Initiating toe side turns - need help

[todd]

As educators we need to look at "cause and effect". As seen on the "toe side picture from above", potentially the hands, shoulders, and hips are rotated and tipped because she is using that to try to help turn. (using rotation to help). Perhaps the focus needs to go down lower at first to help learn how the board can do much of the turning without having to use upper body twist to help it. Once you can make the lower body movements habit, then can begin moving some focus up.

Rob, I don't think any of the posts above described driving the back knee forward. Everyone who talked about that was describing the back knee moving toward the snow, to the inside of the new turn. Opening up the distance between the knees.

Thanks.

=

[Rob Stevens]

Todd;

The rider starting this thread said this to describe where her knee was moving.

I was replying to her question.

[todd]

I stand corrected. Thanks for the note.

[Rob Stevens]

Is it still snowing like a bastard in Colorado?

I like snow.

[todd]

Been snowing last couple of days, but today is beautiful sunny, around 35 F. here. Probably near 30 on the hill.

The snow is spectacular. Seems like every couple of days we get another 6", just keeps adding up. Great coverage. Have been on the soft board too much though, because of the soft snow. The Wall, the Cirque, etc. have been fantastic.

Should be ideal conditions for SES.

[mackDan]

Coming into this thread a bit late, but.

Drive with your lead shoulder, not the knees. Lead with the shoulder and everything else will follow.

[Mike T]

Coming into this thread a bit late, but.

Drive with your lead shoulder, not the knees. Lead with the shoulder and everything else will follow.

I was taught *not* to do that... ride from the board up, not the top down. Heeding this advice improved my riding, so I am inclined to believe it.

[Jack M]

Yeah, leading with the shoulder is very old and obsolete technique. Your upper body should remain quiet and your shoulders should be about square to your binding angles, or more towards the nose.

[Guest]

I agree with mike and jack: keep a quiet upper body.

On your toeside you're leaning into the turn a lot; initiating your turn with your upper body. You need to initiate things with your lower body while keeping your shoulders parallel to the hill. Try getting some ski poles or some bamboo and working on keeping the shoulders level while really driving that back leg into the snow.

[kathy brower]

Wow - more ideas to try - Thanks! Just got back from 3 days of riding and have been trying some of the stuff...

I think the thing that has helped the most so far is a reminder from Bob and Baka of yet another thing that PSR taught me - I have been working on lifting my right arm / shoulder(when on toe side) and stretching out my side (and keeping my left arm on it's side of the body)

8" of fresh so I rode my Donek only on Sun then softies Mon and Tue after the snow- but it turns out I was doing the lean thing on my softies too - and I think I have made some improvement.

I also widened my stance to 18.5 inches - tough change at first but I think it does give me more stability - I think I will back off to maybe 18" for now. -

Allee I think you are taller than me? So maybe that works out to be similiar? Anyway how are you? How is the season treating you? I saw you went to a performance camp - I may try that next year.

D-Sub "so far those are the best pics of a female recreational carver I have seen. I'll leave what's "missing" to others...you're already aware..."

very kind words - However I do know several women some of whom ride regularly at Killington and Stratton that can smoke me on the more challenging trails.

Kathy

[carvedog]

Nice pics and breakdown Bob. On toeside in the pics I am seeing more inclination (leaning) than angulation. Read most of the posts ( Ursle by the way we normally say toeside and heelside in regards to which edge we are on). When I have carve students having trouble on toe riding like this I try to have them do something called "sticking out your lunch".

This move is where you feel your hips moving across the board toward the toe ( shoulders will be moving back towards heels slightly) until you feel a nice stretch or opening up of the hip joint and subsequent poking out or "showing your lunch".

What you will feel in your feet should be a flattening under the arch as you move your hips and pressure ending up on balls of your feet and the front of the calf where if contacts the boot cuff. BE CAREFUL when first doing this as you can build a lot of edge angle early in the turn ( which is better). If you do this as you cross the fall line it can be too much ..... how you say Pesto for your pasta.

All this food talk - I must be hungry.

Use what you can - good luck.

[Jack M]

Kathy,

Based on what I'm seeing in Bob's pics, I'd like you to try a practice drill. On toeside, take your left hand and grab the top of your rear boot cuff. As you do this, keep your head up and your chest facing mostly forward and as upright as possible. This works in conjunction with the advice PSR gave you to feel your inside flank stretching.

I'll expect to see this tomorrow! :)

[philfell]

I don't think I could twist myself up enough to grab my rear boot with my front hand on a toeside. Go for the front boot cuff, you'll stay in a much more natural position.

[Allee]

Hey, Kathy, pleased to hear that things seem to be clicking into place. From what I can remember you're about 5'6" or 5'7", or thereabouts? I'm 5'9" and really long legged, so that would explain the stance...

