AcousticBoarder Posted January 17, 2018 Report Share Posted January 17, 2018 (edited) I was riding today and the mountain camera guy got some good shots of me. I didn't feel like paying for any (I don't think I am quite that good yet), so I just snapped the preview as I don't think I have any real pictures or videos of my riding yet. In an effort to improve my riding, I decided to post them here for some constructive feedback. Anything is appreciated! Note that these were taken on a green part of the run. If I were looking for something in particular it is to improve my riding on harder blue + runs as I often cannot link nice carved turns. Edited January 17, 2018 by AcousticBoarder 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barryj Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Hey AB Cool photos! What Mtn.? Looks better conditions than we have at Squaw! To give you best educated advice it would help to know what board, what bindings, what angles, what cants or cant disks, what stance...etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) 14 hours ago, barryj said: Hey AB Cool photos! What Mtn.? Looks better conditions than we have at Squaw! To give you best educated advice it would help to know what board, what bindings, what angles, what cants or cant disks, what stance...etc. These were taken at Mammoth. They have pretty good coverage, been at June most of the week and it's been pretty well covered for their open runs, but not all runs are open and there are some thin spots there, nothing you can't avoid. I am riding a Coiler NFCB 172, with UPZ RC10s and TD3 SW bindings, 6 in front and 3 in back. For canting, I was mistaken. It seems on the front I have about 5.6* toe lift and 2.1* outward cant, and the rear I am at about 3* heel lift and .4* outward cant. Angles are approximately 60 and 53 (hard to check with toe blocks almost all the way in) Snow where these were taken was fairly consistent, not too choppy and very carvable. Edited January 18, 2018 by AcousticBoarder corrected canting setup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big mario Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) couple of quick observations on body your positions: Heelside the notso good Looks like you are riding a little less than your binding angles; bring your trailing arm forward or drop your leading arm back to bring your shoulders slightly more forward than your angles, like your shoulders are on your toesides, closer to perpendicular with the board than parallel the moar gooderer Knees look nice and soft, upper body breaking away from the snow, putting greater pressure on your edge Toeside The notso uphill hand reaching for the snow, switch it, or at a minimum, reach for the your downhill bootcuffs (Downhill defined as post apex of the turn, causing you to move away from the snow, which in turn puts your center of gravity closer to the edge of the board, what you are doing now does the opposite, which takes pressure off of your edges) the moar gooderer again with the soft knees (bent and athletic) shoulders slightly forward of your angles For me, riding with my shoulders slightly ahead of my binding angles helps me stay centered on the board, and helps keep my upper body nice and quiet Edited January 18, 2018 by big mario some of what i was sayn made absophucingloutly no sense 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barryj Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Yeah...what the Big M says... And...try reversing your cant disks....put the 6 in back and 3 up front... more the norm for most riders fme......(if there is such a thing with all the micro adjustment we do in riding hardboots and plate bindings!) This will give your rear knee more forward lean which will put you/your body more forward which puts more weight on the nose which will help you initiate quicker/smoother, which will put you "driving" the board...not sitting back and catching up to what the board is doing...which is what's happening on your heelsides...but then again your on or coming into a green run so that relaxed "riding" the board could be you relaxing as your losing speed. Also try this: your regular, so on your heel side bring your hands in front...(always a good practice no matter which turn) and as your hitting/initiating your heel side turn....try to make your right elbow touch your left knee....and hold it as the board whips around. Could be an omg moment!, You will really see/feel the board really react to that energy/body input. Speed is your friend and you only need some easy blue run to really get the feel of this.....and once your used to that responsiveness on your heelsides you'll want it all the time and start bringing it into your toeside turns.................. Happy Trenching! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Makes sense, both items you pointed out are issues I am at least somewhat aware of, but the toe side only after seeing my photos really, but I think I have known it was there... I will have to try that elbow touch. I can generally do the hand (as I do often in the heelside turns, see first photo) but even though I have been working on making my shoulders face more forward the hand doesn't do enough, elbow might just give that extra input I need. When in the moment I also seem to forget I can bring my forward shoulder back too... As for my bindings, because of the UPZs the 6 in front is needed. The only thing I have not tried is a 6 and 6, so that might be something I explore soon. I got another 6 degree at the end of last season so I do have a second now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunSurfer Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) AcousticBoarder, Photo 3 (toeside) shows your best form, with your trunk rotated nicely forward, and the reach for the ground by your right arm not reverse angulating your body too much. On heelside, rotate your body to face a little more forward and allow your rear knee to come a little closer to your front knee. On both sides, work on body angulation at hips/waist level, so that your body is more upright than the edge angle of your snowboard. Work also on keeping the same edge angle under both feet. Speed makes carving a little easier, but it is the enemy of developing good technique and control. Early on I tried to freeride my way to good carving. It was only when I swallowed my pride, and went back to green slopes, and deliberately worked on making clean carves on both sides while maintaining speed control that I made any real progress. Edited January 18, 2018 by SunSurfer Got my toes & heels muddled. Doh! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inkaholic Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 I concur with Big Mario and will add... the not so good - butt is not a pontoon and should not swing into the middle for the board to rotate around. On heel side drive your right hip forward in the turn. If you don’t believe me then ask Odd Job what he thinks. Ink 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beckmann AG Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 14 hours ago, AcousticBoarder said: If I were looking for something in particular it is to improve my riding on harder blue + runs as I often cannot link nice carved turns. This suggests a timing issue, and timing issues usually come down to using larger body parts (rather than the feet/ankles) to initiate turns. As seen in the photos, you're overly hip on the heelside, meanwhile leaning in to the toeside. Are you 'slightly canted in' on account of leg curvature, or are you 'slightly canted in' to accommodate a recommended stance width? If the latter, inward canting usually compromises ankle dexterity, which means you have to use other body parts to tilt the board. The further up the chain you go, the slower the turn exit, and the slower the following initiation. And that limits your terrain. Similarly, is your front foot offset to the heelside, or is that an illusion? If the former, offset the other way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carvedog Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 As for canting. Not sure what normal is. I don't ride much canting and just traded away the six degree. I run three in front and flat in the back. I have tried three/three and didn't like it much either but was manageable. My two thoughts for this season are: Spinal flexion and turn shape. Not necessarily in reference to your photos. Others have commented about the reaching on toeside etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 3 hours ago, Beckmann AG said: This suggests a timing issue, and timing issues usually come down to using larger body parts (rather than the feet/ankles) to initiate turns. As seen in the photos, you're overly hip on the heelside, meanwhile leaning in to the toeside. Are you 'slightly canted in' on account of leg curvature, or are you 'slightly canted in' to accommodate a recommended stance width? If the latter, inward canting usually compromises ankle dexterity, which means you have to use other body parts to tilt the board. The further up the chain you go, the slower the turn exit, and the slower the following initiation. And that limits your terrain. Similarly, is your front foot offset to the heelside, or is that an illusion? If the former, offset the other way. Yeah, I think I have been using my hips a lot to initiate the next turn.... That would make sense as to how my upper body is situated in both heel and toe, which seem to be the majority of the coments. I know a drill I have heard of before is to "stomp" on my front heel to initiate heel side, and drop my rear knee on toe side. Should I focus more on this then or is there a different method to aim to eliminate this? For canting, I was mistaken. It seems on the front I have about 5.6* toe lift and 2.1* outward cant, and the rear I am at about 3* heel lift and .4* outward cant. Angles are approximately 60 and 53 (hard to check with toe blocks almost all the way in). Updated the first post. The canting I have is setup as it is after going through it last season to eliminate knee pain. I have a slight gilmour bias in my setup right now but I am not married to it if that might help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lordmetroland Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 4 hours ago, inkaholic said: If you don’t believe me then ask Odd Job what he thinks. Specificity is important here; just asking him "what do you think" in general may elicit some surprising responses. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beckmann AG Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 (edited) 4 hours ago, AcousticBoarder said: Yeah, I think I have been using my hips a lot to initiate the next turn.... I know a drill I have heard of before is to "stomp" on my front heel to initiate heel side, and drop my rear knee on toe side. Should I focus more on this then or is there a different method to aim to eliminate this? For canting, I was mistaken. It seems on the front I have about 5.6* toe lift and 2.1* outward cant, and the rear I am at about 3* heel lift and .4* outward cant. Angles are approximately 60 and 53 (hard to check with toe blocks almost all the way in). Updated the first post. The canting I have is setup as it is after going through it last season to eliminate knee pain. I have a slight gilmour bias in my setup right now but I am not married to it if that might help. Are you using your hips to initiate out of necessity, or because you think you're supposed to? Things to consider: >Undo the front foot bias, and re-set that binding so that the ball of your foot on the arch side, and the contact point of your front heel are equidistant from the respective edges. >If you still have a pair, use a standard TD3 on the front, and a Sidewinder on the rear, preferably with a blue elastomers to the medial side, and yellow to the lateral side. >From a clean toeside traverse on casual terrain, find the heelside edge with your rear heel just before the front. This implies a centered to slightly back weight distribution. If you try to 'stomp' the front heel, odds are you'll move your leading hip forward and inside, and then you'll look kinda funny. Probably also twist the board, and that won't help much either. >If that works, the resultant posture should be more 'centered' over* the board on the heelside, rather than heavily biased to one side. That should make the transition to toeside easier and less 'pat the doggy'. *(In other words, if you drew a line perpendicular to the topsheet at a location bisecting the board length, that line should intersect with your Worcester. ) FYI, you're not that far away from effective. Edited January 18, 2018 by Beckmann AG Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chouinard Posted January 18, 2018 Report Share Posted January 18, 2018 Thank Pat Donnelly for these images. The Mark Fawcett "How To" is spot on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barryj Posted January 19, 2018 Report Share Posted January 19, 2018 (edited) Chouinard, Love that photo of Mark Fawcett! ....and I also still have that issue from 2000!! ....and that photo of Mark has always been inspirational and a style I strive to emulate! Edited January 19, 2018 by barryj Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 19, 2018 7 hours ago, Beckmann AG said: Are you using your hips to initiate out of necessity, or because you think you're supposed to? Things to consider: >Undo the front foot bias, and re-set that binding so that the ball of your foot on the arch side, and the contact point of your front heel are equidistant from the respective edges. >If you still have a pair, use a standard TD3 on the front, and a Sidewinder on the rear, preferably with a blue elastomers to the medial side, and yellow to the lateral side. >From a clean toeside traverse on casual terrain, find the heelside edge with your rear heel just before the front. This implies a centered to slightly back weight distribution. If you try to 'stomp' the front heel, odds are you'll move your leading hip forward and inside, and then you'll look kinda funny. Probably also twist the board, and that won't help much either. >If that works, the resultant posture should be more 'centered' over* the board on the heelside, rather than heavily biased to one side. That should make the transition to toeside easier and less 'pat the doggy'. *(In other words, if you drew a line perpendicular to the topsheet at a location bisecting the board length, that line should intersect with your Worcester. ) FYI, you're not that far away from effective. I cannot say I initiate with my hips out of necessity, I think it has just been something I've always done. I can undo the bias and do that, I have minimal adjustment with m25 UPZ boots though, only one notch in the toe/ heel blocks. No td3 standard. I have a couple blue epads, I will have to see how many. I will try and report back. I should be on the slopes on the 30th... Also,the Mark Fawcett article looks good, I will also try the suggestions there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 30, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2018 (edited) Oooook, tried some of the advice here and I think it has helped my upper body posture. Still trying to figure out some lower body mechanics though... @Beckmann AG.... HELP! I have attached a few photos from today using the on hill camera guy again. Unfortunately, he only got my first run. Today conditions were definitely different than last time.. Hard pack sierra cement, so hard and fast, but not icy. some top layer of softer snow. Still very carvable, but I am less confident in it and picked up speed quickly. Things I changed: -I focused on bringing my trailing shoulder more forward, by means of bringing my hand more forward and elbow to knee if I could for heel side. -I also tried focusing on keeping my inner hand more at waist level on toe side rather than reaching for the snow. -I tried doing the reach past the board thing, though it did not seem to