Knowfish Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Just started carving after taking 11 years off. My stuff is old burton products: alps board, freeride boots and carbon fiber race plates. Anyhow my toeside ruts are clean and strong but my heelside turns seem to side quite a bit. I found that if I weight my front foot my heelside turns stay hooked up and side out less. What can I do to minimize this heelside problem? Should I move forward or back? Or do I just need to improve my technique - more time on the snow. Any advise would be welcomed, I want to get back in the game ASAP, improving my carving would justify buying all the new metal boards/bindings and new boots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 You probably need to think about "feeding" the board through the turn. Initiate each carve with your weight up front, and smoothly shift to the back as the turn comes around. Keep your eyes looking into the turn (not just downhill!) and keep your body aligned with your feet - on heelside don't let your hips or shoulders open up and face downhill. Good luck and welcome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowfish Posted February 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Jack: my heelside sliding occurs when I shift my weight off my front foot after entering the turn and trying to evenly weigh both feet half way thru the turn. For some reason I feel I either need more wt on the tail so it sticks or I have to much weight aft so its sliding out. Then again my toeside turns are deep so moving my bindings might screw up my frontsides. I guess I need to hit the snow and experiment. Thanks for the response. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeGogoussier Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 don't let your hips or shoulders open up and face downhill. Jack, I can't visualize what you mean there. Can you re-state please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newcarver Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Make sure you are not "booting out" on your heelside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
teach Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 You didn't say what lift/cant you have but maybe additional lift under the front toe would help maintain edge pressure as you move your weight back. A lot of riders use 6 degrees under the front toe. I have heard that rear heel lift can also help this, but not sure I understand what's happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bora20 Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 I centered my bindings on the effective edge, not the inserts and that helped me with heelside turns. They moved forward 1" on each foot and has helped HUGE. Before that I would slide out on every heelside turn. It hasn't changed my toeside at all. I even had 1 perfect heelside carve last weekend that another Mike Rautch saw. It really made my day and proves that I can do it, I just need more practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigdyno Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 The info I was recently presented with, as Jack stated, was make sure you keep your torso rotated. The suggestion I was given (I took it and it works) is to bring your down hill hand around so it is over your front knee. This will help turn your hips and shoulders, I also find it helps me if I make and exaggerated head turn to look where I want to go. This also helps to bring my shoulders around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cuban Carving Gooding Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 It's your technique. Square your schoulders to the board on your healside. Or give a picture and we can go from there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennyskywalker Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 I found when my heel slides out for me it's usually because my back knee is pointed outwards - towards to the toe edge of the board and a bit opened up. That would cause me to not apply enough pressure on the rear heel edge. I found if I drove my rear knee in towards the board, and towards the back of my front knee I could get more pressure on the rear heel edge. That also caused me to put more of my weight on the back leg - and I think helped me even my weight out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Jack, I can't visualize what you mean there. Can you re-state please? On a heelside turn, once the board points down the fall-line, novice carvers and softbooters will typically allow their hips and shoulders to stay facing downhill throughout the rest of the turn. Meanwhile, the board continues to rotate underneath them as it turns across the hill. This reduces balance and stability. Good carvers maintain the board/body alignment throughout the whole turn. A good way to tell if you're doing it right is whether or not you can see your trailing hand somewhere in your peripheral vision throughout the turn, while you look where you want the carve to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack M Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 The info I was recently presented with, as Jack stated, was make sure you keep your torso rotated. The suggestion I was given (I took it and it works) is to bring your down hill hand around so it is over your front knee. This will help turn your hips and shoulders, I also find it helps me if I make and exaggerated head turn to look where I want to go. This also helps to bring my shoulders around. This is a good drill to get out of the habit of facing the toeside edge and "sitting on the toilet" on heelside, and to get into the habit of staying aligned with the board as it turns. However once you get good at this, you can relax a little bit - being aligned with your binding angles is better than being twisted all the way around to the nose, and gives you more range of motion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowfish Posted February 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Thanks for all the responses. It sounds like my problem is more technique then setup. However I did move my plates to decrease my stance from 20" to 19," by moving my rear plate. I also changed my rear plate angle from 51 to 45 degree thinking it would help me get going again. I'm going to change my angles back to 57 front/51 rear then try the hand over the knee thing to help my balance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knowfish Posted February 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 I centered my bindings on the effective edge, not the inserts and that helped me with heelside turns. They moved forward 1" on each foot and has helped HUGE. Before that I would slide out on every heelside turn. It hasn't changed my toeside at all.I'm going to try this, I basically just used the reference provided on the board. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
orser506 Posted February 3, 2011 Report Share Posted February 3, 2011 I thought there a whole thread dedicated to this a long time ago but i can't seem to track it down. I'm not trying to jack this thread but how come sometimes my heelside goes all wavey on me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinecure Posted February 3, 2011 Report Share Posted February 3, 2011 Also make sure you aren't sticking your butt out too much. If you move your center of mass too far inside the turn, you end up decreasing edge angle and tend to wash out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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