A day's difference, and how to carve and ski with everyone else?

I only ski with people who carve...your mileage may vary...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albireo 

 

The last two seasons have been a revelation for me. I started skiing fairly late in my life (maybe 13 years old?), went infrequently (2-3 days every 2-3 years), and only ever took group lessons. One ski day in my late 20s I was so banged up from the effort of skiing that I just gave up trying. As I fell forward in sheer exhaustion, I serendipitously discovered the virtues of keeping pressure of my shins. Since that day I have been able to "noodle" down the slope in true 80s fashion, skis so close that they knock each other and my boots. I thought that was cool. I thought I had it all figured out.

Fat chance.

Last year, I finally asked for the services of a private instructor, whose first words upon seeing me ski was: "OMG you gotta go back to the pizza wedge!" I never learned what to do with these new-fangled shaped skis, see. Chastened, I purchased and read (twice) Ron LeMaster's "Ultimate Skiing" and went skiing at Wachusetts almost every weekend during that year’s long winter. I spent all my time on green and blue slopes (yes, even at Wachusetts). By the end of the season, I thought I was maybe "letting my skis turn themselves," keeping my skis far enough apart so that I felt like I was "riding a horse," and initiating my turns by "turning towards my pinky toe." I even thought I was starting to understand LeMaster's physics-oriented approach to skiing.

Yeah right.

On Sunday while everyone else was carousing over Super Bowl XLVI, I hunkered down at Gunstock to try out my newest training acquisition: Klaus Mair's "Sofa Ski School" DVD. Actually, I probably needn't have purchased the DVD at all: his YouTube video was sufficient for this carving newbie. His "hands-on-knee" lesson miraculously put it all together. Everything I had learned before suddenly made sense!

I finally understood what it really felt like to counter, to pressure my ski tips, to ski the sidecut, and to widen the stance to allow steeper angles for the outside ski for a sharper turn. To initiate a turn, I moved my body downhill and my skis turned simultaneously, and a split second later the carve turned me back the other way. In other words, I let my skis ski themselves. I linked one C turn with the next with utter ease and on command -- even on boilerplate -- leaving pencil-thin tracks that (mostly) betrayed no skidding.  Where once I blanched at the steeps, or started skidding on hard snow, I now leaned even further forward over my outside ski until its tip engaged the snow and I went on my way. Where once I was afraid of speed, I gained so much with such iron stability that I screamed out loud with glee as I flew by, the wind whistling in my ears.

Most amazingly, skiing now takes apparently no physical effort whatsoever. No matter how fast or hard I turn, or how long the run is, I finish exhilarated and wanting more. Thigh burn? What thigh burn!

But ... now I don't know how to ski with everyone else! I want to carve, but speed picks up so quickly I can only spend a split second in carving bliss before I have to think about how not to run into everyone. I've tried “releasing” my edges by flattening my skis for a controlled skid, I've tried stopping and letting everyone pass out of sight before starting down, I've even tried giving up and just threading through and flying past everyone in F-U maneuvers, which I despise (plus it’s way dangerous).

How do you carvers enjoy skiing with everyone else who don’t know how to ski -- I mean, “carve?!”

More importantly, is it still enjoyable? I was so focused on learning how to carve it never occurred to me what the consequences might be for my skiing pleasure.

well now time to get branch out and learn how to ski anytime, any place at any speed.

It's time to hunker down and learn to carve ski short radius turns.

See how many turns you can make along a certain distance.

To what extent can you carve these turns?  To what extent

do you need to rotate them without railing them?  Can you learn

to do this?

There are definitely times and places where you need to slow

down and NOT carve.  You gotta figure out how to do this thing.

What skis are you on?  What's their turn radius?  

Alternative:  learn to snowboard.  Work on figuring out how to

manage the snow board while accompanying your slower friends.

That should slow you down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Josh Matta 

 

well no time to get branch out and learn how to ski anytime, any place at any speed.

 

 

 

Yep. To the OP, if you want to rip it up in the AM when the hill is quite, the do so! Take a slow run with your friends every so often, and then full time after a late lunch. Skied hard all day yesterday until 2:30, then jumped on a level 1 clinic to see the clinician teach. You can always slow down an refine. It'll make you a much better skier IF you use the time and terrain wisely.

Now that you can ski effortlessly, put some effort back in.

Try to push get those skis further out from under you and maybe add in muscle strength to get the same carve without depending on the speed and slope to provide all the grip.  

Or hit up some bumps/mini-mogul sections if they are options on your run, rather then zooming down the mountain.

You can also always throw in some drills.  There are plenty of exercises that will easily expose weaknesses for you to work on.

Carving is easier to do on a gentle slope:  you don't have to tip your feet very far to get onto the new edges to start turning the other way, you don't get going that fast because the slope isn't that great, etc.