click for me as I thought it might. I ended up leaving that out for the time being. -I made an effort as well to engage the heel edge with my rear foot just before the front, and automatically started to engage the toe edge with the front just before the back. Both with an effort to use my ankles rather than any upper body. -I also rode today for the first time with Geckos, all red bumpers. Bindings used all blue elastomers. -I did not end up changing binding bias today as I remembered as I got to the hill, and though I had tools, decided to minimize the number of things changed for today. First run: Stack height felt a little weird with the geckos for the first half or so of the run. About where the pics are taken is where I started getting used to that. The geckos were nice, though I probably could have gone without them today. They did help me pressure edges more, and the board felt like it preformed different too, what chop there was seemed like butter and my board a hot knife. With the conditions I think it made me go faster than I normally would have otherwise, and found myself needing to scrub speed. As I focused on the above, right away I could feel that I was able to get (at least on toe side) my knees closer to the ground. At one point, I definitely touched my rear kneed down to the snow. Overall though, something felt very off... By the time I got 4 runs in, I started developing pain under my lateral arch, front foot. I ended up stopping a couple times to try and adjust my boots tighter, but it did not seem to help much, I only started cutting off circulation over my high insteps. End of the run I finally decided to undo the bottom 3 buckles and ride out to the bottom, now focusing on only pressuring using the bottoms of my feet. Difficult to tell if this helped or not by that time. When I arrived to the bottom, my legs felt "nervous". Part of this may be due to lack of sleep (I arrived up here at 3:30 AM and hit the mountain by around 10:30 AM) Edited January 30, 2018 by AcousticBoarder Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beckmann AG Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 4 hours ago, AcousticBoarder said: Things I changed: -I focused on bringing my trailing shoulder more forward, by means of bringing my hand more forward and elbow to knee if I could for heel side. It appears that you are becoming increasingly pretzeled on the heelside, with no practical gain. No good reason at this stage for your upper body to rotate past the angle of your front foot. Doing so will only add muscle tension to your posture, and probably move excess weight to the front foot, as the photos suggest. -I also tried focusing on keeping my inner hand more at waist level on toe side rather than reaching for the snow. -I tried doing the reach past the board thing, though it did not seem to click for me as I thought it might. I ended up leaving that out for the time being. Your hands are respectable peripheral indicators of what's going on closer to the ground level. Use them as such, not as part of a contrived posture. Keeping the inside hand off the snow on a toeside is a good thing to keep in mind, but also try to figure out why you are tilting into the turn with the top of your body, rather than with your lower extremities, etc. May well have something to do with the binding offset you didn't 'correct'. -I also rode today for the first time with Geckos, all red bumpers. Bindings used all blue elastomers. -I did not end up changing binding bias today as I remembered as I got to the hill, and though I had tools, decided to minimize the number of things changed for today. At risk of sounding like a scold, you added a variable, but didn't tend to one that may be important. Sounds like the Geckos were fun, and may aid your pursuits in the future, but were not the right thing at the right time to resolve any of your previous issues. Other than that, your toeside looks respectable. Not awesome yet, but not going to kick it out of bed for eating crackers. Maybe execute a heelside by simply taking the toeside posture, and tilting most of that stack directly across the board toward your heelside edge? And if I read correctly, the pain in your front foot is from standing on the blade of your foot, and that is from being too far forward on the board, and that is partly due to the contorted posture on the heelside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted January 31, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 1 hour ago, Beckmann AG said: Other than that, your toeside looks respectable. Not awesome yet, but not going to kick it out of bed for eating crackers. Maybe execute a heelside by simply taking the toeside posture, and tilting most of that stack directly across the board toward your heelside edge? And if I read correctly, the pain in your front foot is from standing on the blade of your foot, and that is from being too far forward on the board, and that is partly due to the contorted posture on the heelside. Thanks for the input! I don't take it as a scold, and do agree that I probably should have changed the bias first... I just couldn't resist trying the new toys So heel side, perhaps back off slightly on the twisting to face the nose of the board? I will aim for somewhere between binding angle and the nose then. It also sounds like posture overall is better then on toe side, so try and mimic that posture for heel side, bringing some focus to transferring some of my weight back from where it is. If the extra twist did indeed put more pressure on my front foot, I could see why I was getting pain there I previously did not have. I should be back out Thursday and plan on moving that bias for that run. Since I am riding with some Gilmour bias, should I reverse the bias of both bindings, or only focus on the front for now? Also will keep my attention to weighting to see if that is indeed causing the foot pain.. Thanks!