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Benefits of thinking of turns as starting at the apex

slow-line-fast

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How about that kick turn?? Yikes.
Good to train downhill kickturns in no-consequence terrain, if you plan to get into steep tight stuff.

Thread drift, point is, I and some others are commenting with that version of ‘steep narrow couloir’ in mind.
 

markojp

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So here's a way of thinking of this that no one has brought up.

When skiing down a steep narrow couloir (which admittedly I've never done), do you make edge-set to edge-set turns, focusing on getting good edge-sets within a very narrow corridor?

I'm not speaking from experience so I'm asking. If that's what you do, I expect you'd be thinking of turns as edge-set to edge-set, not apex-to-apex. In other words, the "target" for each turn won't be the next apex.

If I'm right about that, are there other situations where one might think about your turns in a similar fashion?

Depends on the conditions and consequences. Really steep terrain, everything happens progressively and with lower edge angles than you'd think. More important than where something happens is, "are you in functional dynamic balance between your feet?" If you are, you can access the appropriate tactical choices. If not, the pitch will decide for you in sometimes unpleasant ways.
 

Tony S

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How about these turns in a narrow couloir?
Those turns are important to have in your repertoire if you're going to be skiing that kind of terrain. They require skill and guts, but are means to an end. I'm not sure anyone would want to ski turns like that all the way down a run. If someone did want to do that, I'd argue that the reward is more along the lines of achieving a mountaineering feat than what 99.9% of the audience here thinks of - let alone engages in - as "skiing." I think the video makes pretty clear that it's the turns that come after managing the tight section that are the primary point of the effort.
 

markojp

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How about these turns in a narrow couloir?

At the risk of repetition, more important than where something happens is, "are you in functional dynamic balance between your feet?" If you are, you can access the appropriate tactical choices. If not, the pitch will decide for you in sometimes unpleasant ways. We saw everything from controlled hops with drifted side slip to more 'open parallel' low edge angle arcs.... The prerequisite is in the first sentence.

:beercheer:
 

Rod9301

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Those turns are important to have in your repertoire if you're going to be skiing that kind of terrain. They require skill and guts, but are means to an end. I'm not sure anyone would want to ski turns like that all the way down a run. If someone did want to do that, I'd argue that the reward is more along the lines of achieving a mountaineering feat than what 99.9% of the audience here thinks of - let alone engages in - as "skiing." I think the video makes pretty clear that it's the turns that come after managing the tight section that are the primary point of the effort.
You're right of course, terrain like this exists only in the backcountry.

But to master these turns is important.
I ski squaw and the are a few short areas, Palisades for example that are pretty steep.
Most people either straightline them, or make two high speed shallow turns.

Must couldn't ski steep narrow terrain if it was 1,000 ft without hop turns.
 

Rod9301

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Good to train downhill kickturns in no-consequence terrain, if you plan to get into steep tight stuff.

Thread drift, point is, I and some others are commenting with that version of ‘steep narrow couloir’ in mind.

Btw down kick turns in forming m something steep is pretty dangerous unless the snow is soft and deep.

If not, i would much rather do jump turns
 

François Pugh

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@LiquidFeet , if by thinking about turns as being from apex to apex as thinking about your next turn as beginning at the apex of the last one, then it is, in my view, a step towards thinking of the entire series of turns as one continuous squiggly line. Think "finitiation". How you finish one turn (sudden snap release versus gradual release), what your line is as you finish one turn and set up the next turn (skis's path and body's path), etc. is very important and needs to be a part of any thinking process involving a series of turns. Sometimes it goes further back than one turn. Applies both to carving super clean arcs and to sideways skiing.
 

Sledhead

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Based on 1. the biomechanics involved in one full turn cycle (one full chain of movement left and right), 2. the mechanical operation of the ski (tipping, bending, carving) 3. the geometry of a turn (shape, direction) and 4. The physics of a ski turn (building and release of forces), it should be quite clear where one turn ends and another begins. What has changed with the development of modern high performance carved turns is that, because the ski is now always turning and no longer floating in a straight path before picking up the next turn, the transition for many is no longer considered a phase but rather a single mark in the turn characterized by any one of the four measurements listed above. Good carving is all about spreading the forces of the turn as evenly as possible. We now have dynamics like the weighted transitions required for the constantly carving ski. Any time we are fully unweighted, we are going straight. We no longer want to go straight in between turns but rather ‘always be turning’. We regulate the magnitude of pressure by tipping the ski rather than pushing on it. Rolling the ski now never hesitates in transition between turns and only hesitates (generally) in turn phase two (apex) for turn shaping and choosing direction of release. Talking about fast tipping transitions, for many, the perfectly flat spot in their ski track transitions are actually shorter than the length of the ski, which means the entire ski is never fully flat at the same time. I believe that this is the continuity people are making note of in trying to make what sense can be made of the question.
 

James

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Actually, the whole thing is a type of Rhorshach test.

C2CD801C-7224-4F7D-9CE0-A8DA6BF635B9.jpeg
 

David Chaus

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So the apex of the turn is at the blue fiddler crab?
 

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