Need help to begin carving

[JDT]

Hello,

New here, and looking forward to getting to know people on here. Have learned to ski from about 7 years old using wedge techniques and now finally revisiting skiing since moving back to the midwest. Been going almost every weekday and taking advantage of weekly specials at local hills. I am in good shape with good ankle mobility from exercises that emphasize it. Also have taken a lesson but did not get as much out of it as I would have hoped to. It wasn't the instructor, but just not a good match for the level of instruction I was seeking, I guess. I have posted some videos below in hopes for some assistance before I start spending too much money on lift tickets repeating the same bad habits. To me, I look much different in my mind than I actually am on video so its hard to have mental triggers to fix things that feel ok to me (until I see the video of course).

Some recent improvements:
Ive narrowed my stance a little, and this has helped initially get the skis tipped faster and to help even the edge angles.
I have developed better feel for the skis more fluidly crossing under me rather than trying to swing my center of mass over the skis.
Shoulders more rounded and lower stance (attempting to flex on release).

First things that stand out:
1. A frame when I turn right (left leg downhill leg). My right leg in the gym is for sure my dominant leg when it comes to balance doing single leg exercises...and putting on socks (lol).
2. Associated diverging skis when turning right (left leg downhill leg).
3. Looks like I need to pull my inside leg back? Seems like on the video I have it wayyyy too far out in front of my hips.

Another thing to note is that I can't tip my skis much more than in the video. When I do my stance just widens out and I go into more of a wedge.

1. Can I not tip the skis more because the inside is too far forward??
2. How would or should I go about inside leg activity? (There is so much from Deb Armstrong, Tom, Effectiveskiing, etc. that sometimes it is counterproductive and honestly overwhelming!).

Some of this in the video is in midwest rutted mashed potatoes with ice underneath. Any help much appreciated!!! Thank you!
Sorry for some bad vid quality

 

[tomahawkins]

Yay! Buck Hill! Great place to learn. Nice job posting videos and being open to critique. Others more qualified than I will chime in, but one thing I’ll ask is can you feel when the ski is slipping sideways versus being locked on edge going straight? The later is what your going for. Try not to steer with the feet. Instead, just tip the edges and only “steer” the ski to keep that locked in feel. Sometimes you have to slightly steer in the opposite direction of the turn to keep the edges locked in.

 

[Chris V.]

IMG_9628 2.MOV is the only one of the three clips I'm getting. The others produce error messages.

 

[FlyingAce]

IMG_9628 2.MOV is the only one of the three clips I'm getting. The others produce error messages.

I could watch all 3 videos.

 

[slowrider]

IMHO tip & pressure the inside edge on your outside ski. Ride it all the way around and up the hill till you slow down. You'll need to do this about a million times. Once you've got a handle on that it'll be time to move on till the next stage.

 

[Chris V.]

Please see this thread, as advice would be much the same:

am i carving?

watched a few youtube videos and tried it out on a green slope. am i doing it right? if not what can i change/fix, and if so how can i do this on steeper slopes? general advice is also appreciated :)

www.skitalk.com

Focus on tipping the INSIDE foot. This will address many of the issues you mention.

I can still play only the one clip, trying multiple Android players. Maybe it's an Apple thing. But going by that one clip...please aim, initially for longer radius turns that complete farther across the slope. Any further video of you doing that task would be instructive.

 

[Mike King]

@JDT, you've got a lot of really good things going on in your skiing and a good foundation from which to advance your skiing. The primary thing that I think you need to work on right now is your fore/aft balance: your body is generally behind your feet and the result is that you push the skis to generate an edge. Realize that in order to stay centered over the ski, your body needs to be perpendicular to the top sheets of the skis. So, as you start your turn, you will need to allow your body to move forward down the hill until the skis are in the fall line. As the skis turn through the fall line and start to turn across the hill, your body will need to move a bit back.

Right now, you are not getting to this perpendicular to the top sheets spot. I suspect that you can find some cues that will confirm this -- do you feel the back of the cuff of the boot in the shaping phase of the turn? That's a cue that you are aft on the ski.

I'd suggest that you do some shuffle turns to help you figure out a centered position. To do this drill, you will shuffle your feet forward and back (right foot forward and left foot back, right foot back and left foot forward, pushing and pulling the opposite feet forward and back through the whole turn). You will not be able to shuffle the feet if you aren't centered on the ski, so your cue is to find the position where you can shuffle the feet all the way through the turn.

As an alternative, you could do the thousand steps drill, where you march through the turn alternately picking up the inside and outside foot.

Keep at it; fore/aft balance is a key that will open up the whole mountain and enable you to build the skills in all of the other fundamentals.