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beckmann AG Posted January 31, 2018 Report Share Posted January 31, 2018 Turn your head further than your shoulders, and turn your shoulders no further than your front foot. That should work ok for the time being. Simple turns require only simple postures, so take a moment at rest and figure out the least complex way to stand on the board that provides even contact under both feet, and the ability to move that contact around a bit. Figure that the board is symmetrical, so for a simple turn, your posture should be symmetrical as well. Your boot already offset you to the heelside by virtue of their wacky sole configuration. So you might simply offset both bindings as far as they will go to the toeside. Given where you're at, tilt wise, boot-out shouldn't be a problem for the next few outings. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted February 2, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2018 I went out yesterday with the front foot bias adjusted, so now both are adjusted toeside by 1 notch in the toe/heel blocks. One foot riding such as off the chair definitely felt a bit weird. It was not as easy to turn without shifting my rear foot as well. I took some warm up runs and started to get used to the difference, though it was still noticeable throughout the day. I did not realize that this small change would feel that different! I cannot say it felt better or worse, just different... Maybe I could say that initiating a heel side with bad habits became harder? I would say it could have been an off day, but upon riding our perfect pitch blue run (Gunsmoke at June Mtn) I was able to care more of it, linked, with (I think/hope!) better technique than I ever have before. I soon realized the foot pain I was getting the previous day was out of initiating toeside turns with my front foot toes, by pressuring the toes and ball of my foot and in turn lifting my heel, so I quickly stopped that. Paying attention to weighting, I could definitely tell that my previous go to has been front foot weighted for heel side and back foot weighted on toe side, so I worked on trying to even out the pressure. As I focused on weighting and initiating with my ankles rather than upper body movements, I started to play with initiation by means of heel to toe pressure on the boots vs side to side pressure. I had to stop for the day before I could come to some conclusions on this, but I could definitely tell a difference between them. I have some small snippets of video that I will post as I can get them uploaded and edited together/ take out the part I was sitting and waiting before I realized my cameraman was already filming Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AcousticBoarder Posted February 3, 2018 Author Report Share Posted February 3, 2018 13 hours ago, AcousticBoarder said: I have some small snippets of video that I will post as I can get them uploaded and edited together/ take out the part I was sitting and waiting before I realized my cameraman was already filming Here is the quick vid from yesterday (or I guess the day before now...) Unfortunately when we started filming it started warming up so it became more difficult at times since the snow was slow at the bottom of the first shot and the second shot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Donnelly Posted February 3, 2018 Report Share Posted February 3, 2018 you need to correct the counter rotation. http://www.carvers.it/club-ski-cern-ch-snowboard-tutor-counter-rotation-what-not-to-do/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
workshop7 Posted February 3, 2018 Report Share Posted February 3, 2018 Your toe side turns are looking good. The heel side: - Bring that right hand forward and out in front of you. - Keep your shoulders more square and headed in the same direction that the board is going. - The biggest change I recommend is to push your knees into the snow more. Don't do it by sinking into the turn with your hips and, in turn, your knees get closer to the snow. Make an effort to push the knees down while keeping the hips where they are. You want to straighten out the line made by your ankles, knees and hips. Right now, your knees are creating a significant bend in this line. By doing this, you will increase the boards angle to the snow and decrease the radius of the turn. This is important as you start to increase your riding speed later in your progression. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pat Donnelly Posted February 3, 2018 Report Share Posted February 3, 2018 Fundamentals of a Carve http://www.carvers.it/club-ski-cern-ch-snowboard-tutor-basic-carve-turn-extension-turns/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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