nicholaswmin

Yes, this was understood. When I say "rider pressure" I mean an intentional extension by my legs with the sole purpose of exerting additional pressure. Similar to the movement I would make if I was squatting on a scale and I wanted that scale to momentarily register a higher weight than I am. I suppose I could have gone further and say you can have positive rider pressure and negative rider pressure (the intentional flexion to absorb an outside pressure). In both cases though it involves a flexion or extension with the intention of altering the pressure on the board. By "Outside pressure" I refer to the forces that are exerted on the board while turning that are a result of either centrifugal force or my momentum/inertia because of the various variables you mentioned in your previous post. However, it specifically excludes "rider pressure". Maybe "turn pressure" is a better term. For example, a static rider standing as tall as a pole on a board that is turning = 100% turn pressure. Theres no leg muscle involvement so 0% zero rider pressure. "pressure" is the overall pressure that is causing the board to bend. If I could freeze a point in time during a turn, I could express it like so: board flex = edge angle + pressure pressure = turn pressure + rider pressure. Then again this are all interconnected so maybe that's me oversimplifying again. I'll drop the overanalysis for now and start a bit fresh. I did not borrow the term "outside pressure" from the video so no confusion there. I just gave it a confusing name. I'm not the best at establishing terminology at this point Clear. Time for a break. I'm visualising movements and sequences that I could might as well watch in the videos. I'll watch the videos again and pay extra attention to when some movement starts and how it evolves as the turn progresses. Clear. I have more than enough material and clear instructions. I will do this after the break. Much appreciated for all this, I could not have expected more. I'll get back to this soon.

Aham, I'll think about all the points given, watch the video and get back with a reply --- Before I go, I'll restate my new understanding: The primary benefit of the down-unweighting and the afforded extension is the ability to create early high edge angles. This alone can be sufficient to also create the necessary early pressure hence drive the turn, because of momentum (the turn/outside forces). The ability to also actively push on the board during that extension is of secondary benefit. It can aid by adding more "artificial/rider" pressure but it's not a required ingredient for early pressure. I think I've overestimated the significance of the active push on the board by the rider and underestimated the significance of the early edge angle. --- I'll explain my train of thought: There is a need for higher edge angles throughout the turn but also a high edge angle sooner. So there isn't just "early pressure". There is also "early edge angle". We've established that very early in this thread but I'm only now getting it's importance. Early edge angle is creating early pressure. At turn initiation I am not yet angulated/inclined. A down-unweighted has me flexed low after the edge change. Being in a low position immediately after the edge change gives me the chance to start extending, angulate/incline and quickly create a higher edge angle, sooner. In contrast, an up-unweighted/cross-over has me extended after the edge-change. By the time it takes to flex low again in order to crank a higher angle, it is too late. I may have already established this in the previous post.. .. but I think I've underestimated it. In my mind it was something like "oh yes sure ill just (magically?) max out board angle then extend. Then the extension just allows me to maintain that angle via some way i'll understand better later. At least I can finally push on the board and bend it tighter." That's false. The creation of an "early board angle" is a consequence of being able to extend. It doesn't happen much before that extension begins. It's also the most important bit. Then your statements here: and here: indicate that the higher edge angle is enough to make the board turn, which by itself also generates outside pressure. So early edge angle = early pressure automatically. Early pressure can also be maximised from the rider pushing on the board, but mostly it comes automatically because the board has been put on a high edge earlier in the turn. The extension gives the ability to create early pressure by 2 components that work in tandem rather than separate steps. The ability to create early edge angle sooner (outside pressure) in conjunction with the ability to physically push on the board (rider pressure). They are not separate steps. I don't crank a high edge angle and then push down. They happen simultaneously. But theoretically, if I have enough speed, I can create enough edge angle with my extension and skip actively pushing the board, yet still turn in a tight turn. If I just extend enough to keep the edge in contact with the snow, the early pressure will still build up. Because without a high edge angle no tight turn takes place, regardless of the amount of rider pressure I apply to it. The opposite is possible though. With a high edge angle yet without rider pressure, I can still produce early pressure and execute a tighter turn. I need to be paying more attention to early angles, not adding early pressure by an intentional leg push. Early pressure is going to come from the early angles. So first order of business should be to just focus on edge-change, extend, angulate/inclinate(or counter) and create early high edge angles. Adding additional pressure by a leg push is something that can be considered later on. Not discounting it, it's part of the equation; just not the required factor. Does this conceptualisation show a progress in my understanding? --- I'm using some terms I've whipped up to clarify a distiction: outside pressure = pressure generated by the turn itself, which the rider has to manage in some way. rider/adding pressure = pressure generate by the rider himself, by his own deliberate leg push on the board with the intention of affecting it's flex/bend. I will think about the points you gave me and get back to this thread soon

