Carving with both skis

A snowHead

I can carve with the outside ski. I want to carve with both skis but when I try the two skis take different lines and either cross or fly apart. Messy.

Is there something I need to do with how much weight I put on each ski?
Is there another stage I need to master (e.g. carving inside ski only) before I can try both?

A snowHead

Try it off piste. In deeper snow, if you put all the weight on the outside ski, you'll spin around, so you're forced to put at least some weight on the inner one. I'm not saying that if you can ski off piste, you can carve on piste, but if you can carve (i.e. not pivot) off piste, your inside leg must be holding roughly 50% of the weight.

Once you get back on piste, you'll know the correct feeling on the inner ski -- it won't feel weighted, just solidly attached to the snow.

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

Thats a big question bh, there are a few things to consider. I will dip a toe in the water hopefully other will chip in.

Without seeing you ski I have no idea if your stance is contributing to your "messiness" but I suspect it is, also as you have identified weighting is also likely to be a big factor.

Warren Smith runs excellent week courses that teach how to carve on both skis, check out his web site for some free video tips.

Trying to sort it on your own will be hard but a couple of things to try that will help, are "pivot slips" to improve edging accuracy, and skiing on one ski to help find that elusive out side edge.

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bh, If your inside ski is taking a different line to your outside ski while carving, it's likely that it's not tilted to the same angle, which causes it take a different track.

Another possibility is that you are 'dropping' onto your inside ski through lack of support from your outside ski. This could be because you are simply not going fast enough, or more likely, your lateral movement with your hips and upper body is too harsh. This causes you to stand on the inside ski which bends and tilts it more than you are expecting.

Finally it's also possible that if your skis are 'crossing', they are not on the same edge - ie, both ski's are on the 'inside' edge - but I suspect not in your case.

To resolve these issues find some really easy terrain and build it up slowly.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

bh, ignore the last 3 posts and take a lesson. But - all your weight on the outside ski, balance on that edge, if that's what you're doing your inside ski will follow the same arc by default - you should be able to carve on one ski and have the inside off the ground completely (that's hard, but you can test it by tapping/lifting the tail/trying to have your inside ski feel light).

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bh, I agree with david@mediacopy - in as much as we can diagnose anything without seeing you ski. The ski crossing could well be that you're not tilting the inside ski enough - it's not a natural movement to move the knee laterally to the same extent as it moves medially. Also, almost every time the outer ski flies away it's because you have too much weight on the inside ski - and very commonly it's because you've fallen onto the inside ski as he describes - this removes pressure from the outside ski and stops it bending.

One of the best things to do to start with is railroad turns on a very easy blue or green slope. Stand so your feet are hip width apart then move slowly making gentle turns just by rolling the knees, and concentrating on keeping the distance between the knees the same as the feet. Really work on the precision until you've got it nailed. There are several good exercises to try and keep the shins parallel. 1) For each turn, push the inside knee into the turn with the palms of your hands. 2) Place a pole across your knees and hold it onto each knee with your hands - this will guarantee your knees stay the same distance apart, so make sure your feet do so also. 3) Get a bungy and tie it round your knees so there's just enough tension to hold it in place - then ski without letting it drop.

Once you get the basic stability at low speed and gentle turns, you can work on tightening the turns and increasing the speed and use more hip movements rather than the knee movements above.

The other thing that will help you to avoid dropping onto the inside is to be very aware of keeping your shoulders level - to stop the inside shoulder dropping into the turn (a problem I'm all too familiar with). This means you then angulate at the hips. The best way I've found of doing this recently is to watch your inside hand in the corner of your eye - make sure it does not drop down towards your waist. A good specific drill to practice is to ski down holding a pole in front of you, keeping it level with the horizon (or looking at the horizon just under the pole). To step it up a bit, balance a ski-pole on the backs of your hands and make sure it doesn't drop off sideways as you make the turns. This doesn't work so well as you get to higher speeds though, as the centrifugal force pulls the pole to the outside of the turn anyway, and you have to start banking again to keep it in place.

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As said above, get a lesson.

If you find your skis moving apart (ie the opposite of crossing) it *could* mean that you are leaning into the turn to much, getting too much weight over the inside ski. It's impossible to really say without seeing you ski though.

