x-post: do you twist?

[Phil]

Perhaps, but you haven't done it yet.

Indeed I have not, nor do I intend to on an internet forum. We will merely discuss. I have, however, proven this on the slopes thousands of times.

In the dynamic situation, as in the picture above, the cause and effect are the other way around - so if anything that suggests this is an effect of the turn, not a cause of it.

I agree. I hope that I did not imply otherwise. I have seen it be taught effectively the other way around, though.

In the static example you provide here... Well let's assume that:

(1) we have a board flexible enough to twist torsionally;

I have not met one that I couldn't - especially just standing there on edge.

and

(2) there's some forward movement which can be used to turn the board.

The angle of the edge would vary along the length of a twisted board. But unless that variation pushed the edge beyond an angle at which it could hold the slope, I can't see what would cause the board to turn. Surely the edge would just track? Even if you could make it partially wash out, the part of the rail still engaged would continue to track, would it not?

I'm just sitting in the sun trying to understand the mechanics of this.

No, there is no forward movement - that would be a sideslip. You could, however, do it in a sideslip as well. Remember, I just said standing there on edge.

As you stand there, twisting will disengage your edge toward the front of the board while leaving it engaged in the back. This causes your board to turn into the fall line. It's pretty simple when done on snow - the 'net probably overcomplicates it.

I have heard a lot of instructors over the years say things like "put your weight over your front foot" in order to get riders to be able to turn into the fall line. I always give them a hard time and do a (static) nosepress and ask them if I have enough weight on the front foot yet. You can have all of the weight that you want on your front foot, but without disengaging the edge, the board will not turn to the fall line. Staying more centered and twisting the board, on the other hand, makes it turn very easily.

I do not try to twist the board deliberately. I think there are more important things to concentrate on while riding. Like balance.

Me neither. Maybe I am giving the wrong impression in my posts. The only time I MAY think about twisting the board is in short radius skidded turns. Even then, I am usually thinking about the sequential movements between my front and back foot (if I am thinking at all). Sometimes I think about it in moguls as well.

The reason I got on this kick in '06 and started the thread on the other forum and then this one is that I experienced a few trainers teaching twist in carving. I have taught twist in different skills over the years, but I never taught it in hardboot carving.

I went to a beginner hardboot clinic and observed the clinician teaching twist for transitions. I thought he was crazy - I would never do that. Then I watched the students get better in leaps and bounds in response to what he was teaching. I learned something that day, but I still would not teach twist to beginner carvers.

Then, I attended an advanced hardboot clinic and to my surprise the clinician (a different one) taught twist there as well. Again, I was the skeptic, but again, the students' skills quickly went through the roof.

I immediately went home and started discussing this online with some people. A week later, it got ugly with our old friend, so I tried to bring the conversation here in hopes of having a more civil discussion.

Fast forward from 06 to 08:

I still do not "own" teaching twist in hardboot carving. I am not sure that I really want to. The things that I teach for carving have been highly successful for my students and me.

I do, however feel that I have a lot to learn about the topic, and therefore jumped in when you guys brought it up in the camber discussion.

Carry on.

[tex1230]

PSR teaches this twist - but only at a pretty advanced level... you have to be stable and fast enough to make it work without catching an edge.

[carvedog]

Don't know PSR, I teach twist at the very beginning levels and it works great. I also down unweighting to the right newbies. And that works great too.

If they can't stand up on the board probably not though..

And if you want a hyper quick transtion some time try starting the twist with the back leg. Allows to drive more with the front knee later in the turn after a quick edge transition. Weird sounding but fun to play with when you are bored and stuck in clinic.

[tex1230]

sorry I must be misunderrstanding this - the twist that PSR had me doing was like a gas/clutch seesaw - front foot first then back foot - very subtle and probably not noticeable by an observer (esp. on a madd that is stiff as hell torsionally)

I can't imagine what you are referring to starting the twist on the back foot - sounds like a good way to catch an edge?

[carvedog]

sorry I must be misunderrstanding this - the twist that PSR had me doing was like a gas/clutch seesaw - front foot first then back foot - very subtle and probably not noticeable by an observer (esp. on a madd that is stiff as hell torsionally)

I can't imagine what you are referring to starting the twist on the back foot - sounds like a good way to catch an edge?

Incorrectly done it could be, usually I have enough lateral movement it is not an issue.

