What does "finishing your turns" mean?

[1chris5]

I think Joshua Duncan Smith does a good job of finishing his turns in a variety of turn shapes and drills in this short video. I think it shows the

skiing into neutral

@James discusses and as @Jamt notes in his post

getting some real pressure that moves the CoM across the hil

JDS link

 

[Doby Man]

What “not finishing a turn” means to me is that the skier referenced would, in some way, benefit from more turning whatever the scenario. Finishing a turn has different significance depending on the context: In a race course, not finishing a turn can mean losing your line in the following turn or an intentional move for throwing in a pivot to short cut their line with speed control. In a mogul field and for intermediate level skiers on groomers, not finishing a turn can mean unwelcomed acceleration. In most turns at advanced levels, not finishing a turn can mean a lack of aesthetic flow from not “rounding” the turn enough without a fully bent ski or a failure to harness energy from the ski due to a lack of meaningful ski bending or simply poor timing. In heavy powder, intentionally not finishing a turn to maintain speed is a regular tactic. Not finishing a turn in the trees could mean a tree finishing you.

 

[Monique]

Not finishing a turn in the trees could mean a tree finishing you.

It's easy to avoid a tree without correctly finishing a turn - just tiring and doesn't set you up for the next turn.

 

[Carl Kuck]

... Personally for me, the second half of the turn is much more enjoyable because thats where the energy for the next turn is created.

I look at this as pulling G's. Not a whole lot of lateral G's at the start of a turn, lots of 'em later in the turn. We're going ballistic, Mav, go get 'em !!!


Eh, OK, I'm going to edit this post while I can. The "big deal", such as it is, with finishing a turn is indeed finishing a turn AND (<-- important part, pardon me but I'm going to yell for a brief bit here...) START A NEW TURN !!! And unless you're into living on an edge where each run down is a survival test and failure is not an option, have fun with the turns, enjoy the scenery (but no lollygagging!) and don't forget to start new turns. I think that's the fun part, personally...

 

[Carl Kuck]

Honestly it means nothing....

a turn is finished when you start the next turn.

People will ski with out enough turn shape but they still start the next turn so there for they finished a turn.

A better question is the path down the hill the speed you want to go?

Dude. You forgot the

 

[Doby Man]

It's easy to avoid a tree without correctly finishing a turn - just tiring and doesn't set you up for the next turn.

The last one was a bit of a joke. Though, that is not to say that not finishing your turn while skiing fast in critical environments can't buy you a boat load of trouble.

 

[Monique]

The last one was a bit of a joke. Though, that is not to say that not finishing your turn while skiing fast in critical environments can't buy you a boat load of trouble.

For sure. I was being pedantic. (And drawing on my own life experience, LOL!)

 

[Kneale Brownson]

I like to think of this as rounding out a turn.

 

[Pete in Idaho]

I don't like the phrase "finish your turns," because it encourages people to hang onto the end of the turn, often resulting in a static position, instead of the more ideal dynamic pattern, with ever-changing edge angles, distribution of pressure, and leg rotation.
I would rather suggest, "make round turns."

Finishing a turn does not make you "hang onto" the turn you are in but gives the skier more control, rythmn, continuity and fun to his/her skiing. You can finish a short radius turn, med. radius or super g big. By using the turn in correlation to the terrain/mountain you can regulate speed, smoothness and the ride to what you want to do. If you break off a lot on all your turns you are not in control the mountain, terrain, steepness and speed are controlling you. Agree 100% with your static position comments. Round turns describe finished turns but not necessarily, you can finish a turn going downhill, not just across the hill. When you watch a WC racer they are finishing their turns down the hill for speed of course. This is something you don't see often in recreational skiers.

My understanding of finishing your turns would be to Link your turns and then you will finish all turns and dynamically go into the next turns.

When we are getting tuned up by a instructor it meant to me, that all the turns flow from one into another without any skidding and they have a nice S shape

The S shape would describe partially linked turns. A finished turn doesn't have to be a carved turns, it would probably look better but isn't really necessary. You can finish a wedge turn and when you do one will feel the true training affect of skiing in a wedge.

In my humble opinion Liquid feet and Tsquare described finishing a turn the most accurately.

Some of you will probably note that I don't get in on the how to ski stuff here very often and that is mainly because I am not a real technical type of skier and usually just go do it. But, I felt compelled to say something because there are a lot of misconceptions out there on finishing a turn.I can best remember my powder partners wife who told me once she was thinking about givingup skiing and trying to keep up with hubby off piste as it as too much work.
She asked me if I had any suggestions and the result was about an hour together teaching her how to finish her turns. She was Z turning down the hill and it pooped her out and didn't work very well. We've all seen skiers who do this on groomers and off piste and it is a lot of work. We got out on a groomer and I followed behind her and let her turn only when I said "turn" and this made her finish her turns and get the feel and timing/rythmn of linking her turns. She is a pretty good powder and off piste skier now and finishing her turns really helped her.

