@AdamNotts, one thing I forgot on the carving is that you'll almost certainly be asked to do some edge-to-edge hops at some point. That is, be carving on toe-edge, hop 180 at edge change and keep carving toe-edge switch. The rotation should be "hardways", i.e. frontside off the toes or backside off the heels. It's not something which is heavily assessed but it does come up.
For the bumps runs, generally I liked them both (regular and switch). In your regular run, you can see the same 2 faults coming through (heel-toe edge change and heelside posture). It was flowy and smooth though. Terrain-wise, for me it was a bit easy. I know it's hard to tell from the camera, but on the face of it, that might be considered more of a bumpy variables pitch with the expectation that you'd make bigger turns at higher speeds on it. Like I said, hard to tell from the camera though, things always look flatter. The bumps exam will mostly be in a tight snowboard rut-line. Hopefully you've had the chance to ride one on your L2 or at some point. If there's a chance to get in a super-tight, ski rut line, that might happen. On a mogulled piste, you'd be expected to ride a tighter line than in your videos. Maybe not quite zip-lining it, but only going round one bump at a time for sure.
Weirdly, I actually liked your switch bumps run more than the regular one. Same heelside issue, but I thought the heel-toe edge change position was slightly better. Maybe a little bit of shoulder going on, but overally pretty sweet - your switch should be pretty close to the level if that's how you ride across the strands. I've been told the same thing on a BASI exam before (that they liked my switch run better!), I think some of us who have been riding for years self-taught have all kinds of bad habits in our regular riding, but then learned to ride switch "properly"!
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?
@karansaraf, ok, quite nice for the length of time you've been riding, but a few things going on. It's nice and smooth, but the turns are quite washy.
First thing I would say is that you're stood very tall a lot of the time. If there's a 1-10 scale where 1 is fully squatted and 10 is locked-out straight legs, you're riding at around a 9 a lot of the time. You want to drop it down a couple of notches and try to stay there as much as possible. Your front leg in particular is very straight.
Second thing is that you're stood in a very open position most of the time - that is, your shoulders are turned to the left and your back hand is coming round.
I'd focus on those things first. Drop lower and try to keep your shoulders in line with the board. Try to make rounds turns which finish with your board traversing across the hill, getting grip from both feet. To get grip on toe-edge, drop your shins into your boots, really flex low and feel the support from your boots. To get grip on heel-edge, pull up hard with your feet, like you're trying to touch your toes to your shins. Cbeck out the carving runs that Adam posted for a pretty strong example.
Beyond that, I'd be looking to develop strong pedaling and a smooth edge change, but I don't want to throw out too much info at once! Wouldn't hurt to get some advanced lessons.
A general point for everyone (I've mentioned straight front legs a few times) is that we NEVER want to open our ankle joints when snowboarding. Imagine you're holding a couple of tennis balls in between your foot and your shin and you don't want to let them drop.
Last edited by Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see? on Fri 17-04-20 13:24; edited 2 times in total
Shockingly that was 10 years ago. Last season I swapped the board out to something a tad shorter and softer. The boots finally died this winter, Salomon beginner boots of some sort. I can't believe the price of boots !
At some point I was tempted to do the BASI L2 bit not really fussed now. I'd like to sort the steep variable though. Steeps on piste or smoother snow are 'ok'.
Yeah - switch I guess is the only bit of training that I really did manage to nail this year. Obviously instructing I teach in whichever stance the learner wants, and I'd say that 2/3 of people ride regular for whatever reason, so I rode a lot in regular. I had one kid that I taught over the season and we were getting pretty advanced towards the end of it, 180s and ollies, which for me were switch 180s and ollies. Normally when riding switch I'm aware of it because my front leg feels a bit weird, but there was a day in Jan when I was doing switch ollies with this kid when that feeling just went away. I lost all sense of equilibrium on the hill - I didn't know which way I was facing any more, started to feel a bit sick and there was this bizarre tearing sensation down the middle of my brain! Nothing to do with the weather - totally bluebird. All of which is a very long-winded way of saying that I'm fairly happy with my switch level and I can ride most terrain in switch reasonably happily, carving, off-piste etc.