Not for lazy edge changes. but it is very fast.

[Steve Prokopiw]

to discuss in the summer;but I love to use the torsional characteristics of any and all of my boards and would be happy to demo this even on my rather stiff coiler.I think that twisting the board has it's use and that many here actually are doing it,but in a refined manner on boards stiff enough to shift emphasis or feel to other factors like sidecut or flex pattern(or lack thereof).

As for teaching it ,I do when I feel the timing is correct and have helped many many students to significant breakthroughs both on freestyle and carving setups.

There are no actual rules that govern how we increase our awareness of what a board and it's rider can do.If you are not at least exploring all your board's properties and ways to use them you are simply settling for a certain status quo.I'll quote J.G.again here,"Every turn is a mini experiment".

[kjl]

For me, as you say: "twist happens". I like to overrotate my upper body on turn transitions because I like the way it feels (and probably just because I learned to hardboot that way), which releases the nose and engages the tail at the end of the previous turn and engages the nose more at the start on the next turn.

Sometimes I wonder if I have gotten myself into a vicious circle, where:

1) I overrotate and twist the board on turn transitions, so it becomes more effective to heavily pressure the nose of the board when starting a turn, so over time I have been pressuring the nose more and more to get the edge to stick.

2) Pressuring the nose more and more makes it more effective to overrotate the upper body on turn transitions, since all my edge hold is focused on the nose anyways, so I keep overrotating.

I wonder if I just got myself a very torsionally stiff, softer board, relaxed my upper body and kept it pointing at the bindings, and kept my weight centered all the time, if I could radically simplify my riding.

[EnisiWaya]

While some may say twist is twist I think there are two types of or methods of twisting the board

Type one :

active specifically leg and foot gentle twisting.

With beginners and the newer Burton and other learning boards they are intentionally soft in the mid section to allow twist.

At Ragged MT when we went to the Burton LTR boards I could not demo Independent foot use with my ten year old Arbor Woodie at those slow speeds. So I took a junk old snow jam rental board 162 and modified it.

with the LTR system you use the twist allowed by the board to help initiate the turns. This makes the learning curve take off big time. It also has a by product: By teaching independent foot action the shoulders stop trying to turn the board. So the wind up face up the hill and hope the board turns while the edge is lost and the rider goes down is virtually eliminated.

Burton and others offering LTR type boards put a lot of money in to research before they started the new LTR program with LTR specific boards.

It is a boon to teaching couch potatoes successfully to ride. The biggest increase is the ease of teach parent skiers with boarding childerren how to ride.

Type two:

aggressive fully dynamic carving in both soft boots and hard boots.

When you are railing the board cutting trenches most riders stand up and crossover. At the MT the snowboard super and I hammer our staff to be fully dynamic even during edge changes. This means going to cross under or at least cross through turn initiation. To teach this we work with our staff to get them to feel like free fall flying down the MT much like the pure carve guys. Once they get used to "falling " down the mountain then we try to get the muscles added on to the natural twist caused by the movement of falling past the board down the mountain. Now Once that happens every turn initiation while carving the rider is further down the mountain than the board. Big twist even in a stiff torsionally stiff Arbor or Rossi race board. Now move on to violently falling down the MT at each turn initiation. ?then comes the staff contest. Track on the snow, who has the shortest (has to be less than stance width) edge change in their clean fully carved rut track for the day? Winner gets an extra free comp pass to give out to friends and such. Tracks with overlap of edges in contact with snow with no blowout or skid just clean overlapping ruts gets free beer that night at the MT pub.

Grandfather Wolf

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[BobD]

It occurs to me that maybe twisting the the board when carving is a subtle movement learned from from experience, in the same way that not twisting the board is. Many of us had to learn not to torque the board during heelside carves to avoid that awful chatter that leaves the twisted rope line in the snow. My assumption was that the heel side chatter stopped when I stopped twisting the board, but maybe it's because I learned to torque the board in a benificial way ?

BobD

[EnisiWaya]

Thank You... and I completely agree:biggthump<!-- / message --><!-- sig --> __________________

It just takes guts to do it the first few times..........then the adrenaline takes over and you can't stop falling down the MT LOL

But once you go there then you can ride bumps trees anything....because you have learned to have absolute trust in your board and your ability to ride its edges. big BIG thing to accomplish better than ASSI level 3.

