New member interested in softboot korean carving

[1xsculler]

6 hours ago, Alexey said:

Do you know the rider name of this video ?

Really wish this was in English. 

[Alexey]

1 minute ago, 1xsculler said:

Really wish this was in English. 

For modern snowboards it is no longer relevant ride technique.

[philw]

On 8/26/2022 at 10:34 AM, slapos said:

re softboot carving - is it only me or more people think that carving in hardboots is easier, as the boots are much more responsive and dont have slack?

Not really. I mean, in the early days in Europe we had both styles, but the soft boots won out. That could have been for a number of reasons, but I think most people find soft boots more forgiving to learn on. Most people don't want "responsive" when learning - they want soft stuff which is forgiving of their mistakes. Hence I think soft boots won, because most people are novices. On the other hand, as an expert I find hard gear easier, or at least more "sporting", like a sports car versus a 4x4.

I get a fair few people asking me about hard boots, and I'll happily tell them, but I'm very wary of evangelising. My approach is more to let people work out what they want to do. I think if you're on soft boots and used to them, it makes sense to push that as hard and far as you can before investing in an alternative style.
 

[Odd Job]

21 hours ago, Alexey said:

yes. its me.
after 8 years the ride has been changed to:

 

I love this sort of "freecarving".

I just tell people softboots is like hardbooting with a non-supportve boot, in a more sideways stance.

Hardbooting is softbooting with a more supportive boot, in a more forward stance.

Skiing must be snowboarding twice at the same time, facing the correct direction.

[slapos]

23 minutes ago, Odd Job said:

 

Skiing must be snowboarding twice at the same time, facing the correct direction.

Must be weird though doing heelside in both directions...

[Alexey]

2 hours ago, Odd Job said:

forward stance

Forward stance gone to past. Modern snowboards require initial turn by rear leg.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

On 8/26/2022 at 5:34 AM, slapos said:

re your knees - not sure where this comes from. Duck stance carries imho many more risks for carving, especially if you start rotating your torso and hips to the nose of your board - i.e. Ryan Knapton toeside. dont get me wrong - he is one of the few duck stance riders that I admire, but the gossip says he is double jointed or something, so that type of rotation doesnt bother him.

double positive stance will feel more natural for carving and doesnt cause extreme angles on your knees imho.

Seconded, but less knees and more hip flexor. Having the back leg rearward but rotating forward puts a lot of strain on the hip flexor. In fact I started copying Knapton’s style one winter about five years ago, had a little slide out getting low on a hard toe side and put a 3/4” tear in my rear hip flexor that took almost three years to get back to normal. No more duck stance attempts for me. Be safe and careful. 

[Odd Job]

Or you can just remained more or less aligned with your binding angles.

I notice almost no difference between riding 50/45 on hardboots and 12/3 on softboots. I was 24/15 on a previous softboot board, which I also rode last season. No difference.

I was riding 6/0 for a while in another set of bindings (flow, super low profile). No difference.

Not a huge jump from 12/3 -> 6/0; I bet 3/-3 (duck) will be, no difference.

[softbootsurfer]

On 9/15/2022 at 6:40 AM, Alexey said:

Forward stance gone to past. Modern snowboards require initial turn by rear leg.

I need an Explanation here please, I use the Nose or Front of the boards Edges, to initiate my turns, only using the back to complete the Carve, or going over a bump use the back to re engage after landing sometimes...

[philw]

On 9/15/2022 at 1:40 PM, Alexey said:

Forward stance gone to past. Modern snowboards require initial turn by rear leg.

None of this lot seem to have caught up with you on that:

[1xsculler]

3 hours ago, philw said:

None of this lot seem to have caught up with you on that:

45/20???

[BlueB]

3 hours ago, philw said:

None of this lot seem to have caught up with you on that:

I think @Alexey was referring to the torso and hips orientation, rather than  binding angles. When you look at his two videos, you can see the difference. 

However, I'd also like to hear more about turn initiation with back foot. 

[Alexey]

32 minutes ago, BlueB said:

I'd also like to hear more about turn initiation with back foot. 

 

[Alexey]

43 minutes ago, BlueB said:

I'd also like to hear more about turn initiation with back foot

Each next run more little down. normal speed -> slow motion. Then next run with more little down
 

 

45 minutes ago, BlueB said:

I'd also like to hear more about turn initiation with back foot. 

