I'm very familiar with the notion that what I have come to know as 'counteracting', namely turning my upper body against the direction the skis are travelling, so that I am facing the same direction as the ski bases, has the effect of tightening up a carved turn. What I have never really got my head around is why this should be the case. What is the mechanism at work here?
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How does counteracting tighten up a turn?
- Thread starter J2R
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Turning your upper body, from the hips up to shoulders, to face the outside of the turn often drops the hips a little. This brings the skis up onto higher edges. Higher edges can sharpen a turn if they are doing their job right.
Moving your shoulders more to the outside of the turn, out over the outside ski, as those hips move inside the turn, is a move which often accompanies skiing into counter, or actively countering, or counteracting (they are not the same). This helps direct pressure (body weight) to the outside ski, which makes it more dominant in the turn.
There are many ways to do this movement and have it fail to work the way you want it to. I expect people will talk about this. The conversation might even get heated.
Moving your shoulders more to the outside of the turn, out over the outside ski, as those hips move inside the turn, is a move which often accompanies skiing into counter, or actively countering, or counteracting (they are not the same). This helps direct pressure (body weight) to the outside ski, which makes it more dominant in the turn.
There are many ways to do this movement and have it fail to work the way you want it to. I expect people will talk about this. The conversation might even get heated.
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If the intent is shorter radius fall line turns separation between upper and lower body is a marvelous thing ( what the French call anticipation). Your core is wound like a spring when initiating the turn, and you have fewer moving parts to redirect.
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I think you need to be more specific on what your are asking. By "tightening up a carved turn" are you asking how to get the most out the carving capabilities of your ski or are you actually talking about employing an over abundance of rotary to shorten the turn radius beyond the ski's carving capability potentially creating a "check" ending to the turn. What answer you give will determine a proper response to the subject of countering.
This is why I like the CSIA terminology - counter rotation. The body is separated by counter rotation. Top one way, bottom other. But in practical use, the top is facing downhill and the lower counter rotates from it.
I'm not sure it's directly related to separation - sounds closer to the PSIA definition as a pivoting mechanism - found this from some manual -
You could start looking at what the opposite would do and it (rotation) would introduce a large angular momentum, which washes out the tails of the skis towards the end of the turn and slows down the initiation of the next turn... so there's already two mechanisms at work right there...
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Excellent question. I hope the OP answers it.
Except - the act of turning the legs under your body doesn't actually make a carved turn tighter (inherently).
A carved turn only gets tighter if you bend the ski more. You bend the ski more by tipping it up higher relative to the snow. So the question then comes "What lets me reach higher edge angles?"
Turning the legs causes the steering angle the change faster than the normal radius of the skis (and you're turning your legs under the body to correctly develop "counter") - since we're in a carved turn, that doesn't happen.
Turning the legs under a stable upper body (so the pelvis and shoulders face a different direction than your skis) also changes where your mass moves when you hinge at the waist. It changes it from a front/back "fore/aft" movement to a combination of fore/aft and lateral movement.
So with your weight now able to move laterally as well as horizontally through joint movement - you can access greater angulation, which should result in higher edge angle relative to the snow for two reasons:
You are tipping the skis higher for a given amount of inclination
Your skis are gripping, potentially making you feel more willing you to go faster and/or tip harder.
karlo, yes, I would say so. He is ensuring that his upper body is oriented towards the outside of the turn. My question was simply about what the mechanism was which makes doing this helpful, what is actually happening to the skis as a result. I suspect it's just that it positions one's hips in such a way that it is easier to increase the edge angle of the skis and get more weight over the outside ski.
It not about tightening up a turn but getting more edge angle without pushing the skis out.
Think of it as roll on to the edge (lean over), set to edge with downwards pressure (move upper body over the skis as much as possible, this is the counteracting). Without this all you achieve is losing edge hold. In part this must occure this way because of physical design constraints of the human body.
The end result is you get the ski to perform to the maximum of the designed turning radius, by maximizing edge lean with enough “downwards”
pressure to hold.
Similarly riding a motorcycle (or Bicycle) in high speed corners the same concept applies, lean in too much without downwards push on tires, bike slides out from underneath you.
This explanation was written without the use of the terms CoM, CoE and CF vectors among others specifically for the none engineer
Think of it as roll on to the edge (lean over), set to edge with downwards pressure (move upper body over the skis as much as possible, this is the counteracting). Without this all you achieve is losing edge hold. In part this must occure this way because of physical design constraints of the human body.
The end result is you get the ski to perform to the maximum of the designed turning radius, by maximizing edge lean with enough “downwards”
pressure to hold.
Similarly riding a motorcycle (or Bicycle) in high speed corners the same concept applies, lean in too much without downwards push on tires, bike slides out from underneath you.