Merci Beaucoup Mr Jack and thanks for keeping these forums alive. We've just exited the roundabout at the last minute and managed to save those horses. Well, might have lost one but thats alright. All good.

THANKS. Now that's it. Finally I get it. Clear. Now I have a sequence, the movements and timings. Down-unweighting allows me to rapidly change my edge, while keeping a balanced and low position and: affords me the range-of-movement in my lower body to extend in the turn (the application of pressure). Before that extension I'm also cranking a high edge-angle. The sequence I've seen in the videos is enough for me. That's more than enough, thanks again Don. I'll still ask my follow up questions but I can certainly figure them out on my own, most probably on the slopes. If this is tiring you out, I've gotten enough material to work with. --- Understanding how this extension helps and what is it's exact purpose would be the icing on the cake. What I got from the last 2 videos is it provides 2 benefits: Early pressure (still a bit unclear how early pressure is affecting the board). Ability to maintain higher edge angles throughout the turn 1) "Early" pressure is the rider pushing down on a tilted board to start the turn Right after I switch edges, I crank a high-edge angle but there's no turn force (outside pressure) generated by the turn yet to bend the board and lock it into the turn arc. I have a high-edge angle but no pressure, therefore no turn takes place. So that extension applies the missing pressure on the board and bends it into the arc required for a tight carve, which starts the turn. I immediately enter the fall line, the outside turn forces build up and maintain that board bend so the turn completes. In short, by extending I am providing the initial missing pressure on the board to start the carved turn early. The turn forces then take over and provide the remainder. Is this correct? Is that the purpose of early pressure? "Early pressure" meaning before the fall line and the turn forces that would occur from the turn itself? Alternative explanation: 2:24 on the second video states: So a different explanation is that my extension's sole purpose is to provide an additional boost to the outside turn forces to bend the board more and carve tighter. The outside turn forces alone are not enough to bend into such a tight turn. My extension simply provides additional force to the existing turn forces and it has nothing to do with adding initial missing pressure as I muse above. I don't see how this new speculation I'm making could be called "early" so it might be just an additional benefit but certainly not "early pressure". 2) The extension allows maintaining high edge angles 11:40 of the 3rd video states the following: I know that higher angulations (and/or inclinations) allow the maintenance of higher edge angles across the turn. So the extension's additional purpose is to allow me to maintain higher edge angles through the turn. Edge chattering on new turn technique In my current up-unweighted turns I'm dealing with the maximum of turn forces at the bottom of my turns. I'm flexing down to absorb those forces and avoid edge chattering. In this new way we're discussing, there are high turn forces at the apex instead (as well?) of the bottom. But here I am extended. Wouldn't my edge chatter? I'm trained to think that (high turn pressure = flex down to absorb). This seems to be kind of answered in an older post you made in another thread: I suppose I'll have to figure out in practice, the timing and power of that extension in a way that achieves a balance between achieving the goals of the extension without overloading the edge. I would still flex down at the bottom-half of the turn to absorb. The pressure at the bottom half would be lower with the new technique but still needs to be absorbed/managed. ---- No snow in the middle of the Mediterranean. Visualising helps me. Why are we eager to shut this down and how is our discussion bothering anyone? Yes I ask a lot of questions but If someone finds this topic irritating can't they just not click it or unfollow? Peace Indeed you're right. I am ready to zip it

But that answer you gave me was correct. ..in an SBX track. I'm emphasising that my questions are not related to SBX track riding so we don't veer off the topic, not criticising your answer. This: This early high edge angle is something I have gaps in and a step to the right direction to carving shorter radius turns. It's this that's still unclear to me. The conversation continued afterwards and Corey gave me an answer here but i still had more questions here.

