Altering the turn radius of a carved turn on steep terrain

[nicholaswmin]

1 hour ago, Rob Stevens said:

then move towards the board as you engage the carve

So its this movement thats pressuring the edge?

I flex/compress low on the board, smoothly to avoid excessive pressuring and edge chatter, whilst angulating and keeping my edge angle high.

then as I come to the bottom of the turn, extend up a bit to make room, down-weight/edge-change, start increasing edge angle and repeat.

 

Like this:

 

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[Jack M]

Do yourself a favor and go follow Benny Karl, Sangho Lee, Ester Ledecka, Edwin Coratti, Andreas Promegger, and Cody Winters on Instagram.

And watch World Cup on skiandsnowboard.live or Peacock.

[Odd Job]

I think the racer in that jasey jay board vid is Manabu Kobayashi or Masaki Shiba. Both are FIS level racers.

[Rob Stevens]

1 hour ago, nicholaswmin said:

Like this:

 

This is a flat course, so missing the element you started this thread asking about. 

[BlueB]

2 hours ago, nicholaswmin said:

Some of it comes from those "Midweighting" videos. 

It's probably the best to skip those all together... 

[nicholaswmin]

7 hours ago, Rob Stevens said:

This is a flat course, so missing the element you started this thread asking about. 

Err, what's the element that's missing?

The course is not steep or is the sequence in the video missing a step you suggested earlier? If it's missing something, what is it? I posted that video to confirm if that's the sequence you describe. You mean it's missing a step because the course isn't steep?

Look, it looks like what you and @noschoolrider are suggesting diverges a bit. Or at least that's my understanding this far. I also understand that both of you are race coaches so it's a jackpot chance to squeeze some info out of you. 

But first and foremost I have to clarify the exact sequence of steps that each of you is suggesting. If a reply leaves room for me misinterpreting something, I'm gonna have to engage in an additional back/forth to make sure I got your intended and exact meaning.

Also, that "skivot" thing is the skidding while on edge that racers do to correct their trajectory and get on a better line? If that's what you mean by "skivot", let's assume our hypothetical rider has calculated his line perfectly and doesn't need corrections, and leave that "skivot" out of the picture as it's confusing me.

----

Now to the point:

16 hours ago, noschoolrider said:

Also, get on a high edge angle immediately (flip the board to the edge with your feet) and apply pressure on that high edge angle sooner (at the top of the turn). 

Right, how do I apply pressure though? Up until this point I thought it was a leg extension, @Rob Stevens has me feeling differently. What does "apply pressure" mean here?  The only pressure I know, is the pressure that happens at the bottom-half of a cross-over turn that i need to absorb to avoid edge chattering. That pressure happens, I don't apply it. So what does "apply" mean if not a leg extension?

The above suggests cranking a high-edge angle happens immediately after I switch edge, at the top of the turn, so the timing is clear.

But this:

10 hours ago, Rob Stevens said:

Firstly, you won’t be at maximum edge angle as soon as you are on the new edge. You’d be jamming it and fall over. you have to build edge angle once you are on the new edge. It happens pretty fast, but don’t try and do it all at once. 
 

You’ll also be compressing and angulating into your max edge angle. As your hip drops, you’re “getting smaller”.

"I have to build edge angle" is missing the timing.

When should I be maxed out on edge angle?  Also at the top of the turn?

And where's the "apply pressure" step here? 

Granted, you might be suggesting different steps that both work. But it's not entirely clear to me if they are actually different or just me misinterpreting them. And eventually, i don't want to blindly repeat steps, this is a stepping stone to me understanding the mechanics of why the techniques suggested, actually work.

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[philw]

9 hours ago, nicholaswmin said:

Let's try and keep discussions a bit focused around racing technique. I've tagged it as such although I do understand the title might confuse.

For future reference there's actually a racing section in the forum here which will avoid confusion.

[Corey]

3 hours ago, nicholaswmin said:

Right, how do I apply pressure though?

Picture standing on a scale. How can you make the number go up, even for a fleeting moment?

- If you're standing tall, you can drop your body down and then press down with your feet to stop it moving down. That down weighting. 

- Or, if you're crouched down, you can explode upwards. That's up weighting.

The scale can't tell which one you're doing. These are very transient conditions, just used to set the board in the snow before G-force builds. 

