Trouble with Heelside

[baldylox]

I'm having trouble fixing my heelside. I know I should be rotating my hips and looking into the turn but when I do, I twist right out of the carve. The tail breaks free. How can I fix this?

This is me. (I didn't title it)

Edited March 5, 2014 by baldylox

[DonPablo]

too far in the back seat? try getting more weight towards the front of your board.

[Helmut Karvlow]

You're not rotating your shoulders, you're just reaching forward with the left hand.

[jacopodotti]

Try to put your front arm allways inside the turn.

Set the upper part of you front boot a bit more forward

[RicHard]

Your legs are too straight (and always in the same extension/flexion). On heelside your inside arms go on the external side of the board (while it should remain on the left side since you're regular). Keeping the arms there prevent you from being in the right position with your shoulders/hips.

Try to:

- keep your left arm on the left side of the board

- flex much more your legs during the turn (try to grab the frontside edge with your right hand while in the heelside turn,this can give you the idea of how much your legs canbend more than how much you are doing).

I think you will notice sudden benefits... ;)

Let us know about!

[DonPablo]

I know I should be rotating my hips and looking into the turn but when I do, I twist right out of the carve. The tail breaks free.

Do you have any video of that?

From the video, you are leading your heel side carve with your butt. As you mentioned, try getting them hips rotated. With your hips rotated you should be able to flex at the waist and weight the tip of the board, tail of the board, or stay neutral. In the video, the harder you try turning on the heel side, the more you stick out your butt, and the more you flex at your waist which is putting more weight on your toes. Those two actions counter act one another.

[Hans]

If you hang on the racestyle type of riding you don't need any kind of rotation. If you look before 0.38 you start right to bend your knees, at 0.38 and just before you start bending your upperbody instead of bending your knees more. Result: your body is not in the center of gravity, not above your backside edge = washing out of your heelside. Just bend your knees more, keep your upperbody upright. Just move up and down by bending your knees, not by bending your upperbody.

[Unicorn Poop]

Something that really helped with my heelside was to put pressure on the front edge of my front foot. That is, the pinky toe side of my foot, or the side of my foot closer to the nose of the board. Getting the pressure off the ball and sometimes heel of my front foot really helped drive my knees during a heelside.

[DonPablo]

If you hang on the racestyle type of riding you don't need any kind of rotation.

I look at it like this, that rotation is always there but it's less noticeable in a race course, especially on a toe side turn. Each turn you make, you are pressuring your body into that turn starting at your ankles, knees, hips, and all the way up your body. In a race course you never want to complete a carve (start and finish perpendicular with the fall line) because it's slow. The more your rotate your body, the easy it will be to get perpendicular with the fall line.

Toe side turn in a race course, you don't see the rotation because it's in relation to your binding angles. Generally shouldn't need to rotate more than your binding angles so you see the rotation.

Heel side it shows. Racers don't rotate? Look at their direction their toes are pointing in relation to their knees, hips, shoulders. They are rotating and you can see it.

[Guest]

not rotating gets you into the toilet seat position, which is OK for softboots and low angles, but for hardboots and higher angles you want to exploit your increased lateral leverage - e.g., using your knees to get on the edge by pushing the sides of your boots, rather than the straps and highbacks (with softboots). Try just doing a run where you steer only with your back knee (scary at first but trust me, it works). Just do a green run using only your back knee for direction. Feel the power you get from moving it side to side and how that effects the edge and the "bite" in the snow. Then use the front knee to do the same thing. The whole "rotation" thing clicked for me once I realized that the whole point was to get your body lined up so that your knees can do what they're supposed to.

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

The good news is you are in fact carving!!! Not skidding. Nice smooth carved turns.

[Neil Gendzwill]

What everyone else said. Bend your knees more both directions. On heelside, rotate your upper body towards the nose. Your shoulders need to be at least at right angles to your front binding, I like more rotation than that. Try to drop your butt towards the heel edge, not break at the waist towards the nose.

Not that I'm any paragon of technique but this photo shows the rotation I mean:

Edited March 6, 2014 by Neil Gendzwill

[baldylox]

You've identified that what you 'know' and what you 'need' are not the same thing. Your 'difficulties' appear to be more procedural than mechanical.

As Bryan points out, you have at least engaged the sidecut on both toe and heel, which suggests you have something to work off of.

Your posture, however, is a bit too complex for a basic heelside sidecut turn.

Part of the visual funk is a byproduct of the board arcing around a pivot point located near or under your front foot. At your stage of the game, its more about controlling the tendency for body parts to rotate than it is about actively rotating body parts.

