How to get down low?

[1xsculler]

How do you progress to getting the knees down low, i.e. close to the snow, so your board is at a high angle?  Is it just something that slowly comes the more you work on it or are there specific things yout can do to speed up the process?

[dredman]

I am not a great instructor, but what seems to help me is.... 

1 don’t reach for the snow... (inside hand in turn)

2 outside hand in the turn reach towards your front boot (keeps center of gravity over the board) 

3 try and touch your ribs to you hip bones opposite direction of the turn (also keeps center of gravity over board) This is the “C” shape with the spine that Jack has written about.  

4 really tip the board over on edge with your knees (drive with Z knees)

5 Go to the Montucky Clear CUT and ride with others, get dynamic pictures in you head, take a clinic with Corey!

Read and re Read Jacks write up.  Lots of golden nuggets there.

 

[1xsculler]

Thanks for those good tips. 

[SunSurfer]

The board will go higher on it's edge when you make tighter turns. When you make tighter turns with good technique the snow will come to you. Look to where you want to go and your body will often follow naturally.

[digger jr]

Hi,

Watched you a bit when we met at Solitude. (This is Ron). Also like dredman don’t claim to be great instructor. Getting the board tilted up higher on the edge is what you need to do. Saw some good turns on the flatter terrain then when we got to Main Street more skidding. Maybe every once in a while when you know you’re clear really go for a hard turn and just ride it until you stop to give you the feeling.

Also like Dave said angulation really helps. To get the ribs to hips feeling you can try sliding your outside hand down your leg or reach for your outside boot. Just thinking about that can make it easier,so you’re just thinking about 1 thing at a time. It’s like golf, if you try to think about more than one or two things at a time you’ll get confused

This also helps with Dave’s #1 don’t reach for the snow with the inside hand. Sometimes easier said than done. Also don’t be shy about spending time on the green runs. Some days, especially when the snow is fast, I have the most fun on the easier runs.

[digger jr]

13 minutes ago, SunSurfer said:

The board will go higher on it's edge when you make tighter turns. When you make tighter turns with good technique the snow will come to you. Look to where you want to go and your body will often follow naturally.

Yes, also looking ahead of where you are going. “ Look up to hook up”.

[dredman]

2 hours ago, digger jr said:

Yes, also looking ahead of where you are going. “ Look up to hook up”.

Yes!! Look with your whole head where you want to go!  

Seems like every year I have to re-learn all of those things...perishable skills.

[workshop7]

I’ve always thought that confidence is a huge part of a successfully carved turn.  The right technique is necessary, but knowing that you will succeed in what you set out to accomplish is more than half the battle.

When the conditions are good push yourself for shorter turn radius.  Falling on your ass or hands from loosing the edge while pushing yourself a bit beyond your current ability isn’t a bad thing.  In my first 10 years of carving I used to tell people, if you’re not falling once or twice on every run you’re not really trying hard enough.  The more you gain experience riding at the limits of your abilities, the faster you will improve and gain the confidence that is needed to just know that you can do it.

[BlueB]

7 hours ago, 1xsculler said:

How do you progress to getting the knees down low, i.e. close to the snow, so your board is at a high angle?  Is it just something that slowly comes the more you work on it or are there specific things yout can do to speed up the process?

Once on the edge, just drop your knees towards the snow, especially the trailing one, without anything else reaching for the snow. This would automatically tighten the turn. 

[Beckmann AG]

7 hours ago, 1xsculler said:

Is it just something that slowly comes the more you work on it or are there specific things yout can do to speed up the process?

 

->Fail quickly, fail often.

When you tire of failure, post a quality videotape of your riding, so the helpful types on the forum can do more than toss favored darts at an imagined target in a darkened room.

 

 

[BobD]

Not like this 

 

https://www.jukinmedia.com/licensing/view/984869

[ThePeonsChamp]

So for me it was getting my Coiler EC and drilling the full C carves on an empty hill. Get yourself moving across the hill and drop down very low in knees hips and ankles and put that board on angle. Its almost like that feeling of falling into the turn, ie the point of no return. Full committal to the edge. Drill this and work on getting the body into a tight compression. I am 6'4" and so it took me a lot of work in the mind body connection to realize just how tight and compact I needed to be to get that board to angulate. Now that I am slicing though the snow in a more loaded/deeper position my endurance has increased greatly letting the board do more of the work. I am addicted to the edge now!!!

[b0ardski]

well timed flexion/extension out to the sides of the falline is what got my boards on edge,

1stick or 2

[big mario]

A few common thing I see in people not getta' down and getta' funky:

Static and tall. Try soft legs( bent slightly and absorbing the terrain as you ride) and make yo'self as small as possible,  envision a bowling ball.....

