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Great visual. Yuck, but effective. Thanks!

scrutton - No edge initiation issues. I engage my downhill edge early on both sides Interesting. I'll give it a try. I usually extend at end of my turns to up-unweight, timing it with the edge change. If I'm extending earlier in the turn, it sounds like I'll be fairly extended at the end of the turn. Will probably need to change to a down-unweighting maneuver at the edge change. I'm a former instructor so if I had a video, I would do my own movement analysis. You might be right though about possible counter-rotation. I am facing the nose, but I think I'll have to exaggerate next time.

I have been struggling with completing my heelside turn on steeper terrain. Originally, the problem was keeping the heel edge from washing out, but I have been able to mostly fix that by moving my weight to the tail at the end of the turn. But now, the board never wants to turn uphill on the heelside. No problems on moderate terrain or on any terrain on the toeside. This is something that affects both hard and soft boot setups for me, and I was hoping that by moving to a Coiler this year that I would resolve the issue at least on the hard boot setup, but it's still happening. I suspect that I am not putting the board at a high enough angle. Wondering if others have experience with this and had any recommendations. Thanks!

Preferably with 3 degree cants and yellow elastomers. Thanks.

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I'm heading up to Stevens on 3/8 for a few turns on a new board. Anyone interested in riding together?

Thanks for the feedback. I think I will hang onto them for a while then. The Burton Rat Traps on the other hand...

How do the MGX's compare to modern boots from Deeluxe, Head, UPZ? I have been riding with MGX's on the few days I'm out carving on my ancient carving gear but I am finally upgrading. Any reason to upgrade from MGX's?

I think I have hit my quota on wintersports. Soft+hard snowboard plus telemark is more than enough. I don't get enough days on the snow to justify another sport and I don't want to have to explain to my wife why the current quiver of boards and planks is not sufficient. My problem is that I should update to better boots for both tele and snowboard at some point. It would be nice to kill 2 birds with 1 stone.

Has anyone tried NTN telemark boots on a hardboot setup? I have been learning how to telemark while the kids learn to ski. I am currently skiing on old duckbill boots, but NTN boots are more like AT boots which others have had some success with. I should probably just bite the bullet and get proper snowboard boots, but just wanted to explore this option a little. Thanks!

By keeping things "moving", I just mean that the students should be doing something often. Explain, demo, practice. Practice can be a single J-turn, static exercises, linked turns, whatever. YMMV, but I find that the more the students move, the more engaged they tend to be. I have never had a lesson where I thought the instructor did not spend enough time talking, and I LIKE talking technique.

I don't intend to come across too preachy. To be clear, I think Corey did a great job. Just trying to share some observations to help him step it up further. I have encountered the same situation where I have had to wait for a crowd to pass before letting a class practice. Take the explanation of angulation at the beginning of the video at the bottom of the hill where crowds are not an issue. Corey does a great job explaining and demonstrating the technique, but he doesn't ask the students to follow along. This would accomplish 2 things. 1) The static exercise makes the students understand the feeling they should experience before trying it in a dynamic environment. 2) The instructor can observe and make any corrections for students who think they are getting it but aren't, e.g., not exaggerating the angulation enough.

Thanks for the thorough response. The ability to ride in chop is particularly appealing. I don't ride my carving setup much since it feels so squirrelly unless there's courduroy or hardpack. I thought that was just the nature of carving boards so I look forward to trying gear that can work in the non ideal carving conditions we have here in western Washington. Who has a modern board they want to unload for a 155 lb rider???

Thanks for sharing. This is such a great resource to promote carving. Since Cory asked for feedback, I will offer a little. I am a former AASI level 2 instructor, so I am surprised that you are not an instructor. You have a good easy-going style with clear explanations. I really like the cue of where to put your hands to increase angulation. A few things that could be improved: 1. The students seemed to be sitting around quite a while listening. It's better to keep the students moving even if it means you might be explaining a concept a few times. Besides, many students learn better by seeing and doing than by explanation. You are providing great info - just think about breaking the message up a little. 2. I am not convinced about the explanation of spreading out pressure by early down unweighting. The effect of unweighting on pressure lasts for under second. What I think is really happening is that the down unweighting is initiating the turn earlier, setting a tighter turning radius resulting in earlier speed control. By the time the board reaches the bottom of the turn, there is less speed and less likelihood for chatter. 3. I may have missed this, but I would like to see more progression of demos, e.g. J-turn to single turn to linked turns. Great job overall though and I wish I could have taken the clinic myself.

Thanks, grock5! Awesome article. Convincing.

I was going to ask the same question about whether a new board is worth it. I'm riding a 15+ year old Rossi and have a blast on it. What exactly makes the new boards better? I am definitely open to something new, but don't want to piss away money when I should be working on my technique instead.

Best carving near Seattle is Mission Ridge. The areas on the west side of the Cascades do not have the same caliber of runs and grooming for carving. In fact, Mission has the best grooming I can remember. 3 weeks without snow and I was able to rail turns pretty much everywhere. The crowds were thin enough even on President's Day weekend to have full pitches to yourself. Crystal comes in second with some nice carving pitches, but not the consistently, long, wide runs you can get a Mission, where you can really open it up. Crystal is also much more crowded so I worry more about someone taking me out. That being said, we get more snow on the west side, so off-piste is where it's at. Too much powder is not a bad problem, but it definitely cuts into my carving days.