfect my carving so I could show consistency at the level required to pass the course.

On a good note when she does bumps she has an advantage as those that have only carved struggle to reduce the width of their stance Smile

old school does help at times lol.

You know it makes sense.

rob@rar, I wasn't clear from that video how the pole drill worked - you draw a straight line down the slope then plant your pole on it? Was that what he was doing with his squatty plough - drawing that line?

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

pam w, Yes, that was Jonny Nomates being his own buddy drawing a line for himself to use later.

A snowHead

Something that really helped me when I was at about the same point as you was a ski instruction video that didn't just say "put it on the edge and press in to the front of the boot and you will turn" but explained why.

If you take one of your modern carever skis and place it across the slope on the uphill edge you'll see it only touches at the tip and tail. If you then press down around the binding, simulating your weight on the ski it will flex like a bow and the whole edge touch the snow. To do that it's had to bend and now forms a curve. If you now slide it back/forth it will form a turn.

When you're making a 'normal' turn you partly use this bow and partly force the turn. Your pressing in to the front of the boots so bending the ski but putting the weight over the front. The fronts follow their natural turn but the backs can slide. This makes a quicker turn, generates a lot more friction controlling speed and sends that little spray of snow behind you.

When you make a carving turn you are just using the skis natural turn. You put it on the edge, the ski forms a bow and you just let it do it's thing. Because you aren't forcing it and sliding the tail of the skis you don't get the spray of snow, just a pair of perfect lines cut in the snow. Of course not sliding the tails means the turn takes longer and a lot less friction is generated to cut your speed.

At 4 weeks you can start trying carving turns but save them those flat, wide traverses between lift stations. They actually help keep you on your edges, so in control - not getting lazy because you've just come down that red without a problem and this is just flat so you can just stand there can't you... Queue embarrassing fall on flat ground in front of loads of people Embarassed

Help!!

Been watching lessons on carving but a little confused about something!

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