Can someone explain this.

[No.2]

People have said it, I've never belived it but then I tryed it and now I'm confused.

"Reduceing your stance angle gives you more leverage over the board"

I allways thought that this was rubbish as all that mattered was the height of the top of your boots above the board when you are all locked in. Weather they are side ways or forwards shouldn't matter esp. if you have stiff bindings like Cateks etc... Right.

Well in a recent trip to our local indoor slope, trying out different boards with moa from here found that: F2 Silberpfeil 61F 57R easy enough to angulate. Coiler 177 AM wider with same stance nedded, as expected, more effort to angulate. Oxygen SX BoarderX board, wider still with same angles even harder to angulate (from memory) now switch the angles on the Oxy to 9F 5R and WOA suddenly the thing is a feather weight!

Still haven't figured this out. The boot tops were even lower with the sideways stance as I was using my old Proflex bindings not my Cateks. But angulating the board was just so easy. Is this some thing to do with the relative heights of the next joint up... ie. knee for a sideways stance and hips for a forward stance??

Can some one help my brain out. I get the feeling my whole understanding of stances is about to change.

[Phil]

You may have found out how to use your ankles more effectively. I find this to be the one of the most difficult things for hardbooters to learn. The higher the angles, the more difficult it tends to be to learn it. Once you learn to use your ankles and then go back to the higher stance, you should be able to ride better.

The issue at hand is that there are basically two ways to move your ankles - dorsiflexion and plantar flexion (pulling toes up and pushing toes down respectively) and inversion and eversion (suppinate and pronate respectively). Of course this is an over simplication, but the point is that with low angles, the inversion and eversion cause fore and aft movements while the plantar flexion and dorsiflexion cause edge to edge movements. Take into account that your boot hinges more for the plantar and dorsiflexion, or edge to edge movements at low angles and now you have more response for your edges.

At high angles, you are now doing edge to edge movements more through inversion and eversion. Fore and aft movements at high angles are achieved more through plantar flexion and dorsiflexion. With high angles, people tend to use more gross body movements, or movements higher on the body. In reality, even with high angles, you should still be starting your movements at your ankles, but it won't seem as natural at first.

To understand this, think of a toeside turn with low angles - it is about pressuring your toes on both feet. With high angles, however, it becomes more about pressuring your big toe on your front foot and your little toe on your back foot. By the same token, while doing a toeside turn with low angles, you achieve fore and aft movements by feeling the big and little toes with alternate feet. So for example, if you move to the front of the board in a toeside, you will feel the little toe pressure on the front foot and the big toe pressure on the back foot. With high angles, fore movements tend to be leave you pressing fully on the toes of both feet.

Was that as clear as mud?:rolleyes: ;)

[Phil]

After re-reading your post, I realized that I missed the fact that you used the same angles on the wider boards. Another reason that it was more difficult would be that the edges were probably well outside of where your boots and bindings were, causing it to feel slower. When your bindings are at an angle that puts your toes and heels more over the edges, that will quicken response as well.

[jnshapiro]

It might be just as simple as leverage.

The farther your toes and heals are from the edge of the board, the more effort it will take to get on edge. Basically, the lever is shorter.

When you get your toes and heals right to the edges, then the lever is longer and it's easier to move the board.

Just a thought.

Joel

[nigelc]

this point about initiating with the feet/ankles first is what I am just becoming aware of. It seems counterintuitive with such relatively stiff boots, but obviously is of major importance. Anybody got any drills or ideas for re-inforcing that turn start from the bottom up?

[Sinecure]

"Local Indoor Slope" ???

I want one of those.