This is a FIS World Cup/Olympic level track. I train for the lowest FIS level. FIS with no qualifier is the entry-level FIS race. At the lower FIS level there are banks you can ride almost completely flat. At others you need to set more edge. They are narrower and smaller tracks. What you're looking at in the picture is a behemoth of a track. I'd guess an 80% chance of landing in the hospital if I went all gas on this one. There's FIS-level tracks, then FIS EC (EuropaCup) and then the biggest ones are the FIS World Cup/Olympics. Anything above FIS you need to be invited by gathering points in the lowest FIS. You definitely carve around an SBX track, don't get me wrong. You certainly don't set as much edge as you indicated in the first posts of this thread, yet some training includes turns on steeps with a lot of edge. This is important. This question does not have much to do with SBX track riding. Jacobellis is a legendary racer and she has an even more legendary video in the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics, where she lost the gold medal because she decided to throw a simple and unnecessary method grab to show off, on the last jump, that she didn't land. She was leading by a massive 9 seconds difference as well. She managed to redeem herself couple years ago, got the gold with Baumgartner in Beijing. Btw strangely enough, the 2006 Olympic track looks far smaller than the recent ones.

Most days of early training for SBX doesn't consist of track training, especially at the beginning. It seems to consist of a mixture of different riding styles on steep and cruddy groomers. Some groomers they may want you to descend carving a narrower corridor and at other times using the full width of the run. They don't want you to know how to run an SBX course in particular, there's a focus on becoming an all-around carver I suppose. Most track turns are banked so you don't need to carve them, you stay flat, yet they still insist on that style of training. I'm not the one to challenge it. "They" is the 2 coaches I've come across, my previous and my next one. A 3rd one I was talking to was following a completely different direction but that's out of the scope of this topic. That's for sure. But again the early training of SBX doesn't have much to do with track training. What we discussed briefly with my previous coach was early-edge changes and down-unweighting. Again, that's not for track training. It's for everyday training. An early-edge change is not something you would use in a track. It was comp. time back then and we couldn't expand on it, then I was busy with park training so I was left with gaps on carving steeps on groomers. That's the reason I pushed back a little on the skivot. The narrower corridor they want you to carve doesn't have gates. I was more interested in the rest of the sequence a slalom racer takes and how it compares to a more relaxed and freecarve-oriented sequence using the full-width of the run.

No, not in a course but it helps me compare styles "racing" vs "freecarving" on steeps.

There's a little bit of a misunderstanding here. I've gotten my answers for racing. The question is answered. I'm asking a separate question now in an attempt to compare the 2 styles. I could have made that more clear or opened a new topic. I appreciate your direct way of replying and I've been a bit all over the place by blending different questions but that was just a completely unnecessary comment. Not sure how it served you to bring that in the discussion, much less why you decided to specifically phrase it as a personal attack even though you know nothing about the circumstances of that situation. I've tried my best to be courteous to you and seeked your advice specifically since you presided over CASI at some point and you're an actual racing coach. I did not expect that kind of reply. No you're not being trolled and again thanks for the replies on the technicalities of racing.

Yeah this one:

You've mentioned this before but there's no shortage of people carving steeps. No "skivot/drift" here either. Yup understood, much appreciated for all the replies this far. Super helpful.

