Critique my technique

[Gleb]

John, I will sacrifice 2 virgins in the hope to be able to use your mountain again.

Bob, I highly doubt I'm as good or better than you. The metal boards do seem tempting but I don't know if i could justify saving up that much money and spending it on a board that has a higher tendency to delam than a standard one. The way it looks now, I'm definitly going to give it a few more years for all the manufacturers to perfect their technique.

[bobdea]

I'd say ride something with a topsheet but has metal in it

I really don't think the metal top is a good idea and some builders feel the same way so I will be getting my stuff from them

well, I might have to buy a kessler but other than that I'll be riding Coilers with some metal in there.

the SG boards have a two year warranty.........

if it comes apart before two years they'd probably replace it

[Kent]

Run of the mill counter rotation. Plenty of articles in the archive that address this.

K

[D-Sub]

Run of the mill counter rotation. Plenty of articles in the archive that address this.

K

love this site. thanks kent!

[Pow]

Gleb, you ride like me, only better. must be a pharmacy student thing. Anyway, I think the biggest problem I find is looking too far into the turn. At the transition, I'd immediately look to where my next transition will be. Basically, it made me turn my body, then bring the board around to meet it. Counter rotation. Today I had an epiphone (however you spell it): I moved my knees before my head, reversing the counter-rotation and making my carving much more fluid. I still have to practice a lot more to knock the bad habit out of me completely. You don't have it nearly as bad as I do, but maybe this will help!

-steve

| mirror?

V

[Gleb]

I worked on the countering the counter rotation today and carved with my hands behind my back or by my sides at Okemo. I took out my speedster GS after lunch and now I'm offically a GS board lover. Maybe it was the perfect hold on the snow, maybe it was just I wanted to go all out on the last few days of the season, but I was able to bend that thing like it was nothing. My carves were tighter on the speedster than the silberpfeil on occassion. Any custom board I'll get in the future will def be a GS. I was able to carve in much narrower trails than before on a board that long.

Bob, I'd like to thank you for pointing me to the Speedster before anyone else had at it earlier this season . Its my favorite board right now. Regarding the metal board, for the amount of days i'll be getting next few years, I don't think id be putting the board through the right amount of days for anything to happen to it within the 2 year slot. My riding will be limited to Loon during winter break and hopefully Big Mountain during spring break as well as a weekend trip to ECES. Outside of that, school will be destroying my time on the hill.

Kent and Pebu, in which video or picture do you see the most counterrotation? I guess I'm counterrotating but I'm having a hard time noticing where.

[Gleb]

pow, I guess the drugs do help Just kidding! I know what you mean with that now and now I see it more clearly. At the begining of the day I was too far in front of my board too, which is a problem that fixed itself since that caused me to get tossed around like salad....bad analogy.

By the end of the day, everything was coming together for me. Around every turn I just said to myself "hips down, arm up" and the board just started flexing, flexing and flexing some more. Plus I read over Pat Donnelly's email about the "Core 4" (which actually ment alot more to me now than it did the first time I read it) and cleaned up on my "outside arm down" technique (best way to carve in less favorable conditions.) I can send those to you if you don't already have them, Pow.

Btw, I think I saw Ursle and another guy from Jersey on a Vokl Cross(which looks sick!). The guy at the board shop said he never sees anyone on hardboots anymore, but I guess he isn't looking hard enough.

[Pow]

I don't have the Core 4 email... could you forward it to me? I'll give you the adress over AIM

[carvedog]

Gleb and Pow (in the last picture) you have some of the same things going on. Not counter rotating as much as staying rotated to the nose ( riding countered ) which is not necesarily a bad thing, but if you ride in that position it is harder to initiate toe side as your body is twisted up.

If lead is back and not over front foot rider can not leverage front boot cuff. Harder to start the turn and less balanced.

Think about moving both knees in an arc around your feet with hips to follow.

Pow it looks like you are bent at the waist, reaching for the snow. Lead shoulder then too high and shortly after edge chatter.

Usually counter rotating is caused by not enough flexion/extension. Typically seen as hands moving towards the tail near the end of the turn. Meaning you never allow the board to get "light" on the snow and must horse it around.

Gleb I think you are looking pretty smooth. No big weird counter rotating movements from the bits of video that I could see. Don't be afraid to finish the toe turn with more knee and hip rotation into the hill. When you stay open to the nose it kind of binds up your suspension.

My two cents.

[ursle]

[btw, I think I saw Ursle and another guy from Jersey on a Vokl Cross(which looks sick!). The guy at the board shop said he never sees anyone on hardboots anymore, but I guess he isn't looking hard enough.