It is possible to leave pencil-thin tracks on steep(er) slopes, but the difficulty of doing so increases as the slope of the snow increases.  On a steep slope, you need to tip a long ways just to get your feet flat on the ground -- and you need to keep going even further to get your new edges to engage.

The higher up on edge you tip your skis, the shorter the turn they'll carve.  The limit as to how far you can tip them is pretty much determined by your balance skills; the limit of the turn radius that results in is defined by the dimensions of your skis.  That said, the shortest turn that you can carve is still much much bigger than the shortest turn that's necessary to enjoy anything other than a wide open uncrowded groomer.  Carving turns through glades is a good way to hit a tree.

Don't get me wrong; I think carving is awesome fun.  That sensation of "not really doing much" and turning anyway is intoxicating.  But real all-mountain skiing comes when you can make just about any turn shape imaginable -- and you're not carving them, but you're not really exerting yourself either.  I stop skiing most days not because my quads are fried but because the lifts are closing, and I hardly ever pure carve a turn.

Pick more slow lines during your carve.  (Go line is the fall line, slow line is 90 degrees to the fall line.)

I carve at a good clip back and forth across the hill.  I go side to side and sometimes glide uphill before dropping down the hill.  This bleeds of speed.  It allows me to feel the carve for a longer time.  (Ski the slow line fast!)

I'll do this behind one of my students while they practice.  That way I can see them from both sides as they work.  I can then zoom ahead, stop, and do some on the fly quick coaching.

Play with it.  Carving is a great feeling.

Quote:

Originally Posted by T-Square 

 

I'll do this behind one of my students while they practice.  That way I can see them from both sides as they work.  I can then zoom ahead, stop, and do some on the fly quick coaching.

 

 

This is true.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albireo 

Quote:

 

Assuming conditions are against "pleasure" carving -- say, glades or steeps as you mention -- would it be wrong to assume that carving plays no role in making turns? Or do most turns involve some aspect of carving? This would help me understand when to stop trying to force a carve into every situation I encounter, which I'm doing now out of the sheer enthusiasm.

It depends on the situation.  Turning is a continuum from having your skis flat on the snow and just pivoting them back and forth (i.e., your skis will turn, you really won't) to full on pure-carves.  There are plenty of situations where I'm not about to "pure carve" but I can still feel the skis sidecut pulling me through the turn to some degree (i.e., somewhat carved, somewhat steered).  In bumps / glades, I tend to not want the skis sidecut to pull me through the turn.

I'm more concerned about where I'm going than how I'm getting there -- i.e., I have a spot picked out that I'm trying to get to (the gap between two trees, two bumps, around a race gate, etc.) and I see my line (path in the snow) that it takes to get me there and I just stay on the path.  If the turn winds up being highly carved, great.  If not, great.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albireo 

Thanks, I will pay attention to the "slow lines." Quick question: can one carve tight turns where every turn ends slightly upward? I can "slow" myself down on any particular turn by delaying the start of the next turn, but it feels rather like the odd emergency maneuver rather than something I do on every turn, particularly as it greatly widens the width of my C curve.

Yes, you can keep turning until you're looking back uphill.  Using the mountain to slow you down (it's hard to ski uphill quickly !) is what the "slow line" is all about.

Quote:

Originally Posted by swisstrader 

I'm also a big fan of the sofa ski stuff, but have not had a eureka moment like yourself. I have two fears: tipping my skis on edge and skiing without poles. Going to make more of an effort this wkend

Swisstrader, just keep your feet wide, hold your arms out for balance, and try these new things on the beginner slopes.  Take your time, feel what's happening with your feet and skis, and enjoy the results.  You'll be fine.  Try new stuff alone, not with impatient friends who want to go ski more challenging stuff.  

Keep practising.  Make smaller turns.  Keep decreasing the radius by increasing the tipping angle until the apex and work on different ways of releasing the pressure from that outside ski (smoothly suddenly,etc).  Eventually, if your skis have enough torsional rigidity (many do not), you will become so adept at controlling your turn radius while carving that weaving through crowds will be as safe as walking through the mall.  When you reach that point, you need to work on courtesy, which is easy to lose sight of; don't make other skier's uncomfortable by zooming too close to them.

I love seeing breakthroughs! I had a similar one back in 1988 (before shaped skis existed, so the right moves were somewhat more mysterious in those days).

Also glad to see a relatively inexperienced skier learn that effective movement patterns mean you can ski all day with zero quad burn.   I ski bumps and trees all day with minimal quad burn, never enough to stop me. On groomers I could ski 24x7 with no more quad burn than I'd get walking them. The reason expert skiers make it look so easy is that it IS easy. The agonized quads of skidding intermediates are the result of inefficient movements, not poor conditioning. Any healthy person can learn to ski without quad burn, my 79 year old mother skis without that problem. The fact that you've crossed this barrier is an indicator that you're on the right path (and let's face it, skiing without pain is WAY more fun).