[No.2]

Sinecure: "Local Indoor Slope" Yeah thats on of the few good things about living in Auckland, New Zealand where the only mountain is 4 hrs drive away.

nigelc: One things that PSR told me a while ago was to lift your toes to help you flex into and trust the boot. And Kent used to go on about stearing with and following your feet. :) My ready to launch routine is; clip in, activeate core, body centered and relaxed, start rolling, eyes closed, deep slow nose breathing, lift toes, flex into boots, a few stomping olies, eyes up, big picture... and SEND IT! BTW are you the same nigelc1 that is selling some land in Whangarei? Based in Auckalnd? If so we should go rideing some time before all the snow melts. :) Also Moa, another AK based carver just bought a BRAND NEW 180 Roit SuperCarve!! I'm so jellous! I can't even think of a better board on our hill for tall guys!

Phil: Yeah the wider the board for the same angles the less leaverage over the board. My Q is why dose it feel like there is less leaverage when you are doing, as you say, suppinating and pronating. And it feels like more leaverage when you are dorsiflexing and plantar flexing. Theoretically the height of your boots if they are stiff should dictate you leaver arm and not as Joel sugests how close you toes are to the edge esp. with stiff center mounted bindings like Cateks. Right. As I hinted at the only thing I can think of is some thing about the height of the next bend point relative to your COG. Hips while suppinating and pronating and knees while dorsi/plantar flexing. Knees lower therefor you get some kind of lever assistance because they are below your COG???

Can some one explain the mechanics of this?

[Rob Stevens]

If your toes are over the edge and not overhanging (drag) or inside (increased effort) you're maximized.

It should be intuitive enough to imagine that your joints are built to work in a fore and aft manner so the closer you can stay to that, the more you'll be able to use your ankles to tip the board over.

Of course you can still tip it with higher angles, you'll just want to think about where you feel the pressure on the shell of your boots. The closer to 0 your bindings are, the more you'll feel it close to the tongue (toeside) or back of the cuff (heels). If your angles are higher, you should feel more pressure on the sides of the cuff.

Think about Where you're pressuring the cuff, rather than How you're flexing your ankle joints.

It was asked earlier about an exercise for feeling a sensation where the tilting of the board starts as low as possible. Try this: Imagine you're pouring beer out of the top of your boots. If you do it too fast, you'll get head (not the good kind). Just play with it and you'll lose the other body moves that might have not been that effective.

[Jon Dahl]

I love that analogy (not beer!) it seems so indicative of smoothness, which is what you need to develop. You can be fast and smooth, or slow and smooth, but you gotta start slow to develop it. Maybe it's just my age, but I'm enjoying carving more by moving smoother, even if it doesn't make me the fastest guy on the hill.

[No.2]

Thanks again Rob for your lovely evocative analogies. I'm sure you must be a great coach. :) Genius they say is making the complex simple.

In this case however I'm kinda interested in a bio-mechanical explanation as to why having your toes to the nose increases effort. I can feel that it dose and intuitively I can appreciate that it dose now I just want to know why it dose. I'm sure this will help me under the subtleties of the mechanics of this really quite odd sort of semi sideways way we go down hills. My previous theory was that it doesn't mater weather you push on the side of your boot or the front of your boot you were still pushing the board over from about 35cm above it and therefore there shouldn't be any increase in effort. But there is so now I need a new theory.

I hope that explains more of what I am actually asking here. Any one an expert on bio-mechanics?

[Phil]

I am no biomechanics expert, but I will give it a shot anyway.

What I was attempting to address above was the fact that we have more power to plantar/dorsiflex than we do to invert/evert. This, I believe, is due to three main factors: greater range of motion, more strength, and boots that hinge in that direction.

I think that I understand where you are coming from now after the thread has moved on. It seems that you are looking for the leverage of the boot to do all of the work. I think that is what needs to change. Like I said before, there are a lot of hardbooters that do not utilize their ankles enough. If our boot leverage was responsible for all of the work, then soft booters would not be able to make toeside turns. There are a lot of soft booters out there who can out carve a lot of hard booters. Maybe it is because they understand that it is not all about leveraging the boot (because that does not help them like it helps us).

