Yard Sale Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 I'm having a hard time staying centered on my heelside turns. Is there any kind of trick to help avoid "sitting on the toilet?" I started carving a year ago and I ride 55-50 angles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thor VonRippington Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 I'm no instructor... but it seems to me keeping your shoulders square to the fall line keeps your hiney from hanging out Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtslalom Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 On your heelside turn only, one trick to prevent butt hang is to keep turning your upper body in the direction of your turn. As you start your heelside turn your shoulders should be at 90 degrees (or close to it) to the direction of travel. Imagine placing a board across your back and on your shoulders. On a heelside turn that board should always be 90 degrees to the length of your board. If you want to exagerate this movement, on heelside turns try to turn your body beyond your board and into the center of the circle you are carving. This will bring your hips in and over your board more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big mario Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 On a heelside turn, reach in the direction of your turn with your backside hand (left hand for goofy, right for you "normal" people out there). This will square you up and hook you up. mario Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfell Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 On your heelside turn only, one trick to prevent butt hang is to keep turning your upper body in the direction of your turn. As you start your heelside turn your shoulders should be at 90 degrees (or close to it) to the direction of travel. Imagine placing a board across your back and on your shoulders. On a heelside turn that board should always be 90 degrees to the length of your board. If you want to exagerate this movement, on heelside turns try to turn your body beyond your board and into the center of the circle you are carving. This will bring your hips in and over your board more. To me that sounds like the best advice to create enough tension in your core to chatter nearly every heelside turn. Take a look at a pic of a rider with more Olympic snowboard experience than just about anyone. If he used the above advice you would be looking at his back in this pic. Instead he is in a natural position in relation to his binding angles. In this position he is able to use pressure and edge angle to adjust turn shape. To answer the original question.....It's hard to say what you need to work on with out seeing any vid of you riding. Everyones verbage is slightly different, what you might think is sitting on the toilet could be different from what someone think it is. Sorry I could be more of a help, but I don't want to steer you in a bad direction. But please disregard against the above advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galen Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Also, try rotating you front knee into the turn, keep you rear knee pointed down hill( see the knees together/APART thread) this will help square up the hips to the board. Great pic of Mike T in that thread executing it nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueB Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 For me, exactely opposite worked well - rotating the rear knee into the turn too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NateW Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 For me, one of the most helpful tips ever was to keep my rear hand forward in heelside carves. (Thanks again, Shred!) Reaching forward with that hand really helped me get my heelsides down. For such a simple thing, the effect was huge. Look where these guys' hands are, especially the guy on his heel edge in the near lane: Picture from http://bomber.smugmug.com/gallery/988149/2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hugh Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 On a heelside turn, reach in the direction of your turn with your backside hand (left hand for goofy, right for you "normal" people out there). This will square you up and hook you up. mario Follow above directions and also keep both hands in front of you where you can see them and tilt to make the uphill slope smell your armpit. If the mtn smells your pit, then your hip is pinched down hill. Also, bend at the knees and get low, not at the waist. Lastly, hookup and ride across the hill and even sightly uphill. Many of us make the mistake of not going far enough across the hill on our heelside and then stay too long on our toeside (me included). Try to match the two sides more equally. My $0.02, Hugh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dano Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Follow above directions and also keep both hands in front of you where you can see them and tilt to make the uphill slope smell your armpit. If the mtn smells your pit, then your hip is pinched down hill. Hugh Some tech advice I can understand! Hope to try it soon as I have a bad "riding stinky" habit when I start to get tired. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BobD Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 I think this is one of those skills where in order to have someone overcome a fault, an excagerated mental model is used. This is often repeated enough times to become lore. The common fault on heelsides is counter rotating half way through the turn so the shoulders end up in line with the board. The rider loses board inclination (and torques the board) as he sits on the toilet and the board skids out. Telling someone to keep to keep shoulders facing the direction of boots isn't extreme enough for them to overcome the natural tendency to counter rotate. Hence the excagerated mental models, which may be poor technique if anyone could actually do them. I personally like to heelside with some tension in my upper body. I think this helps to pressure the edge at the nose of the board, but maybe that's just my mental model. BobD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicHard Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 My opinion is that you don't have to rotate your torso downhill, nor uphill, you don't have to try to reach the curve with anything. The position while carving should be natural as in the frontside carve: torso in the direction of bindings, position slightly back (due to the fact that while in the frontside you have to be centered between toes, in the backside you have to be centered on your heels that are more back, on the edge, than the toes). Gently flex the knees without giving power with torso to rotate anything. Obviously, it's easy to say but this has to happen in a very short timeframe! Practice it in wide carve (not on a rail, it doesn't matter), then add flexing the knees and try to put the board more on the edge (this make your curve become tighter). Anyway... it seems to me that no professional rider turn the torso anymore: they save the maximum quantity of movements becoming essentials just to switch from one edge to the other and to gain balance with arms. Ciao! Ohps... I forgot to say: please, don't look at my animation below! This is not standard carving but exhaggeration that is not technically correct. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtslalom Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Philfell, All I am doing is offering a solution to the EXACT question which was " How do I bring my buut in and over the board?" It's difficult to give advice to anyone but the idea of rotating your upper body so that it is perpendicular to your board will DEFINATELY get your butt over your board. As far as edge angles, this will also cause you to have less of one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philfell Posted December 31, 2006 Report Share Posted December 31, 2006 Regardless of what you think, it's bad advice, and I don't suggest anyone ride this way. Read what Richard has to offer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Stevens Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 The pic posted by Philfell of Jasey Jay is a good one for position. Look at how upright his torso is. He's not letting his shoulders get pulled to the outside of the turn, which would make his ass stick out. To build some abdominal "core" strenth, try some wall sits. When you do this, have your feet out in front of you (you could even have your board on) with your leading hip AND leading shoulder on the wall. If you are in the "poo-butt" position, only your hip would be touching. When hip AND shoulder are in contact, you know your torso is upright and the weight of your body is more in line down to the edge. Remember: Shoulders pulled outside=ass out. Hips elevated, shouders vertically more in line with hips= ass in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
west carven Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 i have the same problem. i can stick my frontside every time in any condition. but i still have problems on my heelside. so i'm trying to do what i'm doing on my frontside. turning my shoulders more and trying to touch the snow with my left hand (regular stance) tucking my right knee right behind my left knee and my right hand across to my left chest. this seems to be helping me stick my heelside. i think a race stance is alot different than a soul carver. because a racer only needs to make short turns. more soulless speed!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fleaman Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Sitting on the toilet isnt all that bad, it looks funny when your board isnt up on edge but when carving hard with good body position, it is less noticeable and works well. I have been playing with facing the nose and facing my stance, and I find if you are into EC, face the nose, but if you are into some serious icy, bumpy or fast carves, facing you stances gives you so much more power over your board, you can absorb much more and can pressure you board by pushing on it way easier than if you are facing the nose. Facing the stance feels weird until you do it a few times and get used to it, then it makes sense. If you are killing it on the hill, no one will see you taking a crap, they will be gawking at your military trench. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corey Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 Someone had mentioned 'pushing an ottoman' while doing a heelside turn. If you look at the pic NateW posted, he's doing exactly that with his hands. It keeps your torso pointing in the right direction and your weight forward. That just plain worked for me! It was very easy to visualize and repeat while on the hill, it locked my heelsides carves in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 http://www.bomberonline.com/articles/practice_drills.cfm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
diveburt Posted January 1, 2007 Report Share Posted January 1, 2007 In skiing, when ones sticks his butt out, it means you are bent at the waist. I am a new carver but it applies here. Kasey is fairly upright at the waist but has "blocked" (an old term used by ski instructors) his hips to better resist the centrifigal forces placed on him by the turn. He then can continue the turn and be stronger in finishing. When tired, one will try to compensate by bending forward more. I feel your pain...I get a couple of OK turns and then disaster strikes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 To me that sounds like the best advice to create enough tension in your core to chatter nearly every heelside turn. Phil, I personally usually ride aligned with my binding angles, as you recommend. However, I've found this advice is often simply not enough for new carvers who don't know what they're feeling, and who are suffering from the surfer style of facing the toe edge on heelside carves. Usually they can start a heelside facing their bindings, but the board rotates underneath them and they finish the carve facing purely down the fall line as their board traverses across it. Often in my instructing experience, I found I had to overshoot the target in order to hit the target. Telling a student to reach their trailing hand forward throughout the carve was a good way to get them to stay with the board. Whether this aligned them with their bindings or the board, the results were always a marked improvement. On another note, I'd also argue that at binding angles around 60 degrees, a 30 degree twist in the body is not going to be significant. But I certainly wouldn't advise anyone to twist beyond the nose of the board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yard Sale Posted January 2, 2007 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 I had a breakthrough today. First, just rotating helps immensely. Seems like the most fundamental thing to do, but it's sometimes hard for some reason. And I don't know why, I discovered by accident, putting my knees together (?!) helps everything. I suspect it's what a shooting guru coined "the Trick of the Day," but I like it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D-Sub Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAAAA :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: here we go! yard sale...search for "knees together" and read the recent shenanigans Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RicHard Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 Ohps, I forgot to mention that, for me, another cause (for the "sitting on the toilet" position) could be the straight legs. Straight legs makes you bend too much your torso to balance them: this lead to a very bad position. In the backside carve, due to the fact that heels are more back than toes, you have to be shifted a little bit toward the tail: this lead to a very painful fatigue of your quads that most of the times bring you not to bend enough the legs. Please, post a picture or a mini-video in order to check if this is what happens. Ciao! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeeW Posted January 2, 2007 Report Share Posted January 2, 2007 this is what i got from my coach in my race team. chins up (look forward), stable knee (medium stance in terms of straight up or bend real low or medium), hands forward. dunno if it'd work for you. it does for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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