With regard to skiing steeps, glades, etc. where pure carving won't work, re-read LiquidFeet's first post. Excellent advice. You basically need to make the same moves you just learned but with some energy added back in. Exaggerate. Get the skis WAAAY out to the side and REALLY commit your body to the fall line. Steer your feet actively to guide the skis around the arc of the turn... not twisting hockey stops (which will burn your quads again), just actively steering the skis to shorten the arc.

This will shorten the radius of your turns and give you options to control your line. The easy, pain free way to control your speed is NOT to brake, it's to control your line. (aka, "Ski the slow line fast".) To answer one of your questions, yes, just staying in your turn until you're heading back uphill willl control your speed... you can't accelerate going uphill. There's no reason you can't do this and still move smoothly into the next turn. In fact, that's a good exercise to build skills and confidence. Do a series of those down a pitch that's just a LITTLE steeper than you'd be comfortable bombing 11s... carve uphill ALMOST to a stop, then release your edges, commit to the fall line and let your skis come around. You'll find that on a smooth slope you can initiate a turn effortlessly even with almost no forward motion. (Keep an eye out for uphill skiers, they may not be expecting this somewhat odd maneuver.)

Try to avoid uncomfortably steep terrain while learning new moves.The fear of excessive speed will lock you up and you'll fall back on familiar (but ineffective) habits. And avoid moguls until you have short radius turns somewhat nailed. Bumps will just screw you up if you don't have that skill.

Once you get the feel for linking, short-radius turns, you can ramp up the steepness, try some easy bumps, etc. Add challenges incrementally so you don't freak and undo your progress. My preferred morning warmup is to find a REALLY steep pitch and crank as many short radius turns as possible straight down the fall line in a tight (imaginary) corridor, ten feet wide at most. Gets the juices flowing and the rhythm too. After that I'm ready for pretty much anything.

Have fun. Congrats!

P.S. I didn't start skiing until I was 28, so I found your idea that starting at 13 was "late" pretty entertaining.

The OP now has  a familiar addiction: The technical love of a sport.  Just like golfer who figured out how a perfectly hit ball should feel and sound, he will keep trying to replicate that eureka moment  of a carved turn on a daily basis.  This means spending money on even more videos (like the US Ski Team's Alpine Ski Fundamentals), purchasing more books, becoming a historian about carving by reading Warren Witherell ("Put a skis on edge, pressure it correctly, and it will take you where you want to go."), seeking out instructors who actually raced at one time, reading Harold Harb's stuff (his feet are probably not as wide as yours in his books or videos), discussing the nuances about skis and how their tails can make it easier or harder to change the shape of a turn, getting in better shape (stronger and more flexible) to carve turns where it was too difficult to hold an edge before, figuring out that some skis and brands are really designed for those who can set an edge, etc.  Albireo has an addiction for which there is no cure.  Good for him. Perhaps one day we'll meet in rehab.

BTW, now that you experience the feeling of a carved turn it is time for a lesson from someone competent (who can carve turns) BEFORE you get into bad habits.  Your questions above have to do a lot with lateral and fore/aft movement that any competent instructor can help you with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albireo 

 

Although I am 100% certain I am carving, I don't seem to be able to reproduce that super-angulated "leaning on the snow" look that the expert carvers can do, even on green slopes. Is there something about using the pressure release to send the feet further out to the side before engaging the edge? How do you prevent the edges from digging in until they are "farther out" under you? Am I even understanding this correctly? 

High edge angles require speed or a steep slope.

"NO" to the question about delaying edge engagement. The best carvers (racers) engage their edges as early as possible, right at the top of the new turn. Of course there's always a non-edged phase as the skis transition from old edges through flat to new edges, but the best carvers move through that quickly and smoothly. If the skis start turning (twisting) without edge engagement it's much harder to get back onto a clean edge, you'll usually end up skidding the whole turn. OTOH, it's comparatively easier to ease off the edges partway through a turn if you need to (this is how to adjust your line to make a less sharp turn than the one you're in).

You need speed or steepness to do high edge angles on skis, but you can get a feel for the position from the safety of your office chair. Stand in a ski position (feet hip-width apart) with your calf muscles brushing the front of the seat. Flex down at the knees until you can support your weight with stiff arms on the arms of the chair. Now - without moving ANYTHING except your legs - slide your R foot straight out to the side, then slide your L foot out to match it, keeping them hip width apart. Your upper body down to your hips is vertical and your hips are still square to the chair.

Now do it again, sliding your feet another 12" out. (At some point you'll have to lower your body to keep your feet on the floor, but do so by just letting your arms flex. Do NOT twist or slide your hips. Just move your femurs in their sockets.) Do it a third time, butt now supported on the front of the seat with your feet REALLY out there.