Riding less than their angles, tends to leave your hands over the nose and tail, resulting in a skidded turn Try dropping your back knee, this will square yo' hips and shoulders to the board. stand up in your stance and try it.  Right now.  I triple dog dare you.  See what happens

Riding the side cut.  lazy turns, boring almost. Lalalala. la.  Engage the rage, grow giant silverback gorilla balls and get pissed at your board.  bend it in half. betcha can't 

c'mon out to the  montucky, clear cut.   it'll do you good

mario

Edited January 4, 2019 by big mario
improperly placed comma, so not cool

[b0ardski]

20 hours ago, Beckmann AG said:

 

->Fail quickly, fail often.

When you tire of failure, post a quality videotape of your riding, so the helpful types on the forum can do more than toss favored darts at an imagined target in a darkened room.

 

 

ski by braille is good practice too

[Beckmann AG]

2 hours ago, b0ardski said:

ski by braille is good practice too

Assuming one can ski. Otherwise it's a bunch of falling down awkwardly in loud attire. But you probably know that by now.

This thread is like that time the 'dead' electric fuel pump was replaced on the VW. And when that failed to revive the car, the burned pump fuse was discovered.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Beckmann AG

[daveo]

2 hours ago, big mario said:

Static and tall. Try soft legs( bent slightly and absorbing the terrain as you ride) and make yo'self as small as possible,  envision a bowling ball.....

Different stuff works for different people but this particular tip mentioned by @big mario is one that worked wonders for me. Be small.

In every sport I've ever done, I end up stiff and a bit robotic. Now I'm trying to relax more and just be water and flow.

Things I try to keep in my head:

1. Getting as small as possible. 

2. Crunching sideways at the waist to bring my shoulders apx parallel to the slope. 

3. Pushing my knees into the snow.

 

Oh but I just remembered... I can't get low either!! 

[dredman]

30 minutes ago, Beckmann AG said:

Assuming one can ski. Otherwise it's a bunch of falling down awkwardly in loud attire. But you probably know that by now.

This thread is like that time the 'dead' electric fuel pump was replaced on the VW. And when that failed to revive the car, the burned pump fuse was discovered.

I think it is a great thread.  Lots of nuggets on how things help folks.  People are sharing.  

There are tons of techniques and styles of carving, at the end of the day it is all about the smile on your face. Maybe a few of these nuggets will help more than the OP...

@1xsculler asked for tips, Forum is sharing.  Well done Forum.  

[Beckmann AG]

1 hour ago, dredman said:

I think it is a great thread.  Lots of nuggets on how things help folks.  People are sharing.  

There are tons of techniques and styles of carving, at the end of the day it is all about the smile on your face. Maybe a few of these nuggets will help more than the OP...

@1xsculler asked for tips, Forum is sharing.  Well done Forum.  

Dave,

So far, it seems that Ron is the only poster to have eyes on the subject. From what he wrote, it sounds like there may be some fundamental issues at play, some of which may render some of the tips useless, misleading, or problematic.

Meanwhile, without practical knowledge of the situation, everyone else is guessing.

Granted,  the more ‘tips’ offered, the greater the possibility of chancing on some sort of resolution. Assuming of course, that the subject has the physical capability, understanding, and relevant skill to implement each suggestion in turn. (Which is not to suggest he has not, only that such things are still unknown.) Also assuming that he’s sufficient time to sort, apply, discard, and repeat.

The record suggests 1x has the means, but not an infinite amount of time, which is presumably why he asked for “something specific to speed up the process”, and not "something to occupy my time and distract me from the fundamental issues that hold me back from my immediate goal".

Ergo, videotape.

This thread would be more useful to more readers if there was more relevance between the actual (not imagined) problem and the proposed solutions.  Real solutions lead to better experiences, and those in turn lead to more smiles. The kind that last; not just the nervous type.

And sometimes even spontaneous giggles.

->BTW, bravo for your efforts with this season’s marquee event. Hopefully it works out famously, and continues into the foreseeable future.

[Erik J]

On 1/2/2019 at 4:02 PM, 1xsculler said:

How do you progress to getting the knees down low, i.e. close to the snow, so your board is at a high angle?  Is it just something that slowly comes the more you work on it or are there specific things yout can do to speed up the process?

You've told us what you want to do. Give us some more info about what you're doing now to bridge that gap between those two points.

I relearned how to use my alpine board through the web. I would study a picture and visualize the body positions when I was on hill. I would pick out every little detail of knowledge, right or wrong, that I could find and apply it on snow. Some worked, some didn't. I fell, got up, took a deep breath, tried harder and fell again. But I got better. I went this route because that's all I knew at the time. The old days of the original BOL forum were a bit rough around the edges. 

