New Tech Article: The Toeside Problem

[Jack M]

http://www.bomberonline.com/articles/toesideproblem.cfm

[Gecko]

Thanks Jack that's a nice article, I wish I had that about a month ago, it took me a while to get through that issue and I approached it from a different POV but ended up in close to the same place. Your way would have been easier though. Sadly my season is over since I'm leqaving the country for the next 3 weeks, food for thought for next years season

[tex1230]

Great article, Jack. I noticed this year that I was losing edges on a lot of toeside carves, and since I generally ride alone, I didn't have anyone to look at me and point out what was wrong. Last year I was a solid B-C (per your article)...this year I've regressed to somewhere between A and B. Bad habits and 12 days this year vs 20+ last year killing my form.

[RicHard]

Great!

While I was reading the first part ("Most carvers start with a preference for toeside carves"), I was agreeing. Then... you described exactly the transformation I had: I can have great heelside carves but I had problem on toeside ones.

And... last year... my first lesson with a national instructor destroyed my technique. He said: "think just about yor hip that has to go inside the turn"!

Very strange. I was bending the knees, I was leaning with torso into the carve and rotating the torso. He said: no, just focus on putting the hip inside the turn, the most you can. He added "raise up the back arm and keep low the front one (external). On the first red run, I've got fear and fell down.

At the second, I wanted to trust him and... even on very hard snow, a wonderful toeside carve (very safe) happened.

From that moment, I'm focusing mainly about such hip and it has been so funny to read your article and find so many things I heared from my instructor.

In the past, I just heared "turn your upper part in the direction of the turn". :-(

Ciao!

[Jon Dahl]

Seems like with short days to ride this season, I was fighting the same thing. I've had to pay attention to the toeside, and remind myself to do as you point out in the article. Toeside coming back strong!

[~tb]

I know that this is a problem that plagued me as a rider, and still does on the days that I get lazy. I was half expecting to see a picture of me as one of the guilty riders with the blacked out faces. . . Im sure I can find a picture of me doing that . . . but I dont want to!

I think this is one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome. I think the article, or this thread, could be strengthened by comming up with more ways to help people get over this hurdle. While I am riding this weekend, I am going to think about the mental cues I use to make sure my hips are where they belong and not up in the air.

I know part of it for me was to make sure that even if my hand does touch the snow, that I never put ANY weight on it. As soon as I put any load on my hand, I know that my ass gets pressed up into the air.

The other thing that really helps me make sure my hip is going down first is depicted very well by the last picture in the article (is that norm? great pic!). I really have to actively think about reaching my heel side hand towards the edge of my board just infront of my boot, while trying my damndest to keep my uphill hand off of the snow. This naturally drives my hip and knees into the hill and keeps my torso in alignment as Jack describes.

Great read jack!

~tb

[pebu]

Believe it or not I started out with heelside being my strong side, but now I can't seem to keep my heelside edge on the ground. Chatter central. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing wrong (for the most part) so I can work on it, but it's still it's annoying. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I can work on my toeside as well, I'm sure my ass is in the air occasionally, but they sure do feel good. I think the RAB may be part of that though.

Good article though.

[Guest Bamboo_Girl]

Alright, nice write-up.

How about an end-all, be-all article on heel side for those of us who aren't as proficient on that end? :)

[Fastskiguy]

I love it

" Most carvers start with a preference for toeside carves. But as we progress, at some point our strength switches to heelside for many people, almost overnight."

As a new carver, I'm loving my toesides and struggling with my heelsides. I'm looking forward to the overnight transformation :P

[Przemek/Brooklyn]

When i was riding on narrow snowboard i liked more hillside, since i moved to wider board-swoard and relax my angles i enjoy hill and toe side equally.

[cliffh]

This article is describes my experience and struggle to a tee. Great post.

[Bobby Buggs]

When I was at SES I lost a couple toe sides late in the day , I figured out yes I rotated my shoulders, yes I had hands on the snow. I was able to fix it be putt my left hand(regular rider) down by my front boot top. Now that I have the Hip thing to think about I may stop with that hand.

Classic toeside blow out and butt in the air at 2:42 of this vid http://www.evilsports.com/store/devilman.wmv

Poster boy of what NOT to do.

[paappraiser]

I wont show up at any event now cause I dont want to be the guy with the blacked out face..

hahahha

great article !!!

Thanks for everything!

[dano]

Spot on. Jacko. I can't wait to try it. My toesides have gotten shaky compared to heels.

I can understand now why you were trying to get away from "frontside and backside" a while back. No doubt while thinking about this article and having it make sense to the masses.

Or you could just write up a surfer friendly version. ( DUDE! )

:)

[RicHard]

I wont show up at any event now cause I dont want to be the guy with the blacked out face..

hahahha

great article !!!

Thanks for everything!