To clarify the difference in technique between what you say and what @noschoolrider was saying stems from a confusion in the beginning of this thread, before the focus on racing. You're describing (and we discussed) a technique to descend steeps while racing slalom gates. He's describing a technique to descend steeps in a controlled manner which was how I originally posed my question. No racing involved. Is there any use of drifting if there's no race and no gates?

That drift looks like such an unstable movement, god damn. Had anyone else shown me that I'd be calling him insane. The more I look at it the more nutty it looks. Blue gates at 0:14 drifting

That "skivoting" just sounds so similar to the "drifting" maneuver.. but I see, I'll have a look at "skivoting" Trainee racer A pre-jump before the lip. Right, I see. You're "short-circuiting" the carved turn trajectory which would be too long without skivoting. Now that's for certain.

Knowing what you don't know gets you halfway there. I think we're both doing alriiiiight. SBX coaches tend to be extremely rigid about technique. They don't tolerate "own" style until very later on. Training sucks. It's ... training. Again, c'est la vie. There's a significant injury rate in SBX so they tend to default to "do it my way otherwise I'm not signing a FIS license for you to kill yourself or others on the track". No, be super dogmatic man. I think you gotta attempt to master the rules before you break them.

Well, you could argue that this is exactly what I'm doing right now.

I do SBX coaching for FIS-level races (im the racer, not the coach) and what we do most days in training is run down steep, often icy and cruddy groomers (steep reds/black in Europe) at Mach 10. You're not supposed to slide to speed-check. They explicitly discourage that. It's all carving, how much you can hold that carve, pressure absorptions, line selection and posture. We didn't manage to go over the down-unweighting pattern for steeps in detail with my previous coach because it was comp. time and everyone was busy. We discussed it briefly. We ended up on bad terms because of an emm.. incident so I can't expand on it with him now. My new coach won't see me till December so I figured I would fill some gaps here. It's the same kind of training in most programs. I'm an analytical person. When I understand and visualise how the mechanics of something works, I instantly get it. I can be shit on the slopes and as soon as someone explains to me over coffee what those movements are supposed to achieve, I go back the next day and do them. It's like magic. You can't teach me to dance, I'm too stupid to just replicate movements without understanding a "why" and there's no why in dancing. Thankfully there's a "why" in snowboarding technique. Of course, practice on the snow is the rest 70%. You can't build motor skills from the couch. Well, you can but let's not get ridiculous. Theres a staggering amount of people that have self-baptised themselves as experts. I guess we've all done it to some degree. In racing/training you are forced to actually tend to your innefficiencies. You now have a coach who refuses to send you in a track to kill yourself and a bunch of teammates/competitors to catch up to, zooming next to you at 70km/h, riding what is essentially a really long knife. Now I get it, my torrent of questions looks comically excessive wbut bear in mind that it's not 1 person giving me advice here, it's 2-3, sometimes it sounds conflicting and they don't all use the exact same terms. I'm not the brightest person in the room either. . C'est la vie. Now, hopefully we got the philosophical outta the way and we can get back to discussing turns and pressure.

Ok that's a very nice breakdown. That's actually pretty illuminating. In that case, in the down-unweighted, cross-through edge-change it is an extension of the "legs" that "applies pressure" so my understanding wasn't incorrect. It's clear to me that this extension weighting shouldn't be done in the apex of the turns discussed in this thread, btw. No confusion there. Can there be some control of the duration of this weighting, (e.g standing up slower) and if so is there any use of controlling the duration? Or is this point irrelevant? Hmm, set the board in the snow? Isn't the edge set in the snow by the edge change anyway? I was under the impression that this weighting flexes the board into an arc and hence starts the turn until the G-force from the turn takes over to maintain that board flex/arc + edge grip. Or maybe that's bull, it has nothing to do with flexing the board, it just pushes the new edge into the snow hence creating grip on the new edge and therefore forcing the board into a carve? This "sets the edge in the snow" is missing some details to understand what the purpose of this weighting is. Much appreciated. --- If it looks like I'm derailing the original thread, I am. Without clarifying this "rider applies pressure" thing and its purpose, my understanding of the rest of the steps falls apart.