Mike

 

[KevinF]

Trying to "carve" a slope of any real pitch is a lofty goal. To start, you need a very flat piece of real estate to practice with, as speed very rapidly increases with a carved turn. i.e., you need to get the "I'm going too fast" mindset out of the picture, and the easiest way to do that is to start with something very, very flat.

Thankfully, "flat" exists on every groomed slope everywhere -- traversing.

I'd say your first step is to traverse the whole way across a trail on one ski. Weight centered over the arch of your downhill foot. No bobbling, no weight shifting forward or backwards, etc.

Once you manage that, tip your downhill fit so that you're riding on the uphill edge of your downhill ski (as opposed to its base). Again, we're just traversing. The goal here is twofold:
1) Get your ski on its edge cleanly -- no twisting allowed.
2) Balance on the edge of your ski and not the base.

If you're doing this correctly, you should feel the ski turning you. Skis with short turning radii make this easier, but you can feel it on anything. It will be impossible to go in a straight line. Look back at your tracks; you should see a pencil thin line from your ski edge curving uphill.

Once you get that down, move onto garlands. From a traverse on flat bases, tip your skis so that you're leaving thin lines behind and your skis are turning you. And then release the edge (so you're gliding on flat skis again). And tip them back up. And release again.

Once you can do that -- maintain consistent fore/aft balance and tip a ski cleanly on its edge and feel it pulling you through a turn -- you're ready to try "normal" turning. If all that practice -- traverses, garlands, etc. -- sounds boring... Well, yeah, it is. But you need to train your feet to tip, not twist.

 

[tomahawkins]

Here we go. Same run. Just do this...

 

[LiquidFeet]

Here we go. Same run. Just do this...

I was looking forward to seeing Marcus in the gates, and I especially wanted to see his time compared to the locals. Did I miss it?

 

[JDT]

Trying to "carve" a slope of any real pitch is a lofty goal. To start, you need a very flat piece of real estate to practice with, as speed very rapidly increases with a carved turn. i.e., you need to get the "I'm going too fast" mindset out of the picture, and the easiest way to do that is to start with something very, very flat.

Thankfully, "flat" exists on every groomed slope everywhere -- traversing.

I'd say your first step is to traverse the whole way across a trail on one ski. Weight centered over the arch of your downhill foot. No bobbling, no weight shifting forward or backwards, etc.

Once you manage that, tip your downhill fit so that you're riding on the uphill edge of your downhill ski (as opposed to its base). Again, we're just traversing. The goal here is twofold:
1) Get your ski on its edge cleanly -- no twisting allowed.
2) Balance on the edge of your ski and not the base.

If you're doing this correctly, you should feel the ski turning you. Skis with short turning radii make this easier, but you can feel it on anything. It will be impossible to go in a straight line. Look back at your tracks; you should see a pencil thin line from your ski edge curving uphill.

Once you get that down, move onto garlands. From a traverse on flat bases, tip your skis so that you're leaving thin lines behind and your skis are turning you. And then release the edge (so you're gliding on flat skis again). And tip them back up. And release again.

Once you can do that -- maintain consistent fore/aft balance and tip a ski cleanly on its edge and feel it pulling you through a turn -- you're ready to try "normal" turning. If all that practice -- traverses, garlands, etc. -- sounds boring... Well, yeah, it is. But you need to train your feet to tip, not twist.

Thanks for that Kevin.
I went again this morning for some more practice and it’s slowly getting there. I can do clean carves, javelin turns, and garlands on green runs and traverses.

The thing is, on the steeper pitch, if I try to only use tipping, I seem unable to tip farther than say only 15-20 degrees and then my arcs just turn into GS style (or even larger) where I may only get 3 real turns in with a ton of speed. My ski turn radius is about 14.5m. When I see junior SL kids practice they seem to be able to get over much farther to both carve and control speed.

 

[JDT]

@JDT, you've got a lot of really good things going on in your skiing and a good foundation from which to advance your skiing. The primary thing that I think you need to work on right now is your fore/aft balance: your body is generally behind your feet and the result is that you push the skis to generate an edge. Realize that in order to stay centered over the ski, your body needs to be perpendicular to the top sheets of the skis. So, as you start your turn, you will need to allow your body to move forward down the hill until the skis are in the fall line. As the skis turn through the fall line and start to turn across the hill, your body will need to move a bit back.

Right now, you are not getting to this perpendicular to the top sheets spot. I suspect that you can find some cues that will confirm this -- do you feel the back of the cuff of the boot in the shaping phase of the turn? That's a cue that you are aft on the ski.