You must have great eyesite, yesterday I was at stratton on a virus undertaker, conditions were the best in years, to much ledge for the undertaker at okemo

[Gleb]

carvedog, thanks for the input, I'll give it a try when I'm on the slope next friday.

Ursle, my bad. I agree about conditions. Prestine, but I've had better days this year. The grooming wasn't done very well on most parts of the trails but the snow was so damn fast! I finally had the balls to open my speedster up. I won't be going back there till next year. Okemo is a great intermediate mountain, I love it:biggthump

[Pow]

I ran into some sub-par conditions today at Jiminy peak. extremely variable loose granular and ice... It made plotting my course more of a guessing game. But I've put together a lot of what I found on the forum, and was carving in ways I didnt think possible! My only complaint is that now I can't keep my hips off the snow once I get going, and when the snow is much harder than my hip, it leaves some nasty bruises (not sure if thats really a bad thing though). I wish the season wasn't ending now, I'm finally getting the hang of it!

Wish I had the dough to make it up to Okemo, that's one of my favorite mountains right now. Keep carving, Gleb:biggthump

[tpalka]

Hey Gleb, I think you're riding well! Rather that being concerned about the negatives (of which there aren't many at all), I would suggest you try broadening your range of techniques -- and I think that any bad habits will disappear. In other words, think about the good instead of concentrating on the bad.

I wrote up some of the lessons that I learned over the past few years, and perhaps some of them will be useful to you? I had also put together some video, trying to illustrate the different concepts. Read it on snowycolorado .

Keep up the good work,

tom.

[Gleb]

Bruises are good! Destroying pants isnt, just bring some duct tape. Okemo was probably mauled today by the NY and NJ crowd so open space would be doubtful. Same thing with Loon and waterville with the Boston people. Even friday was kind of crowded at times. Scrape up some change and senior slide your way towards Okemo to make these last few weeks count.

3 out of my 5 breakthroug days this year were there. Do it!

Tpaulk, i read through your site and that video is great, as are your ideas. My goal for next year is to be able to carve switch. Thanks for the encouragement and pointing me there.

[Gleb]

talk about me doing things wrong. In the 2nd picture, I know my right hand isn't where it should be. Unfortunately, I was caught in bad times in these pictures since I wasn't getting as low as I was for the most part of the day because I wasn't as confident. The run he was taking pictures on wasn't too friendly for me for some reason, but heres me on the 183 speedster.

These pictures don't show it, but my hands finally calmed down by the end of the day because the extra edge pressure wasn't required. And lastly, no i'm not wearing lipstick, my lips got sunburned.

[bobdea]

you Tnutted those I hope!

the boots I mean

[Gleb]

of course.

[Rob Stevens]

Image 83 and 84 give some clue to what's going on.

The counter-rotation is visible as your outside arm gets "left behind" while you finish your turn.

You are relaxed as you ride, but being too loose can let heavy body parts get pulled out of shape (like a 20lb arm). As you come through the apex, your loose core lets your outside arm get pulled away on a tangent. It keeps going outside the arc, starting right where the board was loaded up the most.

When you drop your knees and hip to go on edge, your outside arm will go outside BUT, as it goes out, try to sweep it FORWARD along a path level with the snow, rather than just letting it go wherever.

The same thing works on the heels: As your arm moves out, sweep it forward, paralell to the ground.

This is rotation, which is the opposite of what you're doing, but has it's own problems. Those problems don't involve getting "left behind", though, as you are now.

[Gleb]

Ahhh, I see exactly what you mean! I'm gonna give it a shot tomorrow. 2 days of carving left, so i'll make it worth while. Anything different I should do with my hips?

[Rob Stevens]

Your arm will pull your hips, so if you let your arm fall back, your hips will fall back. If you sweep the arm forward, it will hold your hips in position.

Generally, the spot you're looking for in your hips is alignment with your angles.

[MR. JOHN DEERE !]

guy,

drop the hip.

and do some more t da b on heroes highway!

hopefully this expert advice can help you out, slugga! im mean chugga.

wisky's 10:30am bring your i.d.

[Gleb]

Dropping the hip seemed easier on my Silberpfeil than the speedster, but i think thats because I can barely get up to speed in this snow.

I worked on the counter rotation more day but for the most part, the conditions barely let you carve after 11 in the morn.

I.D.? I got bad luck with the cops as it is, but no worries, I'll be drunk by 8 am monday. Maybe we'll swing by there either way. 21 in 2 months! . Gotta sober up by 8 pm though cuz I got some killer tests on tuesday. Not cool. btw, thanks for the beers the other day. They defintely hit the spot because most of my day was spent going 1 mph trying to teach a friend to snowboard with no bunny hill working.

One last day at loon tomorrow with a nor'easter coming. Hopefully I'll be able to make it home aright.