You are missing something:

it's not a photoshop trick: those people was surfing with a black box on the head (do you prefer helmet?)!!!!

Anyway... I should surf "inside" that black box, for the shame of my riding style!!!

[pebu]

That'd be all good, but it's hard to loose an edge (toe or heelside) when surfing...

Edit, somebody got in between us, that was in reference to dano.

[felix]

Hi, really great great article and please don't take my following statements wrong, they're probabely just still misunderstanding of the concept! I mostly ride in a nice "natural position" especially on frontside no problem. Sometimes on heelside I have the flying arm problem (as on my avatar) and I slightly counterrotate. On FS its allright though.

My toeside is definetly not my weak side, but I have one big problem with Frontside and Cross Over racing technique. For Cross under it's all sweet. My problem is easy to understand when looking at the first picture of the B rider group I think.

1. I'm allways well ballanced and do not bend in at the waist - so I understand and follow that step.

2. My back knee is in or directly above the snow during pretty much the whole carve if I need to get the radius down. I even moved to blocked lean position and race tongues on my Raichle 325 - nevertheless I feel that I could tilt up the board still a bit higher onto the edge - if it weren't for my knee dragging along the snow. It's even worse if I wear shinebone protectors as I'll touch the snow even earlier.

a) my coach told me to drive the hip into the snow once my knee is touching the snow and from that point onwards to put some more pressure on my front leg as well. ---- Furthermore to flex the front leg more, and the back leg less, which is probabely where all goes wrong as I don't yet manage to accomplish this ----

b) If I follow "a)" I am able to tilt the board a tiny bit higher on edge, however it also means that I need to push my legs a bit and they are not as flexed any more. Following this I have the problem that I can't push strongly at the end of the turn and therefore I'm not able to accelerate out of the turn as good as when I didn't bring my hip down to the snow. Additionaly I then need more time to swith from edge to edge - which is awful in slalom races as I then really loose too much time on the transition to my backside edge.

Consequently I loose much time in the race course, when I drive my hip into the snow to turn up the board even higher. My performance is allright with icy conditions but if it gets very slushy I'm simply loosing much speed on my frontside.

[Gleb]

Weird how you posted this at pretty much the same time as my breakthrough with dropping the hip and all. I heard this is also the way you're supposed to ride when on ice. Thats definitly a no go for me as I found out today. Got one carve in and the rest of the ice was bullet proof for me. Thank god its snowing now.

[alexgforce]

Indeed Jack this is great great article. it is also interesting what ~tb has to say. Frankly I think he has one of the best toe sides I have ever seen.

There is a video from the SES that has been uploaded that features ~tb taking some turns. The video start with a toeside turn that Todd puts his left hand (riding regular) behind his back. I am not sure if this is intentional or if my eyes deceive me (probably because of my age) but it looks like a good idea for practice. If the hand is locked behind the back the shoulders would not be able to rotate towards the snow and the only way to put pressure on the edge would be through the hips.

[Istvan]

Great article, but the pics do not show up on my screen... maybe some settings issue? Thx

[philw]

A good article, certainly. It's useful to think about these things I think.

Personally I'd say that the main problem in the photos of the "bad" toesides seems to be people reaching for the snow. I think this is a really bad habit. You get it sometimes in people riding powder, and it's invariably a very bad idea for all the obvious reasons. It's a bit like the old skiing "put your feet together" thing - it's a confusion of cause and effect: if I carve hard then I may be able to touch the snow, but trying to touch the snow isn't a way to carve hard. It's an effect not a cause.

I know that there are people who carve well who do grab for the snow - the extreme carving looks like that to me. Watch the videos, and you can clearly see the riders throwing themselves down into the snow. That's a neat trick, if you like that sort of things.

I'm sufficiently sad that I can's say I have a stronger "side". With a forward facing stance it's just one edge or the other, to me. Thinking about toe side turns, I'm not sure what I do, but I don't visualize "dropping" anything. It's more like my legs move under me and if anything I kind of arc to keep my upper body upright, driving straight down the hill. Your last picture looks like that; some of the other (good carves) look different.

[felix]

Well trying everything not to touch the snow at all isn't the best eiter, if you see the Schoch brothers they touch the snow quite often on FS turn initiation. It provides some stability (like poles on skis which many people only use as a dragging device in the snow to get a feeling on how deep they carve). But of course you should never grab for it.

[pebu]

Touching and reaching for the snow are two totally different things. Alot of people touch the snow. Even I do occasionally. Boy is that an awesome feeling.

I've been concentrating on throwing my hip down on toeside and holding my knee on heelside and let me tell you, in this soft stuff with my hard board, it is biting enough for my light ass to get some good decamber and I'm just makin some ripping turns. Multiple occasions now I find myself brushing the snow, toe AND heelside and it feels great.