Err, what's the element that's missing? The course is not steep or is the sequence in the video missing a step you suggested earlier? If it's missing something, what is it? I posted that video to confirm if that's the sequence you describe. You mean it's missing a step because the course isn't steep? Look, it looks like what you and @noschoolrider are suggesting diverges a bit. Or at least that's my understanding this far. I also understand that both of you are race coaches so it's a jackpot chance to squeeze some info out of you. But first and foremost I have to clarify the exact sequence of steps that each of you is suggesting. If a reply leaves room for me misinterpreting something, I'm gonna have to engage in an additional back/forth to make sure I got your intended and exact meaning. Also, that "skivot" thing is the skidding while on edge that racers do to correct their trajectory and get on a better line? If that's what you mean by "skivot", let's assume our hypothetical rider has calculated his line perfectly and doesn't need corrections, and leave that "skivot" out of the picture as it's confusing me. ---- Now to the point: Right, how do I apply pressure though? Up until this point I thought it was a leg extension, @Rob Stevens has me feeling differently. What does "apply pressure" mean here? The only pressure I know, is the pressure that happens at the bottom-half of a cross-over turn that i need to absorb to avoid edge chattering. That pressure happens, I don't apply it. So what does "apply" mean if not a leg extension? The above suggests cranking a high-edge angle happens immediately after I switch edge, at the top of the turn, so the timing is clear. But this: "I have to build edge angle" is missing the timing. When should I be maxed out on edge angle? Also at the top of the turn? And where's the "apply pressure" step here? Granted, you might be suggesting different steps that both work. But it's not entirely clear to me if they are actually different or just me misinterpreting them. And eventually, i don't want to blindly repeat steps, this is a stepping stone to me understanding the mechanics of why the techniques suggested, actually work.

So its this movement thats pressuring the edge? I flex/compress low on the board, smoothly to avoid excessive pressuring and edge chatter, whilst angulating and keeping my edge angle high. then as I come to the bottom of the turn, extend up a bit to make room, down-weight/edge-change, start increasing edge angle and repeat. Like this:

Fair enough. I'll get the contrasting advice I got and write down a proper reply in a bit. Some of it comes from those "Midweighting" videos. I'd rather think about this a bit more and soak in the info rather than getting you dizzy with my misunderstandings.

Let's try and keep discussions a bit focused around racing technique. I've tagged it as such although I do understand the title might confuse. Hmm, that's a bit of conflicting advice relative to the previous posts from @noschoolrider and his comments in this thread:

Confused again. I am compressed(flexed) low when I change edge. Its a down-unweighting after all. So how can be compressing even more in a subsequent part of the turn? When do I extend? Note: I know vertical movements as flexion/extension. I assume compression means flexion, getting low.

Now that is some serious, grade A, level 4 coachin right here. This distinction is crystal clear now. Got it. This is what I need final confirmation on. The application of pressure in this scenario is done by extending my legs as soon as i'm on that new edge, cranked high, correct?

This is for race training, I was a bit late in tagging the topic as such. I do SBX coaching and most of my training was descending down steep groomers, often icy or moguled, as fast yet as smooth as possible with zero skidding. There is an explicit focus on avoiding skidded speed checks and carving all the way down. The way you control your speed focuses more on pressure management and turn trajectory/shape. That "pick-up-speed/dump-it/pick-up-speed/dump-it" cycle doesn't fly there. Even carving uphill is considered a bit "mehh". The turns you describe sound like short radius edged turns (page 5). They arent carved turns but not skidded either. Thats a good way to descend steeps but in race training theres an emphasis on finetuning your carving so you dont use those. I am no longer in the best of terms with my previous coach and my new coach will see me in December, so I'm filling a bit of my gaps here. That is an unweighting as far as i understand, it's just using the board rebound to unweight. There has to be some up and down, you probably do it quickly with your lower body and dont notice it, its a prerequisite for carving anything more than a green.