I think there is something to be said for getting a bit aggressive about it. Board won't turn? Stomp on that f@cker till it does. Feeling intimidated? Smoke a little meth, preferably the kind made in a bathtub in a trailer park. Need a little adrenaline to get you going? Steal a car before you go riding, the adrenaline might do you some good. Maybe I'm exagerating, maybe I'm not, maybe it's maybelline. You're in charge, nothing else. Just sayin 

[st_lupo]

Hey 1xsculler the single best piece of advice I got to get me low to the snow is to not think about getting low to the snow (thanks Corey!).  Getting low to the snow is not a means or an end, but a by-product of good technique.  If you're focus is on getting low while you are riding, you will wind up wasting your energy and likely just get frusterated.  Don't think about getting low, just trust that when you have developed your technique sufficiently you will be rewarded by your knees or your hips unexpectedly brushing the snow at the apex of your turns.  The point is to direct your focus to where you can make a difference.  You need to focus on good technique (the means) which will result is great carved turns (the end) and given the right conditions (slope/speed, etc) the byproduct is going to be getting super low on the ground.  Easy, right?! 

Now to technique...  Like mentioned above, what style of turns are you trying to achieve?  I focus on what I think is traditional bomber style and at the start of every season I have to re-learn alot of technique until I stop loosing my edges, but the things that typically get me sorted quickest have been mentioned above and repeated here:

• Square your hips to the board (especially true for me since I ride higher angles than most (65/62.5))
• Look into the turn and preferrabley a bit inside of the turn (do this early). This is a really good trick to get your shoulders, torso and hips set up for the turn (especially effective on the heel-side turn)
• Lateral angulation of your body.  This is super critical if you want to develop a turn that will get you low!  Use what ever trick you need in order to bend your whole body appropriately so that the board is forced up on edge.
  • You can for example reach for your front boot with your outside hand.  or
  • Focus on keeping your shoulders parallel with the slope of the mountain. or
  • Pretend that the snow is hot lava that will kill you if you touch it
  • For me, I try to focus on laterally bending my torso so that my shoulders are parallel with the slope. At the start of the season it feels like a really exaggerated motion, but I think that is OK.  In the end, from your point of view, it winds up looking like the board is moving like a pendulum under you, with the nose pointing mainly straight ahead all of the time (since you are keeping your hips squared to the board through the turn)
• Regardless of style you need enough balls to whole heartedly commit to the turn or you will just not get there.  It feels a bit scarey at times (especially hard snow/ice) because with proper angulation you are opening up and exposing your body, where your natural instinct may be to clench up and protect your body and maybe support yourself by touching the snow with your inside hand. You just have to override that instinct
• Ride dynamically.  Your legs have to be bent and supple to soak up the surface irregularities.  This needs strong legs that can hold out through the run.  You can't ever just stand statically up on the board and lean over.
• More advanced things (for when you are reliably getting solid carved turns)
  • Feeding the board into the turn (transferring weight from front to back)
  • Learn how much pressure you can put into the turn and when.

TLDR: You don't want to pursue getting low to the snow.  You want to improve your riding technique!

[pow4ever]

Lots of gold in them hills in this thread!  Saving it in me notes.

Depends on where your progression is at; some advice might apply and some advice might not apply.
I been going on and on and on about being more of a dynamic rider but that's probably not good advice for someone just starting out or someone who is way advance. 
It's Goldie lock advice that make the most impact.
I find that I made the most progress riding with someone with similar skill level and same drive to push each other (shout out to @ktv carving buddy); this way the feedback/breakthrough are most applicable. 

My humble 2 cents:  pads up.  Create a safe environment so one can take more risk.  For me carving is very much a mental game.  It's funny how our mind/body play trick with us as we don't want to get hurt(in the winter i develop a tick to hesitate to touch door handle because often i get a shock, same as snowboard the more we afraid to commit; the more we get spank).  Just realized i been trying HB for almost 10 years.  I am still failing/falling all over the place giving alpine snowboarding a bad name lol..

BTW Is this what you want hahaha?  cloth is expensive!  this is with layers of plasti-dip spray.  Gorilla tape going on next.

[pokkis]

I recommend look for Bison Liquid Rubber, it will solve your problem.

[st_lupo]

@pow4ever:  I just tell people that if they aren’t falling, they aren’t trying hard enough! 

[pokkis]

Dont eat yellow snow, touch to snow should be like touch of whisker of cat, you just touch to feel it is there to let it guide you.