Can't count the level 3s I've trashed on the MT. It is all about just letting go and doing it, not talking about it.

GWS

[madlibs69]

It is very important. Look at the Madds to say the least. The butter fly carbon fiber shape allows the board to have more or less torsional rigidity in select locations---less torsional stifness(more twist) in the nose and tails with more torsional stiffness(less twist) in between the bindings.. It is almost saying that the board has a dual flex pattern--torsionally and down the length.

If any of you have taken lesons from PSR, you mayhave noted one simple technique he would occasionally throw out of his quiver of tricks. On a toe side turn, a rider could simply kick out the rear knee into the turn. This would add a twist to the board and immediatley make the board turn tighter.

PS- Extreme carving is gay.

[carvedog]

My assumption was that the heel side chatter stopped when I stopped twisting the board

BobD

You haven't stopped. If you look at your signature gif, you are doing quite a bit on heelside and less on toeside. Still there though. Not sure how you view torque differently than twist. :rolleyes:

Seems to me the rope line skid out that you refer to can be attributed more to fore aft weight distribution and laying down to the inside of the turn too early. Depressures the edge.

Asymmetric body alignment ( hips at 45? across the board) combined with somewhat independent knee and ankle action will always create some twist in the board. Whether you choose to fight it or anticipate it can make a difference in turn initiation.

[EnisiWaya]

Bob I am not saying anything against your little video as to technique or style. I myself ride like that much of the time just enjoying the feeling of swooping down the MT.

<!-- / message --> BobD <!-- sig --> __________________

Because I'm so inclined .....

I would call this the seagull flight soaring on the beach air technique.

I try to get all my staff rider/instructors to the point of being more like an Osprey or Goshawk going in for the kill.

Look at the video. Just before you put your hand down in the turn I have them stay arms out level to the slope. then staying level at that shoulder height above the snow do a full leg absorbtion of the board staying level and not rising up as in a cross over or cross through turn but executing a pure no shoulder rise cross under turn. When the board is up hill extend you legs fully and push it up hill from you HARD enough to bend the board. Now you are carving a trench but the trench is up hill from you. By doing this you are carving the first part of the turn up hill from you using leg muscles then the middle of he turn you are riding it through using the centripital force.

Then at the bottom you are already using your legs to start absorbing the board for the new cross under turn. This keeps the board from being over pressured at the bottom of the turn. You have now accomplished a turn where the pressure on the edge is constant through the turn and from turn to continuous turn. With this technique you can carve Christmas ribbon candy turns even on NH blue (ice) snow. The neat thing is the feeling of fast slow fast slow fast slow.

Everything is a balance of forces In terms of the physics of it, so when you make the edge pressure constant instead of the normal varying pressure of most riders and skiers, now the thing that changes is your speed. As the board starts to come into the fall line you are almost motionless in free fall then at the bottom of turn / start of new turn you are moving like a rocket as you execute the cross under.. As you cross the board underneath you to put it up hill from you and pressure it with your legs you are moving Yourself down the hill with both your momentum down the hill plus your leg extension. It is like falling down the hill at speed and then adding your best basketball jump shot speed from leg extension on top of that. The board speed is fairly constant as is the pressure, but you are moving fast slow fast slow to be down the hill from the board and then up the hill from it then down then up .

The push pull fast slow ride is a total gas of a feeling.I expect my staff to be able to do this before we train them to teach lessons in the woods which are very tight quarters here in NH.

The wonderful thing is once you have mastered the max all out push pull turn the technique it works on carving board of course but it works equally well on soft boot boards and even on shaped skis (at least from my experience with a 13 meter of less side cut).

One caveat is that once you have mastered the technique your edge changes to a new turn happen in micro seconds so anyone following you has no time to react. So tell them to give you space. I have had request private lessons with ski race coaches who have seen me skiing this way to teach them how so they can get their racers edge changes faster.

In actuality of physics it is an aggressive cross over turn but cross over turn in both skiing and snowboard has come to mean rising up and crossing over the skis/board. So in the sport we call this a cross under turn Which describes the feelings of the turn not the actual relative positions of rider to the board. I personally prefer to call it a push pull turn.

LOL Snowboard instructor teaching ski race coaches how to change edges and make cross under turns and then push pull turns.

Grandpa Wolf