Find your toeside at around 1:04-5 on the video. Notice that you are more or less upright and stacked over both your feet and edge, more or less centered on the length of the board. Maybe even slightly to the rear foot.

Find your heelside using the same/similar posture.

Add postural complexity as the needs of the turn dictate, rather than as a means of making the turn itself.

[baldylox]

Thanks for the help guys. I'll try to apply it tomorrow.

[Beckmann AG]

I know I should be rotating my hips and looking into the turn but when I do, I twist right out of the carve.

You've identified that what you 'know' and what you 'need' are not the same thing. Your 'difficulties' appear to be more procedural than mechanical.

As Bryan points out, you have at least engaged the sidecut on both toe and heel, which suggests you have something to work off of.

Your posture, however, is a bit too complex for a basic heelside sidecut turn.

Part of the visual funk is a byproduct of the board arcing around a pivot point located near or under your front foot. At your stage of the game, its more about controlling the tendency for body parts to rotate than it is about actively rotating body parts.

Find your toeside at around 1:04-5 on the video. Notice that you are more or less upright and stacked over both your feet and edge, more or less centered on the length of the board. Maybe even slightly to the rear foot.

Find your heelside using the same/similar posture.

Add postural complexity as the needs of the turn dictate, rather than as a means of making the turn itself.

Edited March 7, 2014 by Beckmann AG
database eror

[John Gilmour]

So many things wrong with way you are currently executing your heel side..

If you JUST "bend your knees" (without flexing your ankles) ... you end up in the back seat. Its just a semantics thing. Flex forward with your ankles first (centered over the board prior to tipping ) so you counter your ass hanging off the side of the board... then flex your knees and drive them in the direction of the turn.

Feel pressure along the side of your front foot- and well as on the bevel of your heel inside your boot just under your anklebone (Hows that for being exact???) Do this first standing on your board in sneakers on the carpet.. Get used to loading your weight in the right places...on carpet in an unthreatening situation ALWAYS. Not while sliding down a hill with others around you. Learn to balance tilted in your boots on the carpet first without a board clipped on.

If you don't "Pre look" into the turn its like taking a left turn from a roadway without looking first.. Who would drive like that? Besides you have SOOOOOOO little heel side view available right now you will end up being a hazard to other people on the slopes if you don't pre-look.

Furthermore..... if you intend to carve hard and turn say 90 degrees to the fall line.... lets say you have a 10m sidecut.... thats 30 feet. which in a 1/2 circle means you will only go downhill 15 feet before you start to NOT BE GOING DOWNHILL ANYMORE.

So 15 feet... its like a mid sized car MAX assuming a mildly timid turn initiation. Lets add 10 feet to it. call it two toyota camrys...

Can you look 2 Camrys down the hill and identify that there are ZERO threats?

Yes.

Ok so what is more dangerous...looking downhill unnecessarily more than 2 Camrys and NOT seeing the 11 year old kid passing you blindside on your left..or worst the 280lb guy on your left going 40mph.

OR actually pre-looking ...and making sure the UPHILL is clear prior to executing your turn?

In hard boots..in order to pre- look uphill you must be in the correct position to go heel side.

Clip in on your carpet. Flex your ankles forward, look mildly to your toeside and try to drive your knees heel side... what a Fricking contorted mess!

thats a mistake.

Ok so lets try your other mistake.

Stand up tall, look over your front shoulder to check where you are turning with your knees pointed straight downhill. (yours knees are not pointed downhill by the way) and you will find you have very little field of vision to your heel side... You have some. But it's pretty limited.

Okay so that's a little less of a mistake.

Now let's try this. Flex your ankles forward effectively beginning to preload your weight forward for turning.

Now let's flex our knees to effectively lower your center of mass.

Now look over your heel side shoulder as far as you can. And you will see you have much more of a field of vision of the uphill.

Why is this so important? Because let's say your traveling at a paltry 15 miles an hour. That means you're traveling at a rate of 22 feet per second .. if you were carving a full circle with 10m radius board you would cut roughly a 62 meter circumference. so If in 1/4 of 62 feet you are going completely across the fall line and no longer moving downhill ...thats just 15 feet. So at 22 feet per second ..before you can count "one one thousand" you are not going downhill anymore but going across the hill- at a rate of lateral speed that someone coming downhill at the same speed can not match you laterally.

So NOT LOOKING is deadly...unless..... you are going 70 mph in which case no one is going to pass you....

So practice this knee drive looking thing... at home... endlessly..

do it with your eyes closed so you can feel the sequence of pressures in your boots. Only then grasshopper can you try to transfer skill to snow.