 

[Odd Job]

There is a forum post where Billy Bordy mentions how new school shapes like to be something on rear foof. I have a memory like a really bad search engine. I'm going to try and find it. Probably over a decade old.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Odd Job

[Odd Job]

FOUND IT

"Becuase the new crop of PGS board have so much set back riding with a flat rear foot allows the rider to stand on the back foot a skill needed to track the new sticks unlike a lartge foward cant to move the rider forward like before on GS sticks to keep pressure on the nose."

 

 

Edited September 18, 2022 by Odd Job

[ShortcutToMoncton]

9 hours ago, Alexey said:

 

This video is truly wild. I feel like it can only be viewed while stoned. 

[philw]

17 hours ago, BlueB said:

I think @Alexey was referring to the torso and hips orientation, rather than  binding angles. When you look at his two videos, you can see the difference. 

However, I'd also like to hear more about turn initiation with back foot. 

I'm still mystified - I think it's a terminology issue I'm failing to grasp in both cases. Which videos are you referring to there, precisely? I'm just trying to understand what I'm supposed to be seeing. Because I'm failing!

[BlueB]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:06 AM, slapos said:

 

 

 

On 9/14/2022 at 6:13 AM, Alexey said:

 

 

1 hour ago, philw said:

I'm still mystified - I think it's a terminology issue I'm failing to grasp in both cases. Which videos are you referring to there, precisely? I'm just trying to understand what I'm supposed to be seeing. Because I'm failing!

The two videos above. 

Edited September 19, 2022 by BlueB

[Xargo]

Interesting topic. I was in kinda similar situation two seasons ago and decided to buy hardboots and try them with my softboot boards. Later that season I bought a second hand Coiler ECVC to practice EC type of riding. For last season I got my first custom board which is 247mm wide EC optimized Coiler Contra. The Contra is for hardboot riding but I did try it with softboots as well. Softboots work fine but the board is too narrow for that ofc. Still, that experiment gave me an important lesson about canting. I used Nidecker Kaon-CX bindings and they have canted footbeds. This forced my knees together and I ended up with swollen back leg knee which hasn't filly recovered even after some 6 months. Stance was also too narrow. So take care with positive angles and canted bindings. Here's a video from that session where you can clearly see the problem. Don't do this:

... as far as my pre-hardboot riding is concerned, here's an example how it looked when I still only rode with duck stance (-21/+21 to reduce bootout):

That board is Ride Timeless 167 (275 waist). Btw. I made a video showing that duckfoot is also possible with hardboots. These are Deeluxe Track 700 boots even (pretty stiff):

That setup was actually surprisingly good.

In any case I never had any knee problems with duckfoot setups even though my angles can be considered pretty extreme but I did have problems last season with different kinds of "alpine stances". I do know however, that many of my stance experiments were problematic and I learned from that. I would just like to give a heads up that with stiff setups, whatever settings you use will force you more into that position compared to more forgiving softboot setups (I use Malamutes, Insanos, Infuses). So take care when trying out different settings.

Finally here's an example how my hardboot riding looked like near the end of the season (this is after half a season of trying out hardboots + a full season of dedicated EC practice):

Personally I prefer to have options so I'm really glad I got into hardbooting but I'm by no means going to abandon duckfoot softboot carving. Actually I'm now looking for a 300+ waist board to try kinda EC type of carving with softboots.

[softbootsurfer]

23 hours ago, Alexey said:

 

well yes, I like to use a Centered stance as well, probably most of the time in fact, no matter what, it is those FRONT Edges that are initiating the turns, when people first start snowboarding, or a lot of people when riding Pow, are just kicking the back foot, back and forth, so, setting the forward edge with the back foot can work, if the weight is still forward I presume...and Modern Racing equipment is now using the back foot to initiate turns...OK 

[BlueB]

4 hours ago, Xargo said:

Interesting topic. I was in kinda similar situation two seasons ago and decided to buy hardboots and try them with my softboot boards. Later that season I bought a second hand Coiler ECVC to practice EC type of riding. For last season I got my first custom board which is 247mm wide EC optimized Coiler Contra. The Contra is for hardboot riding but I did try it with softboots as well. Softboots work fine but the board is too narrow for that ofc. Still, that experiment gave me an important lesson about canting. I used Nidecker Kaon-CX bindings and they have canted footbeds. This forced my knees together and I ended up with swollen back leg knee which hasn't filly recovered even after some 6 months. Stance was also too narrow. So take care with positive angles and canted bindings. Here's a video from that session where you can clearly see the problem. Don't do this:

... as far as my pre-hardboot riding is concerned, here's an example how it looked when I still only rode with duck stance (-21/+21 to reduce bootout):

That board is Ride Timeless 167 (275 waist). Btw. I made a video showing that duckfoot is also possible with hardboots. These are Deeluxe Track 700 boots even (pretty stiff):

That setup was actually surprisingly good.