Now do the same thing, but focus on the moment when you make the scale # go down and that gets you up unweighting and down unweighting. You can't have one without the other and they're fleeting moments, so you have to pick where you do each in a turn. 

@nicholaswmin I'll move this to the racing section now that the discussion has focused that way. 

[nicholaswmin]

48 minutes ago, Corey said:

Picture standing on a scale. How can you make the number go up, even for a fleeting moment?

- If you're standing tall, you can drop your body down and then press down with your feet to stop it moving down. That down weighting. 

- Or, if you're crouched down, you can explode upwards. That's up weighting.

The scale can't tell which one you're doing. These are very transient conditions, just used to set the board in the snow before G-force builds. 

Now do the same thing, but focus on the moment when you make the scale # go down and that gets you up unweighting and down unweighting. You can't have one without the other and they're fleeting moments, so you have to pick where you do each in a turn. 

@nicholaswmin I'll move this to the racing section now that the discussion has focused that way. 

Ok that's a very nice breakdown. That's actually pretty illuminating. 

In that case, in the down-unweighted, cross-through edge-change it is an extension of the "legs" that "applies pressure" so my understanding wasn't incorrect. 

It's clear to me that this extension weighting shouldn't be done in the apex of the turns discussed in this thread, btw. No confusion there.

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These are very transient conditions

Can there be some control of the duration of this weighting, (e.g standing up slower) and if so is there any use of controlling the duration? Or is this point irrelevant?

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just used to set the board in the snow

Hmm, set the board in the snow?

Isn't the edge set in the snow by the edge change anyway?

I was under the impression that this weighting flexes the board into an arc and hence starts the turn until the G-force from the turn takes over to maintain that board flex/arc + edge grip.

Or maybe that's bull, it has nothing to do with flexing the board, it just pushes the new edge into the snow hence creating grip on the new edge and therefore forcing the board into a carve?

This "sets the edge in the snow" is missing some details to understand what the purpose of this weighting is.

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I'll move this to the racing section now that the discussion has focused that way. 

Much appreciated.

---

If it looks like I'm derailing the original thread, I am.

Without clarifying this "rider applies pressure" thing and its purpose, my understanding of the rest of the steps falls apart.

 

 

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[pow4ever]

what is goal here?  to carve the steep? to win world cup?  just explore the idea/concepts?
writing a book on carving/coaching?  (no wrong answer here)
Don't get me wrong - I am an aficionado of keyboard snowboarding  
Depends on the goal(s) - keyboard will only get so far.  i see you use git; so i assumed you are in tech.  it's great to understand assembly (down to 0/1 bits) the "basic"/bed rock.  But to shipped a real viable product - all the CS class in the world won't help until one start writing code.

Akin to learned knowledge vs earned knowledge.  Are you able to meet other coach/hardbooter/carver in your neck of the wood?  That likely will get you the best ROI.

There is an old Chinese saying: reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles.  TOM - time on mountain is what worked for me.

final example - before i learned how to drive manual/stick-shift car.  i try to figure out how does manual transmission work, hydraulic system, pressure plate, clutch, engine fly wheel and etc.
I was able to drive stick by building a mental model without anyone teach me.  Until i was stalled on a steep hill...  not amount of understanding is helping me there... muscle memory, technique working in a dynamic environment is the fun/challenge part. 

it's a great discussion and i am by no mean to discourage it.  some of us went down similar path.
It's very possible the idea is good i just a sucky implementer/executioner, 
 

[nicholaswmin]

7 hours ago, pow4ever said:

what is goal here?  to carve the steep? to win world cup?  just explore the idea/concepts?
writing a book on carving/coaching?  (no wrong answer here)
Don't get me wrong - I am an aficionado of keyboard snowboarding  
Depends on the goal(s) - keyboard will only get so far.  i see you use git; so i assumed you are in tech.  it's great to understand assembly (down to 0/1 bits) the "basic"/bed rock.  But to shipped a real viable product - all the CS class in the world won't help until one start writing code.

Akin to learned knowledge vs earned knowledge.  Are you able to meet other coach/hardbooter/carver in your neck of the wood?  That likely will get you the best ROI.