This explanation was written without the use of the terms CoM, CoE and CF vectors among others specifically for the none engineer
What keeps the upper body stable and how? That's what I always like to know when I hear that expression
I always suspected it may have to do with the Higgs boson...but what's the applicability?
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You are assuming that we ski from the top down.
Because the skier in @karlo 's video is executing a carving state, all the "countering" you see is a result of the mechanics needed (from the bottom up) to build and maintain and align with the carving state as @oldschoolskier explained above. So your second sentence is somewhat valid except that the countering of the pelvis happens as we create angles in in pursuit of a higher edge.
Assuming we are considering a pure carved turn where the ski tail passes through the same point on the snow as the tip.... (Different story if you are referring to pivoting the skis)
The radius of the turn is determined by the edge angle - the angle between the base of the ski and the surface of the snow.
Due to sidecut a ski tipped to a higher edge angle will bend further permitting a tighter turn radius.
If we are to carve the ski (as defined above) we also need to maintain grip. That is, no sliding of the ski across the direction of travel. So to control turn shape we need to grip and manage edge angles.
We control edge angle with a mix of inclination and angulation. Inclination is how much our center of mass (CoM) is inclined to the inside of the turn. The amount of inclination required must balance the centripetal force of the turn and there's basically only one answer for a given turn radius and speed. If our bodies were rigid beams with no ability to bend we would be limited to a set edge angle for any given turn radius/speed if we wanted to stay in lateral balance. However we can bend at various joints (angulation) and we can therefore incline some parts of the body further than other parts - for example by angulating at the hips the legs may be at a larger inclination than the upper body and allow us to have a greater edge angle on the skis and still remain in lateral balance.
But there's a limit to how much extra edge angle can be obtained with angulation. To keep tightening a turn we need to incline more. Which we can do as long as we have grip.
Grip requires that our platform angle is 90 degrees or less. The ski cuts a groove in the snow as it passes through and the base of the ski rests on the wall of that groove. The platform angle is the angle between that wall (the platform), and the balance axis - the line from the CoM to the edge of the ski in the groove. If that angle becomes more than 90 degrees the ski will slip out of the groove.
If we have grip then we can incline more - more edge angle, more bend of the ski, tighter turn radius for the speed we are travelling.
Don't think the CSIA are really into "counter" as terminology these days. Can't recall the term being used since I've been doing their training the past 3 seasons. (Then again I may be a bad listener.) The concept is addressed in the CSIA's Technical Reference #3 "Separation of the upper and lower body allows for angulation to provide grip".
Not really. I was only making the assumption that the skier was consciously doing something with his upper body to counter what was happening with the legs. Are you saying that is not the case?
Looks to me like everyone is discussing angulation, so far. Which allows bigger edge angles, balance etc (and it's fallen out of favour... if you listen to some).
What about counter, specifically, as in rotational separation, separate from lateral separation? What about the counteraction of the upper body specifically, like the OP was looking for?
One can ski perfectly square to the skis, with lots of angulation and bigger edge angles. Then what?
What about counter, specifically, as in rotational separation, separate from lateral separation? What about the counteraction of the upper body specifically, like the OP was looking for?
One can ski perfectly square to the skis, with lots of angulation and bigger edge angles. Then what?
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Exactly, razie, rotational separation is what I was talking about. Lateral separation, getting your weight over your outside ski, is a different issue, and the physics of why that is necessary and how it works is quite clear to me.
Not an instructor nor familiar with terminology for countering. The human body is bilateral including the upper torso with a mostly separate neuromuscularskelectal structure for each side that I use the opposite side of to counter pressure on the combined ski edge and platform of the edged ski and that includes all the way out my arm to hand and pole plus head. Those upper body forces work through the lower torso and waist as a lever fulcrum especially the lower back muscles and abdominals, to deliver pressure through the opposite leg structure. Although the upper body is generally facing forward down the fall line in the direction of travel, it is not some solid quiet mass uninvolved with what goes on below but rather is involved via applying subtle opposite side (countering) force that one varies through turns.
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No offense but read what you wrote. If you are consciously executing movements with the upper body to affect the lower, you are not skiing from the bottom up. Again, in the context of a carved turn, counter happens in support of the carving process. And to the extent that upper body (shoulders & arms) appear to be sympathetic components of a countered appearance, that is only an issue of core strength and flexibility.
Raz. Like my first reply to the OP, should we not first be defining what kind of turn we are talking about? ie are we trying to build the carving state or are we more concerned with a priority on rotational redirection? This is a good discussion and your questions are excellent, but I think that first qualifying what kind of turn we are talking about is key to the results.
Geepers, I don't think we need a pure carved turn to address this subject. IMO carving is a process of circular travel that results in a level of purity.
I would also submit that the inclination in B2 cannot happen without extensive vertical angulation of the inside leg as the stick figure shows.
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