In any case I never had any knee problems with duckfoot setups even though my angles can be considered pretty extreme but I did have problems last season with different kinds of "alpine stances". I do know however, that many of my stance experiments were problematic and I learned from that. I would just like to give a heads up that with stiff setups, whatever settings you use will force you more into that position compared to more forgiving softboot setups (I use Malamutes, Insanos, Infuses). So take care when trying out different settings.

Finally here's an example how my hardboot riding looked like near the end of the season (this is after half a season of trying out hardboots + a full season of dedicated EC practice):

Personally I prefer to have options so I'm really glad I got into hardbooting but I'm by no means going to abandon duckfoot softboot carving. Actually I'm now looking for a 300+ waist board to try kinda EC type of carving with softboots.

I actually liked your riding the most in the softboot Contra video! Very smooth. Yes stance is way too narrow, that's where the cants worked against you. They are good to open up the stance at low, or duck, angles. 

A million dollar question: What holds the camera in the last video? 

Edited September 19, 2022 by BlueB

[BlueB]

On 9/18/2022 at 8:10 AM, Alexey said:

 

I see significant loading of the tail at the end of the toe side turn, which creates airborne rebound, with several degrees of direction change in the air, into the heel side turn. Heel side starts with noticeable weight on the nose and then progresses centered and smooth all the way into the edge-to-edge transition to the next toe side. 

As we are looking at two different turns, which one should we pay attention to and at what portion of the turn, to spot the initiation with the back foot? 

[BlueB]

On 9/18/2022 at 8:22 AM, Alexey said:

Each next run more little down. normal speed -> slow motion. Then next run with more little down
 

 

 

The static exercise video explains the motion well. However, it doesn't tell us when, how and why. My guess would be: Loading of the tail at the end of the turn, to create rebound? Looking forward to hear more. 

[Xargo]

2 hours ago, BlueB said:

I actually liked your riding the most in the softboot Contra video! Very smooth. Yes stance is way too narrow, that's where the cants worked against you. They are good to open up the stance at low, or duck, angles. 

A million dollar question: What holds the camera in the last video? 

Thanks! Softboot setup + wide hardboot oriented board does feel like a sweet spot for me. So makes sense that it looks the smoothest as well. Which is why I'm hoping Bruce could make me a wide carver so I could ride it with same kind of vibe but more relaxed angles without having to worry about bootout. That last EC-type vid is tryharding really because that kinda turns on about 27deg. slope are way out of my comfort level but something I wanted to learn. In any case I feel like learning to ride with positive angles has also improved my duckfoot riding by a lot (don't really have good vids about that though). Before the hardboot times, I didn't really rotate my hips and now I can do it to some extent even with -21/+21 angles and that really really improves the heelside turn. Next season I hope I can tryhard less and enjoy riding more. In the last vid, the camera is mounted to the helmet by this kinda "unicorn bar" and aimed forward:

... anyways my advice to @mallory would be to try different setups and try to find out what kind of mix you enjoy the most. Considering you already have a nice Knapton twin, why not give it a go with positive angles and feel how it works for you. 29 board width is fine for positive angles, just use whatever angles that give you zero overhang for the back foot and around 7-15 more for the front foot. I did try that kind of setup with a Lib Tech Short&Fat which is 286mm wide. The problem with that board is the silly 5.8m sidecut which means if you really angulate hard, it only works in soft snow. The funny thing is that I still booted out with that setup when I tried to carve it in spring slush. I would imagine Knapton twin would work way better. I have mondo 270 feet.

I've been thinking about Korean style carving myself but at the moment I feel like some kind of strange hybrid between EC and casual duckfoot style would work the best for me. As far as boots are concerned, it's also possible to go for spring modded touring hardboots + plate bindings and that way you can also use them for splitboarding. Just bear in mind that shells of some models can't handle the stress and will crack if you charge hard (has happened to me twice). The sad thing (for me) is that the touring boot setup has been the best setup for me as far as the ride quality is concerned but the back boot just can't handle it.

Edited September 19, 2022 by Xargo