There is an old Chinese saying: reading ten thousand books is not as good as traveling ten thousand miles.  TOM - time on mountain is what worked for me.

final example - before i learned how to drive manual/stick-shift car.  i try to figure out how does manual transmission work, hydraulic system, pressure plate, clutch, engine fly wheel and etc.
I was able to drive stick by building a mental model without anyone teach me.  Until i was stalled on a steep hill...  not amount of understanding is helping me there... muscle memory, technique working in a dynamic environment is the fun/challenge part. 

it's a great discussion and i am by no mean to discourage it.  some of us went down similar path.
It's very possible the idea is good i just a sucky implementer/executioner, 
 

I do SBX coaching for FIS-level races (im the racer, not the coach) and what we do most days in training is run down steep, often icy and cruddy groomers (steep reds/black in Europe) at Mach 10. You're not supposed to slide to speed-check. They explicitly discourage that.

It's all carving, how much you can hold that carve, pressure absorptions, line selection and posture. 

We didn't manage to go over the down-unweighting pattern for steeps in detail with my previous coach because it was comp. time and everyone was busy. We discussed it briefly. 

We ended up on bad terms because of an emm.. incident so I can't expand on it with him now.

My new coach won't see me till December so I figured I would fill some gaps here. It's the same kind of training in most programs.

I'm an analytical person. When I understand and visualise how the mechanics of something works, I instantly get it. I can be shit on the slopes and as soon as someone explains to me over coffee what those movements are supposed to achieve, I go back the next day and do them. It's like magic.

You can't teach me to dance, I'm too stupid to just replicate movements without understanding a "why" and there's no why in dancing. Thankfully there's a "why" in snowboarding technique.

Of course, practice on the snow is the rest 70%. You can't build motor skills from the couch. Well, you can but let's not get ridiculous.

Theres a staggering amount of people that have self-baptised themselves as experts. I guess we've all done it to some degree. In racing/training you are forced to actually tend to your innefficiencies. You now have a coach who refuses to send you in a track to kill yourself and a bunch of teammates/competitors to catch up to, zooming next to you at 70km/h, riding what is essentially a really long knife. 

Now I get it, my torrent of questions looks comically excessive  wbut bear in mind that it's not 1 person giving me advice here, it's 2-3, sometimes it sounds conflicting and they don't all use the exact same terms. I'm not the brightest person in the room either. . C'est la vie.

Now, hopefully we got the philosophical outta the way and we can get back to discussing turns and pressure.

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[bigwavedave]

6 minutes ago, nicholaswmin said:

I do SBX coaching for FIS-level races 

Go hang with the Alpine racers and coaches. That's what the FIS level race teams started doing here ~20 years ago. 

[nicholaswmin]

2 minutes ago, bigwavedave said:

Go hang with the Alpine racers and coaches. That's what the FIS level race teams started doing here ~20 years ago. 

Well, you could argue that this is exactly what I'm doing right now.

[pow4ever]

29 minutes ago, nicholaswmin said:

I've also noticed the staggering amount of snowboarders that have no idea what they're doing yet they're utterly convinced they do.

I am one of those but very aware of my short coming.  Hence i just talk in philosophical sense and not get involved in anything remotely technical.

Coming from tech - i deal with jargon day in/out, nomenclature, RFC, MSB/LSB without it; cat be living with dog chaos lol.  That's the draw to carving for me.  to be free and dynamic to focus/develop on one's style (the proverbial unteachable dance as you stated) and not focus on the dogmatic part. 
I have not ship anything in 7 years but i was kept around so must be doing something right lol...  i do craft building block so other can ship/build on top of.

Sound like you know what you are doing and what you want.  Good on you and bowing out.

[nicholaswmin]

1 hour ago, pow4ever said:

I am one of those but very aware of my short coming.  Hence i just talk in philosophical sense and not get involved in anything remotely technical.

Coming from tech - i deal with jargon day in/out, nomenclature, RFC, MSB/LSB without it; cat be living with dog chaos lol.  That's the draw to carving for me.  to be free and dynamic to focus/develop on one's style (the proverbial unteachable dance as you stated) and not focus on the dogmatic part. 
I have not ship anything in 7 years but i was kept around so must be doing something right lol...  i do craft building block so other can ship/build on top of.

Sound like you know what you are doing and what you want.  Good on you and bowing out.

Knowing what you don't know gets you halfway there. I think we're both doing alriiiiight. 