After all it is free

bh, A nice trick (for drills) I was once taught was to touch your downhill boot with your downhill hand, this will force your inside knee into the hill thereby achieving angulation - which seems to be what you're lacking right now.

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david@mediacopy,

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Hurtle, Cheers Very Happy

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bh, Klaus Mair gives a great yet simple demonstration of carving at
http://youtube.com/v/vlzIkIQa3e0.

Hi again everyone. Thanks very much for all the comments so quickly.
I have lessons next week, but I want to go in with some different ways of looking at it - you never know how well you'll click with an instructor.
Already do the "touching the downhill boot" thing - very useful. I like to think my carving on the outside ski is OK.

Will definitely THINK about rotating my hip. If I also DO it, who knows what might happen. I'll tell you how it goes.
I foresee lots of messiness for a couple of days until I've sussed it. Smile

You know it makes sense.

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

Harald Harbs "Phantom Move" is pretty interesting regarding the inside ski:

http://youtube.com/v/rJwrd4ys6Zs

Its more about how to initiate a new turn, but ive played around with this quite a bit and sure enough, it seems to work...what i experienced was some kind of difference between "weighting", which i wasnt doing, and "applying moderate pressure" which i was...the inside ski seemed to find the right line and consequently a feeling of great stability from both skis carving...

Interestingly, watch GS/super G skiers and you will see exactly this Phantom Move - as the pressure from the old outside ski is almost gone, it is lifted slightly and tipped to the little toe edge as it crosses the fall line and becomes the new inside ski, and this initiates the new turn...

Give it a go, its pretty interesting!

A snowHead

Forget all of the above, its all nonsense.

Start by practising Javelin turns. You turn on your outside ski, inside edge and lift the inside ski and cross it over the top of your turning ski.

Then try traversing across the slope on your upper ski on the little toe edge, your downhill ski lifted off the slope, do this until you can do it with both legs. Then try tipping the downhill ski down the slope, your outside ski with naturally tilt onto the inside edge and you will follow the inside ski around in a carved turn before you transfer weight onto your upper ski again. Do this until you can link some turns. This gets you feeling about keeping weight on the little toe edge of the upper ski. Now you can start linking your carved turns.

A snowHead

davidof, I'd say ignore your post too and get guided through all of the random drills people are wibbling about by an instructor, on snow. Javelin turns are another easy drill to cheat at or mis-use and not particularly appropriate here, especially as they require a reasonably high level of balance in the first place and are one of the higher risk drills too.

Here's a really important thing about drills and general ski lessons - they're aimed at fixing one issue, on one day, for one person. Drills can be re-appropriated or re-focused to work on pretty much anything. I could get you to do javelin turns to work on pivoting, or balancing on the edges, or even just for stance/mobility. Just because you've used it, or it's worked for you, doesn't really give it any relevance to another persons skiing.

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

glad to see no one is agreeing about anything related to instruction Toofy Grin

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skimottaret, but most of them agree to disagree Toofy Grin

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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

skimottaret, Puzzled

. david@mediacopy and I are saying largely the same thing, and that vid from lordjohn is showing another variation of the basic railroad and angulation drills, which is what Alexandra and harriet have picked up on. So not too much disagreement there. The ones I would disagree with are awf, and davidof - which do virtually nothing about the stated problem - and DaveC's first post, which addresses what the OP says he can already do, and I don't agree at all that the inside ski will follow the outer by default. Once you get past the religiosity of his delivery, I'm also warming towards what shiva_71 was talking about, although that's probably a step or two beyond where the OP ought to be focussing at present. Maybe a little disagreement in focus and detail, but you're not going to get anything close to agreement in detail without being able to see the OP ski - which we're pretty much all agreed on.

I actually would place a fairly large bet on the fundamental problem being the inside ski being edged a bit but too flat, too much under the body and with poor weighting control - insufficient weight on it would keep it tracking straight, and too much would cause the outer to straighten and fly away. The origin of that angle mismatch also may be that the skis are too far apart by default (say maybe shoulder width), so making it very difficult to get the inner knee far enough into the turn. This would also come out in the railroad exercise.