I'd suggest that you do some shuffle turns to help you figure out a centered position. To do this drill, you will shuffle your feet forward and back (right foot forward and left foot back, right foot back and left foot forward, pushing and pulling the opposite feet forward and back through the whole turn). You will not be able to shuffle the feet if you aren't centered on the ski, so your cue is to find the position where you can shuffle the feet all the way through the turn.

As an alternative, you could do the thousand steps drill, where you march through the turn alternately picking up the inside and outside foot.

Keep at it; fore/aft balance is a key that will open up the whole mountain and enable you to build the skills in all of the other fundamentals.

Mike

Thanks Mike. I took some more video today I’ll post to this thread when I get back. Slowly progressing hopefully but for sure feel like I’ve hit a plateau!

Any other phraseology about the shoulders? So shoulders should always be facing the front of the skis? Is this what counter is? Or are you saying shoulders always facing downhill and perpendicular when the skis are directly through the fall line?

 

[Mike King]

Thanks for that Kevin.
I went again this morning for some more practice and it’s slowly getting there. I can do clean carves, javelin turns, and garlands on green runs and traverses.

The thing is, on the steeper pitch, if I try to only use tipping, I seem unable to tip farther than say only 15-20 degrees and then my arcs just turn into GS style (or even larger) where I may only get 3 real turns in with a ton of speed. My ski turn radius is about 14.5m. When I see junior SL kids practice they seem to be able to get over much farther to both carve and control speed.

The reason the skis are running away from you is that you are aft on the ski. When you learn to find and stay centered, you will be better able to complete your turns and control your speed through line choice.

 

[Mike King]

Thanks Mike. I took some more video today I’ll post to this thread when I get back. Slowly progressing hopefully but for sure feel like I’ve hit a plateau!

Any other phraseology about the shoulders? So shoulders should always be facing the front of the skis? Is this what counter is? Or are you saying shoulders always facing downhill and perpendicular when the skis are directly through the fall line?

There's a concept that came from the US Ski Association (racing) called the wall. When you stand with your skis across the hill with the same flex in both ankles, the uphill ski will be in front of the downhill ski. Now look at the angle of the tips -- that angle is what the knees, hips, and shoulders should all have. This is the correct amount of separation you should have.

 

[JDT]

There's a concept that came from the US Ski Association (racing) called the wall. When you stand with your skis across the hill with the same flex in both ankles, the uphill ski will be in front of the downhill ski. Now look at the angle of the tips -- that angle is what the knees, hips, and shoulders should all have. This is the correct amount of separation you should have.

So similar to what this javelin airplane drill shows? Shoulders like that?

 

[JDT]

Here is a video from today after some more thought. Please excuse the lack of pole planting and arm movements. My one thing was I wanted to focus more on pulling my uphill boot back.

 

[LiquidFeet]

Here is a video from today after some more thought. Please excuse the lack of pole planting and arm movements. My one thing was I wanted to focus more on pulling my uphill boot back.
View attachment 222654

@JDT,
Check out the amount of time and distance you use to get the skis to point in the new direction. You do that redirection pretty quick. Compare that amount of time and distance to when you are going across the slope. You spend more time heading across the slope than going "around the corner." Corner, traverse, corner, traverse.

If you are carving, there will be no "corner." Skis that are tipped but not rotated go in the direction they are pointed, and they bend. So they follow the curve the bending creates. The tail follows the tip, and both stay in the same groove. Their change of direction is continuous with the transition, the connecting part from one turn to the other. There will be no distinction between going "around the corner" and going across the slope.

Your video shows you rushing the part of the turn that involves getting the skis to point in the new direction. You are "making" the skis point in the new direction to start the new turn. You rotate the skis, go straight, then rotate them in the other direction, go straight. AKA corner, straight, corner, straight.

Watch your video to separate the "turning" portion of your turns from the "heading across the hill" portion. These two things are discreet in your turns. They are not seamlessly connected. In other words, you are rotating the skis to point in the new direction. This is undoubtedly an old habit, deeply embedded. When you rotate the skis, you are not carving. Your rotation moves the skis out from any groove in the snow the skis might be trying to make.

Embrace "purge the pivot" as your mantra. It's your goal to tip the skis and NOT rotate them. Overwriting the old rotary habit with tipping is difficult to do. It takes time, patience, and concentration to replace that old habit. It takes "work" on very easy terrain.

Get yourself down to the beginner terrain, head straight down the hill with the five year olds, and just tip both skis at the same time. Tip them left then tip them right, no pause between. Do NOT try to make turns happen. See what the skis do when all you do is tip them.