 

Quote

That's the draw to carving for me.  to be free and dynamic to focus/develop on one's style

SBX coaches tend to be extremely rigid about technique. They don't tolerate "own" style until very later on. Training sucks. It's ... training. Again, c'est la vie.

There's a significant injury rate in SBX so they tend to default to "do it my way otherwise I'm not signing a FIS license for you to kill yourself or others on the track".

Quote

 not focus on the dogmatic part.

No, be super dogmatic man. I think you gotta attempt to master the rules before you break them.

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[Rob Stevens]

7 hours ago, nicholaswmin said:

Err, what's the element that's missing?

The course is not steep or is the sequence in the video missing a step you suggested earlier? If it's missing something, what is it? I posted that video to confirm if that's the sequence you describe. You mean it's missing a step because the course isn't steep?

Look, it looks like what you and @noschoolrider are suggesting diverges a bit. Or at least that's my understanding this far. I also understand that both of you are race coaches so it's a jackpot chance to squeeze some info out of you. 

But first and foremost I have to clarify the exact sequence of steps that each of you is suggesting. If a reply leaves room for me misinterpreting something, I'm gonna have to engage in an additional back/forth to make sure I got your intended and exact meaning.

Also, that "skivot" thing is the skidding while on edge that racers do to correct their trajectory and get on a better line? If that's what you mean by "skivot", let's assume our hypothetical rider has calculated his line perfectly and doesn't need corrections, and leave that "skivot" out of the picture as it's confusing me.

----

Now to the point:

Right, how do I apply pressure though? Up until this point I thought it was a leg extension, @Rob Stevens has me feeling differently. What does "apply pressure" mean here?  The only pressure I know, is the pressure that happens at the bottom-half of a cross-over turn that i need to absorb to avoid edge chattering. That pressure happens, I don't apply it. So what does "apply" mean if not a leg extension?

The above suggests cranking a high-edge angle happens immediately after I switch edge, at the top of the turn, so the timing is clear.

But this:

"I have to build edge angle" is missing the timing.

When should I be maxed out on edge angle?  Also at the top of the turn?

And where's the "apply pressure" step here? 

Granted, you might be suggesting different steps that both work. But it's not entirely clear to me if they are actually different or just me misinterpreting them. And eventually, i don't want to blindly repeat steps, this is a stepping stone to me understanding the mechanics of why the techniques suggested, actually work.

Your original question centred on altering the radius of your turn on steep slopes. While that video does show solid form and is a mirror of what you’d ideally want to do, it is missing the “skivot” part.
 If you were to try what the racer in the video is doing on a steep pitch, you wouldn’t get far. 

Any course that can be purely carved is not a “steep” one, unless it’s so open as to not be a snowboard race. Not since single SG races went away. 

You said you wanted to leave “skivot”’s aside as the concept is confusing you… your present confusion doesn’t matter. You’ll have to figure it out. Your other option is to try to rail every course you come across and never finish one. 

 At the risk of creating further confusion, you’ll…

- Be rising up towards the edge change phase. The board will be loaded here and when you top out, the pressure will release and you will use it to bring the board up and under you, establishing the platform you’ll move to the next turn from.

- In the video you posted, the rider begins to drop his hips towards the platform, creating simultaneous but gradual edge angle towards to fall line. He is on a pure, carved edge. 
 This is the important part… if you do it like this on a steep hill, you will immediately accelerate, get “late” and blow out two gates later.

- Knowing that you’d rather finish than blow out, instead of lowering yourself and engaging a railed edge above the fall line, you will take a moment and stay in your extended position, prolonging the “floating” part of the turn. While there and with a bare minimum of edge, you will either pivot on the nose or between the feet. I like to do it by slightly counter rotating. As before, the situation may call for rotation, so you should know how to start a slide using either.

- In engaging this slide, you can maintain or reduce speed while also aiming the nose of your board into the fall line sooner than you could if you went right to your edge, made a rounder turn, taking “the long way”.

- Once your board is aimed either into the fall line or more towards the next gate, you can now drop your hips towards the inside and build the edge angle in a carved turn towards max edge and force at and just past the panel. 

 What you’ve done here is to insert the skivot between the switch / flat base and the part of the video you posted where the hips move down to create a railing edge. That allowed you to maintain a more direct line and a more manageable speed.