 

[Wolfski]

I always felt that completing a turn was the link of dynamic movements in the skiers body leading to the release of edge creating the moment of time that @Philpug describes above. This completion of a turn can and does occur both coming across the fall line and down the fall line. When a turn has been properly completed the skier, as a whole (body and skis) is in proper position to start their next turn, regardless of their position on the hill.
The Technique of movement of the body to complete the turn and the Tactics of positioning or direction on the hill are separate.

 

[markojp]

I have not read other posts

In this OP's context, I believe this means making short, quick turns, starting the next early, well before the fall line, to maintain both speed and control within a narrow lane. Finish the turn is anything that permits the early start of the next turn.

And I'll toss in, "the ability to accurately change your direction of travel in a timely way to not only avoid collisions, but pass others leaving plenty of room so they aren't acutely aware of your presence."

 

[karlo]

leaving plenty of room so they aren't acutely aware of your presence

, I'm sorry! I was young. She was so elegant, skiing the edge. I didn't know what I was doing until she pulled over and glared at me as I passed. I really felt bad.

How did you know?

 

[MarkP]

Finishing your turns is like finishing your plate - your Mother said to do it so it must be good for you.

That's why I'm skinny as a rail and my skiing sucks...

So... if you don't finish your turns, you don't get any dessert?

 

[T-Square]

So... if you don't finish your turns, you don't get any dessert?

No, you can’t go in for hot chocolate.

 

[James]

So... if you don't finish your turns, you don't get any dessert?

No, you're still shopping.

 

[Bill Corrigan]

Excellent turn finish requires what we in the East call good or hero snow (what you Westerners call snow).

Unless your race tech has just tuned your skis, completing turns on what we often have here is an exercise in skidding — it's a sport de glisse — until you hit the next pile of manmade.

Read

With respect, a strategy of slipping over ice until you hit something soft is a pretty short route to disaster. Better IMO is to work on creating a ski/snow contact that can be relied on to hold its grip in practically any situation. Weight transfer from old outside to new outside edge prior to any direction change allows you to begin with a solid grip that you can stay with all the way through the turn. If the world cuppers can make turns on that stuff we mere mortals ought to be able to too.

 

[slowrider]

For me increasing vertical seperation promotes high edge angles to control speed on ice.

 

[James]

One should learn to slide on ice because it's going to happen. Might as well get comfortable instead of freaking out. Keep looking for the edge while balanced. You still have to finish the "turn" even if you didn't change direction all that much.

There's always this myth of "Hans" effortlessly carving turns down ice with no skidding. This has been around since the days of straight skis with 45 -65m sidecuts, when carving even on packed powder was only for huge turns at speed or momentary.
Besides the equipment issue, which likely 98% of skiers lack, there's a turn radius issue. Straighten out the turns and it's easier to carve.

Can you traverse across your ice standing on the downhill ski on edge? If not, making a carved turn on it will require some unicorn dust or Hans's ashes.

 

[Doby Man]

@James, shouldn't that really depend on the ice density? If it is frozen water or frozen compressed slush from the groomer, reading the surface is critical to make adjustments to line and pressure to avoid slipping on it. But ice isn't a black and white issue, There is a scale to ice density where at any given water to air composite is going to be grippy to some and ungripy to others. Consistency of ice location is also a key factor such as if there is more ice covering the slope in a consistent manner, it is easier to ski than when broken up by patches of soft snow. Ice can be hard as a rock, but if it froze before the total degradation of crystal structure, it can be even more grippy feeling than soft snow under sharp edges. Technique should be the biggest factor of concern regarding grip on ice: dampened movements, weighted transitions, early carving in the high "C", and actually carving the ski "fore to aft" for increased penetration is ALL we can do after the terrain and ski is said and done.

 

[dbostedo]

^^^^
I ran into an ice condition yesterday I hadn't been on before. It was very smooth hardpack - slightly chalky, but so hard I couldn't easily get an edge into it. (Granted, I'm an intermediate still learning to carve, and may not have the best skis or tune for it in any case.)

But it wasn't blue or grey or obvious ice - that I've hit before. It was just smooth hard white in large areas in the center of the run at a steady 20-25 degree pitch. So I spent a few runs on it trying to get edges into it, and spent a run seeing if I could intentionally turn uphill on it. And I couldn't.

Instead I usually found myself making gradual turns across it with a lot of sliding downhill as I turned, and would pretty much stop turning when I was parallel to the fall line. A few times I'd get the ski to edge in a bit more and make a more carved turn, but still couldn't finish going uphill. So finishing my turns in that case was taking the turn as far as I could then transitioning, even if I couldn't turn uphill.

Yet another thing to work on I suppose.