Your friend, the cross-under turn...

[joecarve]

I think the usefulness of cross-under for pure safety is often lost in discussions about cross-through. I'm finally getting the cross-under thing dialed this year...wish I had done this a long time ago. It really makes a huge difference for me in speed control and avoidance of other riders. Also, when I'm trying to make nice round turns but run out of room, I can reel it in and keep moving, rather than scraping like mad in a speed check.

All of the above is stating the obvious for many of you, but I'm starting to think cross-under skills should be learned very early...perhaps right after one is consistently unweighting with cross-over turns.

joe...

[Tommy D]

Learning cross-under is the next step for me. It has saved my bacon many times while skiing, so I can appreciate the usefullness of this technique.

[Jack M]

Originally posted by joecarve

I'm starting to think cross-under skills should be learned very early...perhaps right after one is consistently unweighting with cross-over turns.

That is the usual progression, as cross-through is a blend of cross-over/under, heavy on the under.

[Baka Dasai]

Funny, I learnt cross-unders first. Heading down the fall-line, in soft boots, and just switching from edge to edge and feeling the board start to swing wider and wider turns underneath me. I wasn't really meaning to carve - it was pretty much an accident that it happened.

It then took me quite a while before I learnt how to carve wider (non fall-line) turns. At first I tried to do them by simply elongating my cross-under turns, but it didn't work. Carving cross-over turns was hard to learn!

I had a skiing background, and skiing moguls and powder are based on cross-under turns, so maybe cross-under came more naturally to me.