After all it is free

Nice to see some discussion again in BZN - it was getting dull wink

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Wouldn't like to make much comment from experience as I'm still in early stages of improving my turns myself however I would recommend this website for guidance on where things might be going wrong. I had a dry slope lesson today and found that having watched some of these afterwards (carving, better turns, advanced turns vids etc) it really confirmed more of what I was working on today and I found them helpful Smile

The tips are given by Bode Miller and Phil McNichol

http://www.sportskool.com/sports/skiing

http://www.sportskool.com/videos/carving

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DaveC,

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Was teaching a group today with just the same problem. Too much weight on the outer ski when off piste - we have shed loads of powder at the moment (and still snowing now) so quite soft skiing needed at intermediate level.
Came up with this (although almost certainly been thought of before).
Practice on-piste. When you half way though a carved turn try bringing the outer ski forward – this way you “have” to apply some pressure to the inner ski.
Seemed to work for the group today, so may be worth a try

david@mediacopy, also it's a lot harder/braver/more unwise to inclinate off piste, so there's way less pressure building underfoot - "weight" and "pressure" are easily confused. To me, two-footed-ness is more a steering thing than a weight distribution thing.

Wayne, really, really confused by that one. Driving the outside ski forward would open up the ankle, and potentially blow up a knee if the client tried too hard - why would it bring your weight inside, and why would you want to? Doing it in the fall line (I assume that's half way) doesn't really seem like it helps either? The only thing I can really see it being helpful for is the fact it'll make carving harder, so they'll have to skid their turns more, probably making life easier?

You know it makes sense.

DaveC,

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

bh, Carving on one ski isn't carving. Before starting to carve, please, improve your balance on your outside leg, keep your outside leg soft, flexible.
And then start on a green run with a very low stance, skis apart and roll both your feet. Imagine both your feet in one boot. Work with both your feet, roll both your feet. We are not carving with the hips like a banana!!! Behind you you can see two rails if you are carving properly. If not it's not a carving turn. Your ski tips should be nearly same level ; often the people have their top ski too far forward and like that it's impossible to carve. Good luck. And slowly you will practice on steepers runs, increase the angulation, will be playing with the attractive force and the centrifuge force, playing with the terrains, using different radius, ... Skiing is just a funny game.

A snowHead

snowarea, that's my belief, but I asked a CSCF3 race coach who said it was unusual but not impossible Confused

A snowHead

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

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Wayne, might be somewhere the CSIA manual disagrees with BASI - I'm pretty sure there's no mention or desire to pressure the inside ski in the entire manual.

nessy, pretty much how I see it. Inside ski naturally builds a small amount of pressure and tracks inside the outer ski which is acting as the base of support.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

DaveC, does the manual go as far as telling you how to teach students to carve? (From memory) I don't think the BASI one does either, the "step by step guide" is limited to the Central Theme and designed for entry level instructors. But what it does talk about in the section beyond the Central Theme is blending the elements, so as far as steering it concerned for example, varying the inputs of pressure, edging and rotation, to achieve different outcomes. If you are going to carve properly, you will need to have some degree of pressure on the inside ski, and I don't think I've ever been on a training course that hasn't explored the balance of pressure between the inside and outside ski and how you can play around with it.

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nessy, of course it is. You're quite right. snowHead

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

After all it is free

Elephant turns? What's them then?

Almost certainly got other names, as I have seen almost all teachers using this type of drill with many differing levels of students.

Basically a method of getting intermediates to have a down-hill component/section in a turn. ie, not Z shaped.

Point skis (parallel) down the fall line. Count 1 Elephant, 2 Elephant, 3 Elephant, etc, etc - depending on level of student (and speed req. prior to 2nd part of the drill), then
Rotate skis across fall line then absorb and slide prior to the application of pressure on the outer ski's inside edge
or
Apply pressure into a carve
Tilt outside ski
Press
Anything else you can thnink that needs work on
etc
etc
etc

I use them all them time
Note the terrain is the guiding factor and this depends on the level of the class

.

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Ah - funnily enough I was doing similar on Dendix with my group last night Toofy Grin

Help!!

Carving with both skis

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