Think about your first turn out of a straight run at the top of the hill. When you want to initiate your toeside, a lot of people think one of two things, either press on the toes, or pressure the cuff of the boot toward the toeside. Neither one of these things tells the whole story. In fact, if you truly just pressed on your toes, you would fall over to your heelside (stand up and try it). First, you have to get your body (COM) over the toeside. It's kind of like counter steering for the two wheeled crowd. This starts in the ankles and is generally easier at low angles because all you have to do is dorsiflex to drop your knees and get your body over the toeside edge. In hardboots (which are hinged for plantar/dorsiflexion) it is still easy to do. With high angles, to get over your toeside edge, you must do more inversion and eversion. Of course, we do not have nearly the same leverage side to side with our feet, not to mention a lack of lateral movement in the boots. However, if the board is narrower, you do not have to move your body (COM) as far to get over the edge of the board and it levels the playing field a little between wide boards with low angles and narrow boards with high angles.

[Guest Tim Tuthill]

Phil: Good views! Comming from a skiing background the high angles are the way to go for me. I ride at 65 deg booth feet. You set your edge and release it in the turn just like skiing. Bend the knees, 10 dollars please, or down up down. On my soft boot setup I'm in a surf stance. Can't tell you the setup, it works and that's it. I've surfed all my life. The two setups do not bother me at all. When conditions dictate, pow=soft, groom=carve. The best thing to do is try different setups to see what works for you.

[Phil]

You set your edge and release it in the turn just like skiing.

Very similar. The big advantage that skiing has over super skinny boards w/high angles is that foot to foot movements move your body (COM) over the edges. On the other hand, fore and aft movements are super easy on said skinnies w/high angles where as I believe that they are harder on skis. Hence:

Bend the knees, 10 dollars please

[Jack M]

Like Phil says, a good carver knows how to use their ankles. When you do use your ankles, your total leverage over the board is a composite of leverage from your foot and your shin. Shin leverage acts upon the top of the boot cuff. Foot leverage acts upon the instep of the boot. The closer your binding angle gets to 90, the less the effect of foot leverage. At 90 degrees, foot leverage can do nothing to tip the board up on edge.

[No.2]

Thats final starting to make sence Jack. You can use you foot leaverage to boost your shin leaverage and the only foot leaverage you've got at 90 is though suppinating and pronating which is obviously a lot weeker than dorsi/plantar flexing. Am I on the right track here?

As far as rideing goes maybe I'm doing some thing odd 'cause I feel more comfortable flexing into my boots and pulling my toes up rather than boosting the shin leaverage by pushing down with my toes on toe side turns.

[Jack M]

Thats final starting to make sence Jack. You can use you foot leaverage to boost your shin leaverage and the only foot leaverage you've got at 90 is though suppinating and pronating which is obviously a lot weeker than dorsi/plantar flexing. Am I on the right track here?

yup.

As far as rideing goes maybe I'm doing some thing odd 'cause I feel more comfortable flexing into my boots and pulling my toes up rather than boosting the shin leaverage by pushing down with my toes on toe side turns.

Heh, that does sound a little odd! Try pushing down with your toes on toesides. Not a lot, but just so you're not pulling up.

[Rob Stevens]

No 2... You're right about the leverage aspect of the height of your boots with respect to the amount of pressure you can put on the edge.

I don't think the angle of your feet really can contribute to greater, or less, pressure. When you move you COM over the turning edge, the weight is there. The variable here, for me, is balance and maneuverability.

As Jack said, if you wind up perpendicular to the length of your board, your ankles are out of the mix and you're left with shins. This is only a problem (as water skiers will attest) when balance over uneven terrain gets involved and you have to stay upright and turn to avoid things. I would guess that in perfect conditions, I could edge a Squall with the same amount of pounds to the edge as a freecarve board with relatively low alpine angles. The problem comes when you hit uneven snow and the Squall leaves you wishing for toe / heel sensitivity again.