Once you succeed in just tipping them, with no rotation at all, you will gain speed at an uncomfortable rate. That's what you're after. When you get going too fast, do a hockey stop, push the reset button, and start again. Work on purging that ingrained pivot. Once you are able to eliminate any rotation of the skis, focus on how fast your speed increases. And avoid the five year olds.

Also focus on what the interaction between the skis and the snow feels like. It's quite different from what you are feeling in that video you just posted. Pay attention to how much different the sensation of ski-snow interaction is. If you don't feel a "WOW that sure is different," then you are not yet carving.

Once carving, you'll know that there must something you don't know yet that will allow you to control your speed gain. You will not want to do this carving on the slope in the video you just posted. There's more to carving than just purging the pivot.

Get video of your runs down the bunny slope (from below, from the side, and from above). Come back here, post that video of you on the bunny slope, and ask the collective how to avoid hitting terminal velocity before slamming into the base lodge.

 

[François Pugh]

Step 1: Understand what is going on where the ski meets the snow.
Firstly, you have sharp metal edge on the side of your ski, like the sharp edge of a knife. You have a base of your ski, like the side of a knife blade. You can use a knife to spread butter on toast. You can use a knife to cut things. Your choice. Pushing the knife forwards (or backwards) while pressing down on the edge cuts. Secondly, your ski has an hour glass shape. Because of the shape, when you tip it on edge and put some weight on it, it bends into a curve. If you push a sharp curved knife forwards, it will cut a curved path. All you have to do is tip and pressure the ski to push it forward while bent into a cuver.
Step 2: How we do it.
You need to be balanced while being able to apply the forces to move the ski forward along its curved path while applying enough pressure to keep it cutting.
Step 3: Tips to make it easy.
If you do not tip the ski enough, the horizontal component of the force perpendicular to the base is not enough to make the ski turn in the curve the ski is trying to cut at too high a speed for that ski radius and tipping angle.
If you just lean into the turn at a slow speed you will fall into the inside of the turn. The lower leg and ski boot must lean into the turn, the upper body can lean the other (angulation) way to compensate at lower speeds.
For now keep your belly button pointed at the bottom of the hill as you turn back and forth.
Try dragging you outside ski pole on the snow as a drill now and then.
Your upper body pointing in your general direction of travel, while skis are pointing more across your direction of travel means that bending forwards allows more angulation, than bending sideways when everything is lined up straight.
You need to get your inside knee over farther to get it out of the way of your outside knee in order to tip more.
Don't worry too much about ski width, think about lifting the inside ski, and transferring weight onto the outside ski. Think about pulling your skis back. Think about tipping the skis. Especially think about the inside ski pull back and tipping because that one is probably lagging behind and not cooperating.
For now do not move your body up to initiate your turns. Keep your weight on your skis. Up-unweighting is what you do to make it easier to pivot your skis to get them pointed in a new direction. Don't do that. Just cut forwards on tipped skis and let the skis determine the direction.

 

[Fuller]

I can't see the videos but it's the internet so I have some advice anyway. There's a lot of specific things having to do with ankles, feet, knees, hips, etc will make you a better carver but unless you can address these two issues your progress will be limited for a long, long time:

Others have already mentioned it but being "in the back seat" is a deal killer. I reckon you've been hard at work on this and perhaps you've made progress but when you really "get it" it's like stepping into a different dimension. Learn to recognize when you need to correct your fore / aft stance Come up with a mantra, mental and physical, that gets you back to centered and forward. Where I ski I have a short little trail that takes me from the upper parking lot to the lift. I REALLY pay attention to how I start my day on this easy little trail. My physical que is to get into a narrow stance, dorsiflex both ankles, pull both heels back and exaggerate falling down the fall line into each turn. Something like standing next to a swimming pool and leaning slowly over until you get to the tipping point. That microsecond before you dive in is the feeling you want. Tell your brain it's OK to be there because your feet are coming to save the day - every time, every turn.

The second issue is that inside ski. It's a case of 'lead, follow or get out of the way" (my dad's favorite expression). My own opinion is that it's best to first learn the "get out of the way" part. There are lots of drills that teach balance on the downhill ski. Before you can become an inside ski wizard, figure out how to do without it entirely. You think you have 90% of your weight on the downhill ski? Probably not, but being able to balance on the downhill ski in all kinds of funky conditions ALLOWS you to manipulate that inside ski to enhance your turn.

And of course you can't be in the back seat either.

 

[François Pugh]

Back seat is unhelpful; it's the front edges that do the initial cutting (ski is moving forwards into the snow); it's the front edges that need weight on them to work.