dodgy technique or useful tactic?

A snowHead

I tend to the view that good skiing is less about sticking to a strict technical purity and more about picking from a selection of skills/tactics depending on the conditions/what you want to achieve but I'd be interested in people's thoughts on the following. Is it badly flawed and if so, what is the downside?

Last week I had a surprisingly good week in La Plagne with the family (surprising given how brown the mountains were).

Early in the morning the pistes were suitably refrozen and hard and I enjoyed working on precise carves. Obviously on gentler/wider slopes its easy but when the terrain is steeper/narrower (I'm only talking about the steeper pitches of La Plagne red runs, not THAT steep!) you need to work harder to control speed without scrubbing off speed in the turns. If you are using a lot of hip angulation then you carve powerfully through the fall-line and finish the turn pointing back up the mountain. Gravity does its work and sheds the speed but you need quite a lot of space to carve back round to the fall-line on the new outside ski (am I making sense here?).

Sometimes you don't have the space and I found a way of making do with less - as I was getting close to the end of one turn, still on the old outside edge, I would release my old inside ski and drift it out into a slight wedge (unweighted at this point) until the leg was quite extended, at this point I would shift my CoG onto the ski so that I picked up the new carve on an angle that was already further towards the fall-line. Timed right, there is no skidding, just a shift from one carve to another but with a change of angle. It felt very good, precise, efficient but for some reason it seems "wrong" to create that wedge. Other than it not being the "done thing" is there a problem?

Hope you can follow my description,
J

A snowHead

Definitely useful tactic. It's probably called in real life a "stem step" or "step Christie". In a race course it would probably be the last element when "skating for line" - used particularly at the start where you don't really have enough speed to get the edge angles you need to make tight turns.

But the question that all this really begs (using that terminology correctly for once Wink

) is - why were you trying so hard to avoid skidding in the first place? Carving all the way is to make you go as fast as you can. It's also fine if you want to deliberately practice the technique of being able to make those tight carves, but it can be really tiring. But if you don't want to go so fast, then simply don't carve so much! Put in a bit of a skid if you want to, it's no crime. It's also much easier Wink

.

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

Carving on early morning boiler plate? Wow, you're braver than me!! My tactic for that sort of snow is simple - off piste!

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The question doesn't make sense to me - if you're going to purely carve a turn it's going to be near the ski's radius in size. Doesn't have to be mega fast like you say, you can maintain speed with carved turns. If that's not suitable, you ideally want to make steered, high edge angle turns. Probably much more challenging to do without having your edge break away, as you have to blend edging and turning the leg (can't remember what non-CSIA bodies call this again) in the hip socket without overcooking either - and the harder the snow, the more delicate the balance is.

The problem is that it's a moment of imbalance as you sort yourself out, and it's a bit redundant when you're trying to make efficient carved turns by picking things up and skipping out phases of the turn you can be doing stuff in (like loading the ski to create pressure/energy to do the fun stuff you probably aspire to if carving is your goal).

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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little tiger, it's hard to disclaimer everything, but the spirit of my response was for jedster's post. Demanding big enough edge angles to bend a ski seems like a big ask in terrain someone's not comfortable enough in.

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

DaveC, hmmmm he did say "not really that steep".... but then you said

After all it is free

Oh, I certainly wouldn't say I was uncomfortable with the terrain! I could have skied it comfortably in many different ways.
I was using a high edge angle to carve turns shorter than my ski radius (18m as it happens). Why do it? Well my feeling is that if you CAN carve on early morning boiler plate then it is much better to do so. Obviously you can control a slide or a skid but you are not in as much control as when you are carving precisely and obviously it feels much better. On piste, I am generally trying to carve whenever its practical but obviously skid/steer/pivot when I need to. I think giving up your edge hold on boil plate is best avoided if possible.

jedster, I was taught two ways(2 different instructors)... one was carve - making sure to engage edge patiently and keep everything moving - no statics...

the other was to steer a very patient steered turn... again gently and patiently... and no static spots again... constant change

So very different styles - but both relying on patience, and continual movements in all directions...

The carving is fun where speed is no issue but I found the steering more useful in that it was more adaptable...

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jedster, yes - I think we are saying the same thing... You accept the skis are going to slide a little - but control where and how that slide occurs... So it occurs in smooth round turn shapes not down the hill sideways direction... It has been variously described to me as 'skiing on eggshells' and 'skiing like you are walking on tissue paper... The trick is not to stop in any one position - as that allows the skis more chance to slide off on you....

Carving is harder as the same need to keep moving is there - but you need a lot of edge finesse skills to engage the edge and keep edge angles changing... the instinct is more to slam the edge on - which will not work...

snow reports

true, you can't just slam on the edges but I also find that you can't be half-hearted with your edge angles or you just won't grip. Somehow you have got to make a very smooth transition to a quite aggressive position... tricky but that's the fun and the challenge isn't it?

BTW, this is something I really struggle to do on fat skis. Last week I was skiing on my stormriders which are basically race construction GS skis with a bit more width (75mm underfoot), they really work on this stuff. I wouldn't manage the transition on my prophet 100s (on steep terrain anyway).

jedster, the guy that taught me the noncarving option did so on skis with no real edge - hence part of the reason to learn how he did it... As he said he just had no edges left on his skis... He would get free skis every year in Whistler, and would use those for a full season there and a season down under... by the end of our season they were running out of edge... so he simply did not sharpen them much... carving was not really a great option for him on a decent refreeze... so he showed me how to do it differently... low edge angles and patience worked pretty well...

You know it makes sense.

jedster,

Help!!

dodgy technique or useful tactic?

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