Hardboots also eliminate (unless they're really soft) your ability to have Lifting (heelside) or Pointing (toeside) really do anything other than give you a pressure "sensation" inside your boot (especially Lifting as Pointing can aid in the boot maintaining a certain degree of shape, rather than folding). I often tell students of mine to relax the muscles in their feet and to concentrate on ankles and shins / knees for lower body activation. Curling and manipulating your feet often just gets you cramping, rather than increased edge hold.

On softboots with carbon baseplates, highbacks and stiff soled boots (not stiff ankles-stiff soles) I generally find the same to be true. The same can't be said for s#!tty, flexy baseplates and bootsole combos, where you may feel you need to employ every bit of your lower body to hold on, even after you've cranked your straps to foot breaking pressures.

[Phil]

Hardboots also eliminate (unless they're really soft) your ability to have Lifting (heelside) or Pointing (toeside) really do anything other than give you a pressure "sensation" inside your boot (especially Lifting as Pointing can aid in the boot maintaining a certain degree of shape, rather than folding).

Rob, are you saying that once you are in a carve, say maybe at the apex, using your ankles by lifting or pointing does not do anything?

[Jack M]

Rob, are you saying that once you are in a carve, say maybe at the apex, using your ankles by lifting or pointing does not do anything?

the way I read it, he is, and I would wholeheartedly disagree.

[Kirk]

Curling and manipulating your feet often just gets you cramping, rather than increased edge hold.

I would have to agree with this. I've experienced mild cramping with toesides in the past and found I was scrunching/curling up my toes (particularly back foot) - did absolutely NOTHING for the stability of the turn.

I would agree with the concept of initiating the turn at the ankles. I learned:

1) ankles

2) knees

3) hips

For me, the ankle and knee flexion is almost simultaneous though. Good discussion.

[No.2]

I can fully relate to you there Kirk. Since I started focusing on loose feet and started stearing more with my ankels / shins suddenly my boots are more comfy.

I still think there is more to leverage than foot strength boosting cuff / shin leverage. Take a wide board and run 60s then switch to 0s. The difference in effort to tilt the board is so huge there has got to be more to it than that. I'm sure I'm not useing much if any foot strength when running 0s.

I turned my bindings on the skinnny board to 57 from 61 today and could notice that. There must be some thing in this COM to next flexing joint distance. I just haven't figured it out yet.

[Rob Stevens]

When I get Jack and Phil calling me out, I better start dancing.

Once again, to keep it simple, The stiffer your boots are, the less Lifting and Pointing are going to effect the shape of your shell.

A simple experiment to see if you're getting any edge angle from L & P is to ride straight and isolate those 2 movements to see if you can create a turn (no cheating... ie: using your COM, shins or knees). I would say (as I did in my last post) that you'll likely get something on the toes because you can get the boot to hold its shape by "firming" up in your ankle through Pointing, even if your boot is very stiff. On the heelside, your ability to effect the shell shape in any meaningful way is, once again, a function of the stiffness of the boot... much more so than on your toes. What you might find is the amount of force you'd use, vs the amount of movement you'd get might make you rethink how much you're working your feet inside the boots. Relaxed feet and medium effort ankle activation may result in strong riding, with less fatigue. This is not only of benefit for freecarvers who want to ride all day without cramping, but also racers, who need to do multiple heats in an afternoon.

All of this is totally different in soft boots, where L & P can have a large steering effect. I still try to eliminate activating my foot past the balls of my toes on toeside turns. I'll just try to stand on them through ankle and forefoot activation, rather than get on "Pointe" like a ballet dancer. The same can be said for heelside, where I'll lift the forefoot, but not lift my toes up. Just try it sitting there... you can get the same amount of movement with less muscles working. Another variable is the quality of your boots / binders. See my last post for that one.

My bodies "activation zone", when I'm riding my best seems to be from the balls of my feet back and up to the bottom of my ribcage. Above that point, I feel like I'm tensing for no good reason. Upper body stability and direction change doesn't require any extra firing of the muscles, unless you're performing a recovery move.