Then send me a video....and maybe food delivery from nearby Bamboo Bistro cafe in Corona del Mar.

Edited March 8, 2014 by John Gilmour

[www.oldsnowboards.com]

Have you had enough help yet? :)

I hope you understand we each have our own way of delivering "Help" , I assure you that you ARE in fact getting some very good advice from some VERY well respected and knowledgeable senior members of BOL. It may set you back a bit , but re-read each post a couple times , knowing there are jems in there. :o

I explained to a young guy that was asking for my help on a project. I personally "Take" some pleasure in watching how "YOU" learn and how you light up when you "Get It". I will however occasionally exact my "Pound of flesh" in getting you there. These REALLY are kind folks that wish you well.

[two_ravens]

Hey Baldylox, I don't know your learning style, but if it were me, I would be reading all this wonderful advice and just start blurring out... So how to take all this good information and put it to use...? I was a beginner carver for about 3 years before I got tired of not really carving much and decided to do something about it. I found that just doing what I had been doing but trying to change a little something here and there just had me mostly practicing stuff that didn't work, with minor variations. Here is what helped me really change my riding (it took a month to go from kind of loser newb to getting hoots and hollers from the lift - maybe you'll learn faster!):

Get a clear idea of the body position that you want to achieve - look at photos, look at videos, read all the good info above, find someone whose riding you want to emulate and try to dissect every aspect of what they are doing. This vision may change over time as your riding changes, but start with some solid basics.

For me, the starting point was somewhat similar to what CMC is doing - not quite that compact, but it was sort of what I was aiming for. (I learned on a steep hill with hard manmade snow, so this was a good body position for me to start with.) For a glimpse, go to the ECES photos thread, hover over each photo and the name of the rider will pop up - CMC is wearing bright green top and yellow pants. http://www.bomberonline.com/VBulletin/showthread.php?41905-ECES-2014-Stratton

To get into my chosen body position, I would stand up on my board, press my front knee toward the nose of the board (thinking mostly about bending at the ankle, as mentioned above), then press my rear knee toward the nose of the board, then square my hips as much as possible toward the nose of the board (this is where you get your butt lined up over the board instead of hanging out to the side), then tuck from the hips (kind of feels like you're sticking your butt in the air) and try to flatten my back. So I had my mantra: Knee, Knee, Hips, Tuck. And do something useful with your hands - back hand on front knee works for many people. (BTW - anytime the going gets tough - steep/difficult snow/poor light, or my riding just isn't coming together, I go through my mantra, do this little drill, and everything gets better. :) )

Finding a position to practice that is both mechanically sound and radically different from how you have been riding really helps scrub all the nonfunctional aspects of what you are currently doing. It's easy enough to unfold from this super compact position later if conditions don't call for it, but you will have it to fall back on when you need it......

Practice getting into this position in a safe stationary place - at home on the carpet, then on snow with a glove under your board to keep from sliding, then moving straight down a very gentle uncrowded slope. (Another fun exercise is to get in your position and then try hopping, aiming to land in good body position - good one to do at home on carpet!)

When you can fold yourself into your solid body position fluidly, point your board down a fairly gentle slope, get in your position (Knee, Knee, Hips, Tuck!) put the board on edge and do JUST ONE TURN - hold that good body position until the turn runs out of steam, you might even fall over. Then evaluate how well you held that position. Then get up and do it again. Do a few turns one way, then do a few turns the other way - all ONE AT A TIME! Don't start linking turns until you can hold that nice functional position all the way through a single turn both heelside and toeside.

When you can consistently hold your good position throughout the turn, toe and heel - only then should you start to link them. Linking turns of course adds many layers of complexity - deciding when/how to extend/retract, feeding the board through or not, etc. But you will have a solid foundation from which to explore all the new skills to come.....

Doing this drill might feel like you're not having much fun, feels like you're not "really" riding - I did ONLY this exercise for about 2 weeks, every day, for a couple of hours, to get rid of all the nonfunctional body positions and habits I had developed over 3 years. Then I started linking my turns, and it took another 2 weeks to start getting attention from the peanut gallery (and - oddly - drew the admiration of 2 teenage teleskiing girls who were really amazing at their craft - they would follow me down the hill, whistling and shouting and trying to follow my lines. Kind of fun to have groupies! :) )

Hope this might help. Clearly, you are already doing some things right. The endless refinement of skills can be a blast - have fun! :)

[baldylox]

I was in my living room "laying trenches" in the carpet last night. One thing I noticed is that my front knee is fairly close to the toe edge in neutral stance and centered when I angulate as if I were going to do a heelside. Should I adjust the cant so that my knee is more centered at neutral?