I totally get what you mean about switch feeling more textbook too - much less time to learn bodges.
For the bumps, unfortunately that was all we had here! Nothing bumpier than that, and definitely no rut-lines. Maybe we'd have put something in as things got softer. I sometimes ride it straighter, but too late to video anything now of course. I really loved that lift, it was a really fast lap, quieter than the rest of the resort and had some nice off-piste options - trees, deep snow.
Thanks very much for all the feedback. Like I said, I'm thinking about the 3 next year, and if I base myself in Tignes I'll save a ton of money in travel and hotels. For the coach, I don't think I'll have any option as to the order of the exams, but wasn't it the first one this year anyway? So if I could sit coach, tech, teach in that order over 3 weeks that would be perfect. The other option would be say coach and teach in Tignes, train another month and then go for the tech in Tux. I'm already a big fan of the splitboard, so not too daunted by the mountain safety, and everything else is ticked off, so hopefully get my ISIA in 2021... Then for the ISTD, again looking forward to the EMS, but a little bit worried about FIS points. If there are any FIS races in NZ that would be amazing, hopefully be back there for June-Oct 2021.
The other thing that I'm enjoying from this thread is doing my own critiques on the other riders - perfect for L3 teach prep!
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
@AndAnotherThing.., your riding is quite tidy, but the main thing for me is that you're riding front-foot heavy across all the different terrain types. It's most obvious on the variables. Your front leg is straight and you pivot around it as you make your turn. In the deep snow, you can see that this leaves you with no range of movement in your legs to account for the depth of the snow, so you have no control until you get towards the end of the turn where all the pressure comes on at once, which is why you find it hard to control the end of the turn (coming to a stop a few times and falling over once!).
First of all, think about getting lower in your stance, especially in the variables. When you get in deep snow, you should be riding a notch or two lower than in hard snow anyway, as your board can now move in 3 dimensions instead of 2 (i.e. up and down into the snowpack as well as left/right and back/forward across it) so you need to have more range of movement available in your legs to account for that.
The next thing I would probably try to get you doing would be "matching". With every turn, as soon as you feel the edge engage on the front foot after the edge change, immediately match that with your back foot. That's to say, work the back ankle joint hard, either driving your shin into your boot on toe edge or cranking up with your foot (trying to touch toes to shin) on heel edge and immediately start to shift weight back towards the back foot. Play with this in your carving. Your carving is tidy, but quite static. Stand a little lower, match with the back foot as above and play with shifting weight towards the back foot. You should feel the turn tighten-up as you shift aft. Long carving turns give you time to play with this so you can get an idea of how far back you need to go, what might be too far, etc. You can then transfer this movement to the other strands. Once you get a feel for how the aft movement affects the turn, play with the timing. As above, you might spend 1 second shifted to your front foot, 1 second changing edge and the whole rest of the turn (2-8 seconds) gradually shifting aft.
Once you have the hang of the fore-aft movement, you can look at counter-pedalling as well. If you've done BASI 1, you should be familiar with the idea of initiating a turn through pedalling. You can then shape the second half of the turn by reversing the twist/pedal in your board. Once you've "matched" the back foot as above, you can start to "de-pedal" the front foot. Again, this should tighten up the turn.
Watch your toe-heel edge change. You don't always make a full lateral movement. Sometimes your legs sweep underneath your body, leading to a break at the waist when you're on your heels. It's most obvious in your carving video, but you can see it the other strands too.
Overall, your riding is pretty tidy - the above is the kind of feedback you'd be getting on a BASI 2. Being "stuck on the front foot" is a really common issue for people at BASI2 level. Probably because we all get told to "get on the front foot" so much when we're learning!
After all it is free
After all it is free
Quote:
The other thing that I'm enjoying from this thread is doing my own critiques on the other riders - perfect for L3 teach prep!
Feel free to chip-in!
You'll have to do pretty much exactly this exercise on the Teach. See a video of someone riding. Watch it twice (only!) at normal speed. From that, analyse the rider, identify their faults and suggest drills/progression to improve their technique.
Last edited by After all it is free on Sun 19-04-20 0:09; edited 1 time in total
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
@stevomcd, Cheers, that's really interesting and thanks for your kind words on my riding.