[Phil]

I still try to eliminate activating my foot past the balls of my toes on toeside turns.... The same can be said for heelside, where I'll lift the forefoot, but not lift my toes up.

O.K., that is why I asked the question. I teach people "L & P" as you put it because it generally gets them to use their ankles. It is like telling people to bend their knees - you will often get people who bend at the waist :rolleyes: . When I tell people to point their toes, I am really asking them to extend, or plantar flex their ankle. What you are saying is that you don't actually use your toes. I can live with that (although they are part of the pressure that you are applying).

For me, the ankle and knee flexion is almost simultaneous though.

It does feel that way. In fact, I would say that this is the easiest way to do it. To really advance your riding, though, I would say that it is important to learn to separate them. Really make yourself think about it when you are on the hill sometime.

Generally, it is understood that the further out your board is from your body, the higher the edge angle you will be on. So optimally, your board will be furthest from your body at the apex of your turns on your typical freeriding arcs. So try this (in a few months;) ) at the apex of a toeside - extend, or plantar flex to put your board at a little higher edge angle than it already is. This is a lot of fun, because it will load up your board. Be careful, though, because your board is now a rocket that wants to shoot across the hill and throw you over the handle bars. Try the same thing at the apex of your heelside turn - dorsiflex or pull the top of your feet toward your shins.

There are a lot of instructors who use "scalloped" turns as well, where you continually flex and extend your ankles throughout the turns in order to make wavy lines in your carves.

I have found that this can be done even in the stiffest of ski boots, but then I am a big guy. None the less, I have not had a (decent) student who could not do these drills in their hardboots. I have also not had a (decent) student whose riding was not helped with these drills.

Jack says "Separate zee knees"

I say - learn to separate what you are doing at zee knees from what you are doing at zee ankles.

(O.K., so the two are pretty much unrelated, but it sounds good.)

[Rob Stevens]

Where you quote me, I'm referring to soft boots.

I still maintain that you have to think about the whole foot / ankle activation thing on a "cost vs. benefit" basis in hard boots.

If you're in really stiff boots, you may be using more force than is required to hold the edge and in some situations (icy death chatter) flexing / stiffening may be to your disadvantage.

Isn't that a large part of the reasons you'd roll stiff boots to begin with? To releive your bones of the job of holding an edge?

I would like to hook up with you Phil. You should come my way, though (mountains, not hills). The tech heads who work for us here at CASI would be stoked to have a brain like yours to pick.

Of course, we'd have to go noboarding... then we could see how you'll use every bit of you to keep it together.

[No.2]

Wow this is truely awsome stuff guys. Ever since I started this thread every run I've had has been more interesting. So many new things to try and get in touch with. Visualisations up the T bars have never been as fun or creative.

I must say a warm thank you to the great minds and bodys of bomber.

I reckon that it dosen't matter what words you say to people so long as their body gets it... I think of the swimming coaches that are forever looking for evocative but deliberatly vague language. Eg "when sprinting reach like a tiger". Out come the claws, in comes the aggression, up comes the chest and you're off.

I've been trying it with my Girl Friend and she hasn't killed me. infact life is definately better though she still rides softies. :o I said recently "When you turn rotate your whole body like you are undoing a huge honey jar with your hands " .... no more counter rotating! ... "but its so slow" she said "That's 'cause you are turning dear"

"Ok now try this, assume the 'haka' postion (for those that aren't kiwi: Hands on knees like you've just slapped them and crouched into your boots like you are about to jump not like you a bending down to pick some thing up) look over your sholder and send your self sideways straight down the hill. Now relax, trust your edges and rock, rock, rock your way to nice carved turnes." ... eurka!

Now one thing to note is that within all this good stuff we still don't have a bio-mechanical explanation of the physics behind the extra leverage you get with shallower angles.... Does any one have this? ...I'm going to have to and bleed the ears of my enginearing friends aren't I. :)

Jas.