toesides

[kirtap]

well, i finally got out for the first time this winter. last year was my first time on an alpine, but i only got it out a few times. i did a lot of carving in my softies, and i now feel pretty comfortable doing heelsides on my alpine, but the toesides feel weak and just not natural. i was wondering if theres any basic tips for toesides that i might be missing, i remembered to look into my turn, and that helped, but is there anything else?

my angles are both at 54*

thanks for any help

[Derf]

What helps the most in my opinion for a toeside carve is to bend the knees. I think there is an article about that on the bomber main page.

[alpinegirl]

and in addition to bending the knees as Derf mentioned, you might want to try to actually drive your knees towards the snow. he's right, there is an article somewhere in the bomber files of good reading, it might be entitled something like "using zee knees."

a lot of folks bend their knees and remain stacked perpendicular to their board. hence achieving only inclination. drive both knees into the ground (not literally of course). as you go through a turn your back knee may end up being closer to the ground than your front knee.

your knees end up being beyond the edge of the board while your hips and shoulders are closer to the edge. i am not cool and i do not draw pictures, sorry. but stop sometime, get a knee or both in contact with the snow and straighten your upper body (as in not bending at the waist) as though you are standing up straight. try to get up on edge from there. if you can balance like this while not moving it should be interesting to feel while you are moving.

another way to think of driving with the knees is... (if this is a part of how you ride) as you drop your inside hip into a turn you can accentuate the force by further lowering your hip (to the board and snow) and becoming more compact by bending the knees. here again, the back knee will probably flex more than the front.

as always, if you do try this i'd love to hear what you thought. i am always interested in learning what works and what doesn't. and to everybody else out there, please feel free to feed my brain. i have no answers, adn the best i can ever hope for is to learn something new. by the way, send some snow in my direction, all this grass is getting depressing.

[kirtap]

we had no real snow out in MN either. all the stuff today was home made. and it even started raining, but i just needed to get back out on the slopes, plus i had almost the entire hill to myself.

[alpinegirl]

any snow is good snow at this point in time. we haven't even had a suitable freeze for snowmaking yet, so we're kinda stuck with this grassy hillside.....

besides, most of what we get is only ever manmade.

although... i do live in the rochester (NY) area, and one year for the city's "coldrush" (winter festival thing to promote the city) they were unable to make snow (it was too warm) to produce a wedge in the middle of the city (on some street. sense??) for people to ski, board or tube down (more sense), so they trucked in snow from buffalo to build it. snow gets to be considerably expensive once you resort to trucking it in.

maybe i should move

[philfell]

Why move alpinegirl, the carving at Swain is fantastic.

[Mike T]

... arch your back!

Arching your back on toeside turns - whether in softies or on plates - helps get the board higher on edge and keeps you from reaching for the snow; without seeing a pic of your toeside it's hard to know if it'll help you or not.

At any rate - I recommend you get someone to take a picture of you riding or better yet video... if you can post some pix/video online you'll get some excellent feedback from people far more qualified than myself. I posted some video last year and got some excellent, excellent feedback on my heelsides that really helped.

[Hans]

You can find movies and instruction overhere.

http://www.extremecarving.com/tech/tech.html

Hope this can help you out. It did to me.

Greets, Hans.

[alpinegirl]

aw, why are people reminding me that carving at swain is fun?? of course it is a lot of fun, and there are more people on hard gear over there than where i currently work. but yeah, after spending 4 years teaching over there i eventually changed areas due to high gas prices (graduated from school, new location). i can now afford to work again, but there honestly isn't any suitable carving terrain where i am right now. compromises galore. oh well, i was planning to head down there this season anyway to visit some of my old peers who are fun to ride with, and bust out yet another board that will conjure up comments of "you can't ride that here" from a certain someone. it was only a 167, we all had a lot of fun riding longer boards than usual that day. hmmm.... should schedule a "play date" on plates down there.

we just need some snow first!!!!

hope you guys with snow are having fun so i can continue living vicariously through you all. you can all vicariously mow your lawns through me.

and yeah, mike T's advice on arching the back is good. it is another thing that leads to some awesome carving sensations. just try to not hurt yourself.