Practice this on both sides. Each of these is a position you'd find yourself in exactly halfway through a carved turn, at the precise moment your skis are pointing straight down the fall line. Notice that your inside foot naturally takes the lead, without you pushing it forward. The more angulated you are, more flexed your inside leg and the farther ahead the inside foot will be. Don't think about your inside foot leading on the hill, it just happens. Trying to push it farther ahead is a technical complication that's unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive.

Yup. Any effort to twist or slide your skis sideways will be an instant disaster in crud... or deep powder... or tight bumps. The skis won't budge but you will, SPLAT! In any snow condition but a flat surface, the skis must primarily be moving forward along their axes or you're toast. The trick is to get them moving forward in curved arcs by using their natural sidecut and/or by bending them into decamber. That lets you control your direction, which in turn lets you decide how fast to go.

Check out this thread of a skilled, high level instructor handling heavy, wet crud with aplomb. Before looking at his body movements, carefully watch the path his skis follow:

http://www.epicski.com/t/110060/recent-vid-of-my-skiing

The reason commitment works when the snow is hard is that letting your body fall down the hill ahead of your skis puts them up on edge. Now they can hold and carve.

The steeper the slope and/or the higher the speed, the more you have to commit into each new turn. At the end of a turn your skis are on a high edge, so naturally it takes a big move to rotate them to flat and then onto the new edges. Yes, it feels like diving headfirst off a cliff... but it ALWAYS works. Trust your skis. Once you've done this once or twice it is SUCH a rush!

How to get high edge angles? See the office chair exercise above. It's about moving your legs in their femur sockets. 

You do NOT want to be flexing more at the waist to do this. That just sticks your butt out and puts you in the back seat. Except when absorbing a bump or other terrain "feature", try to keep your upper body relaxed, upright and roughly perpendicular to the angle of the slope. IOW, we stand upright relative to the slope, not to the pull of gravity. This keeps us centered over the middle of our skis, where we're able to weight, angle and even rotate them as necessary. Check out epic's upper body in the vid I linked above. The only time he bends at the waist is to absorb a bump. He achieves L or R edge angles by moving his legs... only.

No, go gack to geometry. Short "radius" means just that. You can ski short or long radius turns in quarter circles, half circles or even full circles (if you go fast enough, lol). Imagine a series of linked turns down the fall line, each one shaped like the third letter of the alphabet. Short radius turns would look like linked "c's". Long radius turns would look like linked "C's". Same turn shape, same amount of turn completion, just different radii.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Albireo 

Quote:

 

Assuming conditions are against "pleasure" carving -- say, glades or steeps as you mention -- would it be wrong to assume that carving plays no role in making turns? Or do most turns involve some aspect of carving? This would help me understand when to stop trying to force a carve into every situation I encounter, which I'm doing now out of the sheer enthusiasm.

All turns involve some aspect of carving. Pure carving is one end of a spectrum. At the other end of the spectrum lies something that really isn't a turn at all - the pure pivot slip.

The fundamentals required to do a pivot slip are similar (some might say "exactly the same") as the fundamentals required to carve. The DIRT changes (Duration, Intensity, Rate, Timing).

For both, is necessary to be accurately balanced. Too far back or too far forward, too far to one side or the other, and neither the pivot slip nor the pure carve is possible, although clumsy approximations can be acheved. You mentioned that you've found that your body needs to be in the right position in order to start a new carved turn. This is true of any turn, as well as the pivot slip.

For both, it is necessary to move knees, hips, center of mass across the skis and down the hill in order to flatten the skis and release. Even though the pivot slip is a "pure" skid in some sense, a true pivot slip cannot be achieved through defensive moves. A positive, offensive move is required to initiate each pivot. It is the same positive move required to end one pure arc and begin a new one in the other direction.

For both, it is necessary to exercise accurate edge control, to release as required and to develop just the right amount of engagement to perform the desired task. Edging has a spectrum, too, and control of low edge angles is just as important as the ability to impose high edge angles.

For both, it is necessary to guide the skis to achieve the desired amount of rotary. For the pure carve, accurate, active guiding is especially required through the transition when the edges are not engaged in order to prevent the tips from drifting downhill before edge engagement. Guiding continues in the carve because, frankly, you haven't got both skis bent the same and they're following concentric arcs, rather than identical ones.

Mastery of the entire spectrum will give you turns of any radius you want without shoving your tails out. High-quality round short-radius turns at speed demand energy, power and high edge angles, among other things, but they're not accomplished via abrupt movements, twisting or shoving the skis, violent up unweighting or trying to tip the skis for the sake of tipping if lateral balance is not accurate. 

Short-radius turns do indeed involve some aspect of carving.