Toe side help

[heroshmero]

So, I've hit a new plateau. My heel side is now much better than my toe side.

I'm an intermediate carver and can carve moderate pitches well and have been working on carving better on steeper pitches.

My heel side has suddenly gotten much better and I'm really locking it in and making powerful carves. I can moderate the turn and crank it in really tight if needed.

On the other hand, my toe side seems to take too long to make turns. I'm able to set the edge but the turn is big and takes more space to make. I can't seem to moderate the turn well and can't get the toe side to make a nice tight carve.

Any general tips you guys can throw at me? Anything I should think about as I try to improve my toe side?

[energyrail]

more angulation I'd say. In a toe side carve drop your knees to the ground and reach for the heel edge of the board with your leading hand.

[utahcarver]

Read this article, go ride, and come back and post your experience to the CC. It echoes what 'energyrail' suggests above.

bomberonline.com/articles/toesideproblem.cfm

Mark

[heroshmero]

Thanks for posting the link to that article. I don't think I'm sticking my butt up in the air too much but driving my knees down toward the snow sounds like it could help. I'll give that a shot.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

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[Istvan]

Most probably you bend at the waist and your butt is too much up in the air. Your heelside outperformed your toeside because your biomechanice does not allow you to make this typical toeside mistake on your heelside.

Dropping your knees is a good drill. Also your leading hand should be reaching towards the heelside edge while your rear hand should be a bit raised like if you wanted to clear a gate.

During toesides on steeper slopes you'll have to concentrate on pushing your hips down to the snow rahter than reaching for the snow and having your butt up in the air.

Try to get someone shooting a video of you, you'll most probably see the mistake immediately and that will allow you to correct it.

ps.: Just realized that the Donek Metal ad in the upper right corner of the screen is a great example of a good toeside.

[Jack M]

Hmm... I think I'd say that dropping your hip is a better thing to think about than dropping your knees. I know a dude who leaves a knee track in the snow on toeside, but still has a bit of trouble with his butt in the air and bending over at the waist. But, try both and see what works. Grabbing your front or even rear boot cuff with your front hand can help as a drill.

[heroshmero]

Looks like Bryan posted some video of me above but unfortunately it doesn't really show the problem because most of that is some easy cruising carving.

One of the other things I'm aware of is that I'm not creating enough of the "pinch" when I'm starting my toe side and my trailing hand is dropping toward the snow during the turn. I'm mostly aware of that as being the shoulder/upper body part of my problem but I'm sure it's connected to not getting my hip down far enough. Again, I don't think I'm sticking my butt up into the air but I think my body is a little too straight and I'm not angulating my hips and shoulders enough.

I will work on dropping my hip. If I can get some video shot of me I will post that.

Thanks for the input.

[queequeg]

I agree with what Jack said. Think about hip-checking the snow on your toesides. And grab that front boot (or knee) with your skyward hand.

[RideGuy]

I agree with Jack and queequeg. Look at the turn at 37s. If you get that should up it will help you angulate. Reach for your boot with your ouside hand and try to keep the inside hand away from the snow.

I had the same problem this year after getting a thinner board (higher angles) then I've rode before. I've been working on this allot and now my toe side actually feels strong than my heal side.

I borrowed this picture of tpalka from the Personal Best Carving Photos thread.

[carvedog]

to go along with some of what's been said.

knees to snow only works if your hips and shoulders are doing the right thing.

You can even reach your boot cuff while doing the "wrong" thing.

Downhill shoulder always goes down. Uphill shoulder always goes up.

I call it flying the "wing" the wing being the line the shoulders makes. Tpalka is flying his. If you dip your uphill shoulder the plane will crash. To go with that as soon as I see the downhill shoulder rise at all, trouble is a brewing.

The spot on the vid at :37 is what I saw too. The rest of the run was too flat to see much upper body movement. As you came around the shoulders stayed static, when they should be moving down the hill if that makes sense.

Carve on.

[Call me jack]

i'm going to go out on a limb and say that bases on the [infamous] turn at 0:37 you also need to put more focus on keeping your weight forward.

(doesn't it make your feel kinda good about your self that your backwards from the typical duck stance soft booter? :p )

I borrowed this picture of tpalka from the Personal Best Carving Photos thread.

did any one else notice that it looks like he was dragging his hand, right before the picture was taken? just wondering...

[dano]

So, I've hit a new plateau. My heel side is now much better than my toe side.

I'm an intermediate carver and can carve moderate pitches well and have been working on carving better on steeper pitches.

My heel side has suddenly gotten much better and I'm really locking it in and making powerful carves. I can moderate the turn and crank it in really tight if needed.

On the other hand, my toe side seems to take too long to make turns. I'm able to set the edge but the turn is big and takes more space to make. I can't seem to moderate the turn well and can't get the toe side to make a nice tight carve.

Any general tips you guys can throw at me? Anything I should think about as I try to improve my toe side?

I had sort of the same thing happen to me before trying to dial in a new board.. I really got dialed in on heelsides, but toesides felt weak and slow at the end of the carve. I found that adjusting my rear boot lean back one "hole" ( burton boots) gave me the added leverage i needed to finish the carve. Yes, it did make my heelside carves a little weaker at the end but I found a happy medium between the 2 sides.

Less heel lift ( if you use it ) might be a good tweak to try too.

Or I could be missing the boat entirely...hope you work it out!

[energyrail]

ya dropping the knees versus dropping the hips.

I'm getting confused with my technique, running 40/35 on a 250mm waist board. more of a softboot carving technique.

[heroshmero]

Thought I'd follow up on the advice given. I had an excellent day today with more breakthroughs.

I focused on trying to engage my front leg more and bring my inside hip forward and down towards the snow when initiating the toe side turn. I also experimented with reaching my inside arm down the fall line toward the center of the turn radius during turn initiation as a way to better commit to the turn.

I can see how my body position was not optimal for pressuring the toe side edge. Keeping the hips down and driving the turn helped a lot with that. I can better feel how the turns are connected to my core.

I definitely improved my overall form and am initiating the turns from the front foot a lot more. It's like Don says, "Your back leg is about the past, your front leg is about the future". Thank you sensei.

I had a blast hooking it up much earlier and more solidly on the toe side. A bunch of times I had that feeling like I was falling forward down hill at the beginning of the toe side turn but the board would hook up, come around and catch me. I even pulled off a couple of accidental EC style turns!

Thanks for the input and tips.

Sorry no video proof of the improvement. I was riding solo.

[Sultan Guy]

For me what really helped here was going from a 3 degree heel lift to a 6 degree heel lift on my back foot. Allowed me to more easily bend my back leg and "push" through the carve at higher speed.

[Jack M]

A bunch of times I had that feeling like I was falling forward down hill at the beginning of the toe side turn but the board would hook up, come around and catch me.

now yer cookin' with gas!

[ososinsk]

Read this article, go ride, and come back and post your experience to the CC. It echoes what 'energyrail' suggests above.

bomberonline.com/articles/toesideproblem.cfm

Mark

Wow, great article. This definitely shows me something I've been doing wrong, for a long time, without realizing it.