I've never quite able to put my finger on the issue with the steep variables. I'd assumed that it was fore\aft (being back) and confidence, in that when I look at the footage I see a fair amount of upper body rotary, and it's rushed in the fall line. I certainly don't feel comfortable compared to skiing it which would be a pleasure. Easier angled ground is much less of a problem.
On the 'red' shorts I noticed an asymmetry between the toe and heal, washing out on the toe a little, which I'd put down to boot and binding (flow) combo.
I've never noticed a difference in time between the front and rear engaging so that's something I'll work on, along with the fore\aft movement you suggest. Same for the foot peddling. I teach it to my beginners but don't often use it when boarding for my self. #dontbelazy !
Quote:
Watch your toe-heel edge change. You don't always make a full lateral movement. Sometimes your legs sweep underneath your body, leading to a break at the waist when you're on your heels. It's most obvious in your carving video, but you can see it the other strands too.
Can you explain further or point to a vid or till ? To get more lateral movement it follows that I'd need to extend my legs more ? In my original drafted reply I was going to suggest cross under but I may have the wrong end of the stick.
Do you have any boot recommendations ? Comfort for walking the main requirement.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
@AndAnotherThing.., your variable turns are rotated and rushed mostly just because you're standing too tall. You can barely get the board in contact with the snow, which is why you're having to force it. Stand lower, keep some bend in the front leg at all times and go from there.
Lateral movement isn't related to leg extension. You can make a strong lateral movement whether your standing tall or squatted low. Slow your carving video down and look at your toe-heel edge change. Your posture is pretty solid on your toe edge, with your ankles, hips and shoulders nicely stacked one above the other. As you transfer to your heel edge, your upper body stays in more or less the same position, with your spine at the same angle, and you change edge by bringing your feet across. By the time you're on your heel edge, your hips are way outside the board and you're no longer stacked. To get more edge angle, you then have to drop your hips even further. It's hard on heelside to get really, really, draw-a-line-with-a-ruler stacked, but you want a straight line drawn down from your shoulders through your hips and on down to the ground to be pretty close to the edge of your board. It's even harder when you're wearing a pack!
As you make the edge change, think about tipping your shoulders back as the first movement you make and, at the same time, pulling up with your feet to keep your ankle joints closed.
Here's the BASI 1 tech standards video, you can see the carving section at around 3:00 onwards:
Boots-wise, I'm really liking Salomon boots at the moment, riding Synapse Boa. If you're a BASI member, you should be able to get a Salomon discount.
With boots though, it's all about what fits your feet. It's been mentioned already in this thread, you do need some ankle movement to snowboard properly, so you don't necessarily need crazy, crazy stiff boots. I used to have Malamutes, but took it down a notch to the Synapse for this reason.
Deelux and Ride also make really good quality boots. Adidas getting good feedback too.
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.
@stevomcd, Cheers Steve. It's a shame that it will be a while before I get on snow and have a play. The last boots were Salomon and were excellent so I'm happy to continue.
One last question\clarification - when you say lower - this in the legs to prevent a break at the waist ?
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
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
@AndAnotherThing.., yes, lower in the legs. Not particularly to avoid breaking at the waist, in the variables it's all about keeping the board in good contact with the snow and maintaining a good range of motion.
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
@stevomcd,
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
I do like the official BASI "Monkey on Xanax" arms.
I wanna get back into doing more boarding - maybe COVID will enable it if travel next season is restricted to Europe and personal vehicle only.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
@stevomcd, I picked up a pair of boots on the pro deal - "Synapse Wide JP" - First impressions are that they are nice boots. Apparently they are good for hiking so will be good for walking up and down the plastic at the local slope
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Cool, the Synapse are super-nice, I'm a big fan.
Be sure to get them heat-moulded too if you have any pressure points, they respond pretty well to it. I just do mine at home using the sock full of rice technique. I've managed to make a huge and instant difference to some of my foot issues (bunion and heel spurs).
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?
@stevomcd, Cheers - I've been wearing them in the office here for a couple of mornings and they feel better already. Roll on Autumn...
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