If so, I'll probably need to move my binders a little closer together. The front binder is centered in the inserts. Should I move the back up 2 units or the front back a unit and the back up a unit?

Edited March 18, 2014 by baldylox

[Guest]

I was in my living room "laying trenches" in the carpet last night. One thing I noticed is that my front knee is fairly close to the toe edge in neutral stance and centered when I angulate as if I were going to do a heelside. Should I adjust the cant so that my knee is more centered at neutral?

If so, I'll probably need to move my binders a little closer together. The front binder is centered in the inserts. Should I move the back up 2 units or the front back a unit and the back up a unit?

Carpet carving tells you nothing of importance. If you feel like adjusting something, doing it on the hill while riding is the only thing that really will make a difference as you are getting immediate feedback.

[John Gilmour]

Carpet carving tells you nothing of importance. If you feel like adjusting something, doing it on the hill while riding is the only thing that really will make a difference as you are getting immediate feedback.

Totally tru-

Ride some bullet proof frozen windswept granular with the occasional cat track and remelted slope drool.. if your technique works on that- you're solid.

I'm selling off my Original Madds (somewhere in the Bomber classifieds) - in case you want a board that can hold on ice. The Madd 158 is the "go to ice board" because it allows for more pressure along its effective edge.

[John Gilmour]

I'm having trouble fixing my heelside. I know I should be rotating my hips and looking into the turn but when I do, I twist right out of the carve. The tail breaks free. How can I fix this?

You've identified that what you 'know' and what you 'need' are not the same thing. Your 'difficulties' appear to be more procedural than mechanical.

As Bryan points out, you have at least engaged the sidecut on both toe and heel, which suggests you have something to work off of.

Your posture, however, is a bit too complex for a basic heelside sidecut turn.

Part of the visual funk is a byproduct of the board arcing around a pivot point located near or under your front foot. At your stage of the game, its more about controlling the tendency for body parts to rotate than it is about actively rotating body parts.

Find your toeside at around 1:04-5 on the video. Notice that you are more or less upright and stacked over both your feet and edge, more or less centered on the length of the board. Maybe even slightly to the rear foot.

Find your heelside using the same/similar posture.

Add postural complexity as the needs of the turn dictate, rather than as a means of making the turn itself.

As always B AG is right on the money. My one sentance advice... sounds like you are leaving too much weight on the front foot heelside for too long. Transfer your weight to be 60/40 or 50/50 between both feet just as you cross the fall line. If carving locked in ...heading uphill... it might feel like 55/45 or 60/40/

Focusing all your weight on your front foot heelside for too long will cause carving spinouts.

Edited March 18, 2014 by John Gilmour

[John Gilmour]

ok- one last thing.

Let's imagine instead of your body- a stick is riding the board. In trying to keep your Center of mass over the edge - That's between your butt crack and your bellybutton.... if the stick is really tall- lets say 40 feet tall. If you aren't over the edge exactly.... the lateral displacement from the edge would be huge.

FEW NBA players carve. (High risk sports are outlawed in their contracts anyhow...but likely- they wouldn't be good candidates for it).

Now let's imagine that that stick is just as tall as 1/2 the width of the board. so for a 20cm wide deck.. its 10 cm (about 4 inches).

That sticks Center of mass can not extend beyond the edge of the board (it its 4 inches high its cm is 2 inches high) even if that stick is 8 inches tall... its CM can't go beyond the deck unless your are heeled over much more than 45 degrees.

SO- get small.. You Have TO GET LOW BEFORE you even THINK about turning. Its part of the order of which you do things. If you try to get low in the turn all you do is depressurize your edge and lose cutting power.

This is what you should practice carpet carving.

Call me at 949-243-4377..and just for the heck of it.... I'll give you a freebie video pointer via webcam. so you have a fighting chance of pulling this off before seasons end. (I've video coached tons of skaters and carvers- so its easy for me)

YOU WILL LOVE YOUR HEELSIDE... it's like your wife's wicked twin sister. (that's a good one.)

JG

[Rob Stevens]

Isn't that "Norm" turn vid on here somewhere? If it is, you should watch it.

That hill is so flat, you shouldn't have to do anything other than stand in a balanced position, while rocking side to side with even weight on both feet. There is nothing going on there to make you work as hard as you seem to be.

If you want to do some "carpet boardin'", strap in standing in a doorway and just rock back and forth from one side of the frame to the other. No movement other than feeling your weight move across your feet from heels to toes, standing balanced on both.

[40tude]

Just wanted to say thanks for all the great info in this thread!