Sounds like you're having a really fun season ... I'm defintely a weekend warrior, but having nailed 11 days already this season, I canna complain ...

Carve on girl, say hi to Steph and Cheri if you run into them.

[Guest jschal01]

IMO toeside you're twisted forward and in the backseat. It's technique, not gear. A lot of the advice here in terms of getting arms more forward, etc. will tend to move your hips further into the backseat. Try drawing lines through the photos posted as to where your hips, boots, and shoulder are pointing.

Driving rear knee, front, or both can all be good so long as it gets your hips in the front seat at the start of the turn. On a broad easy run, try starting a heelside traversing and then going toeside, focusing on 1) making the edge change before the nose begins to face the fallline, and 2) pressuring the nose at the start of the turn. Stop and look at where the edge transition happened, think what the physical feelings were and correlate them to the edge transition you see on the snow, collect yourself, then repeat.

Avoid contortions.

[Jack M]

I don't think I could twist myself up enough to grab my rear boot with my front hand on a toeside. Go for the front boot cuff, you'll stay in a much more natural position.

Try it, it's fun. It's just a drill, not a way to ride around all the time. I remember the first time I tried it, it was an eye-opener.

[Jack M]

Angulation is the boards angle as it relates to the slope.

Inclination is your body’s angular relationship to the board.

Nope, you've got it backwards. These are PSIA terms. Actually, Inclination is your cog's relationship to the snow. Angulation is creating angles in the body to alter your edge angle with respect to your inclination. No angulation means you are just leaning over, with your cog perpendicular to the board.

[Sean]

Nope, you've got it backwards. These are PSIA terms. Actually, Inclination is your cog's relationship to the snow. Angulation is creating angles in the body to alter your edge angle with respect to your inclination. No angulation means you are just leaning over, with your cog perpendicular to the board.

To help clean things up a bit, angulation simply means creating an angle with one or more of your body parts. This happens at your primary joints- ankles, knees, hips and, to a lesser degree, your spinal column. When we discuss this with respect to riding, most of the angulation we are talking about happens at our hips. The reason we sometimes strive for strong hip angulation (look at racer pics) is because it allows us to keep our weight over the working edge, stay in balance and regulate the pressure that is coming up through our feet, knees, hips etc. If you think about pinching your lower rib against your back hip joint during a heelside turn, that gives you a good idea of the look and feel of hip angulation. If we were to unfold those angles during the turn and lean into the hill, we will have traded angulation for inclination. Inclination simply means leaving the vertical plane with your body. Inclined turns such as eurocarves are cool, but they also tend to be more terrain and condition dependent as it can be a challenge to stay in balance and regulate the pressure when your center of mass is so far inside the turn and away from the edge.

There are elements of both these movements in most of our riding and we often blend them during the same turn. While we don't go riding with the goal of riding inclined or anglated, it does help understand how positioning our body helps us ride as effectively as possible, given style preferences and terrain constraints.

-Sean

(PSIA/AASI weenie) :o

[Neil Gendzwill]

So what's the term for the angle of the board wrt the snow? That should match up with the inclination but it's possible to have a mismatch.

[Jack M]

So what's the term for the angle of the board wrt the snow? That should match up with the inclination but it's possible to have a mismatch.

I don't know if there is a one-word term, but I call that "edge angle".

Edge angle = inclination when angulation = 0

[philfell]

Try it, it's fun. It's just a drill, not a way to ride around all the time. I remember the first time I tried it, it was an eye-opener.

Tried a few turn today. Don't recommend riding that way. Very unnatural, and wasted movement. You must truely be a yoga master to be able to get into that position with out your board throwing you on your behind in your transitions.

[Jack M]

I dunno, looks like you're almost there in your avatar. All you'd have to do is put your arm on the other side of your leg.

But yeah, grabbing the front boot works just as well.

[philfell]

If I move my hand on the other side of my leg I'll be touching my front boot. I'll also have to rotate slightly to make it happen. In order to grab my rear boot I have to rotate quite a bit more, but not only rotate I have to pull my shoulder back. That puts alot of tension in your core, at least mine, because I don't streach nearly enough. When your board releases the tension has to go somewhere. This is the classic set-up for what we call a Slalom Whipper.

[philfell]

Here is a short vid of Garrett Sorteberg from a SL race we had in Europe. This is what I mean by a Slalom Whipper. Watch the first toe side where he stays more upright and moves through his turn, then watch what happens when he gets tipped to the inside and his left arm gets behind him.

http://video.tinypic.com/player.php?v=n1t6ci

[Rob Stevens]

If you read all these posts, you'll never get to ride.

Keep it simple. You've got some really good tips here and some that are a bit complex.

I think you know which is which.