If you’re actually an SBX coach or racer (not very clear) you may find some basis for your edge change question (so many “crosses”…) in the tactics you’d use on jumps. What did you have to do at the lip of a jump if you got hung up in traffic and felt like you were going too slow? What did you do before you got to the lip if you thought you would overshoot the landing at your current speed? Your answers have pressure implications which can be applied to turning. Remember too that “pressure” is not only applied, but received. Depending on the phase of the turn, you may be trying like mad to reduce it, but it only increases. Or build it, but nothing is happening  

At this point, you might also film yourself so that you can be seen on a steep course that you can’t rail. This would allow us to see if the reason you’re having difficulty grasping some of this is either you asking too soon and without enough knowledge base, or us getting it wrong. 
 

[Rob Stevens]

If you want to look it up in the ski world, you’d search “stivoting”. Steer / pivot. 

Before the skiers picked it up, we called it “Skivoting”, or skid / pivot. Really, it was just a tactic in our “Slarving” conversations at CASI where we’d be looking to do things that would allow the most carving while also riding steep slopes, knowing that pure carving would only make you die  

Doesn’t matter… Same same. 

[nicholaswmin]

 

Quote

 

While there and with a bare minimum of edge, you will either pivot on the nose

 

 

That "skivoting" just sounds so similar to the "drifting" maneuver.. but I see, I'll have a look at "skivoting" 

 

 

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If you’re actually an SBX coach or racer (not very clear) 

Trainee racer

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What did you do before you got to the lip if you thought you would overshoot the landing at your current speed? 

A pre-jump before the lip.

 

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In engaging this slide, you can maintain or reduce speed while also aiming the nose of your board into the fall line sooner than you could if you went right to your edge, made a rounder turn, taking “the long way”.

Right, I see. You're "short-circuiting" the carved turn trajectory which would be too long without skivoting.

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either you asking too soon and without enough knowledge base

Now that's for certain.

 

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[Rob Stevens]

10 minutes ago, nicholaswmin said:

Now that's for certain.

“Asking too soon” is unfair. 
You ask when you want to. 

[Rob Stevens]

16 minutes ago, nicholaswmin said:

 

 

That "skivoting" just sounds so similar to the "drifting"  

Same same. 
 

Unlike what the video says, BK is initiating the drift with countering… if he wants to start one on the heels, the back hand goes back. If it’s a toe turn, the back hand comes forward. In either case, he’s creating momentum with a large appendage so he has something to act against and “move his back foot”. 

 I’d also say that you can practice drifting above the fall line and then gradually engaging the edge at anything from a slow pace and right up to race pace. 

[Jack M]

38 minutes ago, nicholaswmin said:

That "skivoting" just sounds so similar to the "drifting" maneuver.

Same thing.  A.k.a buttering, slarving, slide-lock, etc.

Benny Karl is the master here.

[nicholaswmin]

4 hours ago, Rob Stevens said:

Same same. 
 

Unlike what the video says, BK is initiating the drift with countering… if he wants to start one on the heels, the back hand goes back. If it’s a toe turn, the back hand comes forward. In either case, he’s creating momentum with a large appendage so he has something to act against and “move his back foot”. 

 I’d also say that you can practice drifting above the fall line and then gradually engaging the edge at anything from a slow pace and right up to race pace. 

That drift looks like such an unstable movement, god damn. Had anyone else shown me that I'd be calling him insane. The more I look at it the more nutty it looks. 

 

Blue gates at 0:14 drifting

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[nicholaswmin]

To clarify the difference in technique between what you say and what @noschoolrider was saying stems from a confusion in the beginning of this thread, before the focus on racing.

 

You're describing (and we discussed) a technique to descend steeps while racing slalom gates.

He's describing a technique to descend steeps in a controlled manner which was how I originally posed my question. No racing involved.

Is there any use of drifting if there's no race and no gates?

 

 

Edited March 15 by nicholaswmin

[Rob Stevens]

On 3/14/2024 at 11:16 AM, nicholaswmin said:

This is for race training, I was a bit late in tagging the topic as such.

 

[Rob Stevens]

1 hour ago, nicholaswmin said:

Is there any use of drifting if there's no race and no gates?

This one and then I’m done. 

“Yes”.                                          If you need to ask why, go out to your steepest black run and freecarve without sliding some portion of one of your turns.

When you get out of the hospital, ask that question again, but rhetorically. 

Edited March 15 by Rob Stevens