I caved and bought a setup during the holiday sale. My justification was that it would help me get more value from lessons by gamifying practice. So far it has been totally worth it. Even when I'm not doing drills I find myself thinking about my form more often. As someone who switched from snowboarding a few years ago, I know I have work to do to improve my technique and this system helps me focus on that even when freeskiing. I have accumulated enough drills from lessons and other sources that I don't feel the need to rely on the suggestions from Carv so that helps too. And I have confidence from seeing the scores of instructors that the measurements do correlate with improvement.
If you already ski with a group of people better than you, you might not get as much out of it. Unfortunately, I'm in the position of helping other friends get better at skiing. Carv makes it a little easier for me to work on my own skiing when I don't have someone else giving me feedback.
I'm looking forward to see how much they add to the flatland training section of the app as well.
And I wonder if the data could also be useful to master boot fitters diagnosing issues with setup. I know it helped Jens from Stomp-It Tutorials find an issue with his boots because his pressure numbers were way off from expected.
I have had a similar experience with Carv. I am a data acquisition and numbers person also, and I often am very focused on improving because it is fun to do so. There is "fun skiing" and then there is "having fun getting better at skiing". I think they are different some of the time.
As an intermediate who's just learning a lot of fundamentals this has been a good use of money and time for me. I started skiing in the 80's by friends telling my to point my ski's forward and not die--that is the actual advice I got in 20 seconds, and until 1999 (10 years later), I got a ski lesson, and the guy showed me how to parallel ski. And then I stopped skiing for 20 years
so yeah, there was and is some strange muscle memory built into my brain when it comes to skiing.
With this app, when I am skiing alone (which is most of the time), I don't feel isolated and "in the blind" so to speak as it relates to my skiing (it's a virtual coach, but there's an odd sense of having a coach with you I have to admit).
Now do I need this, of course not but it helps enormously, or it seems to be the case thus far.
Probably the main areas it's helped me with so far is turn coordination and timing (beginning the turn at the right time--toppling I guess?). I've done this about 20 times and I would say out of 15 of those, I knew before I came to a stop that my IQ had gone up or down based on how well I was turning and handling the edge angle--you can feel it basically...BUT, it's not because I was just trying to ski better in a general way, it's because the app has provided valuable feedback post-run. It might be less valuable to advanced skiers, but it's helpful for someone like me.
I'll look up the results on the lift post-run and focus on whatever it is I was doing wrong. When I do down the next run and pay attention to one of the weak areas (there are many), I get to the bottom and I know I did better. The run "felt" better and technically more correct, which is a great feeling. And then the IQ score I see has gone up.
IMHO, this product can be invaluable for someone like me and others with these little notes:
- The 'self-aware' beginner-to-intermediate skier who is trying to correct previously learned bad-habits after lessons with real people OR who is learning from the ground up, after lessons with real people, to keep focus on proper control fundamentals
- Doesn't mind a bit of "IT troubleshooting" as these things can act wonky sometimes--so you need the stomach to troubleshoot them while your on the mountain
- Can follow through on quantitative feedback and analyze while skiing and alone, as it doesn't translate well to have someone else look at the data--so self starter mentality is key with this thing.
- Has that 'OCD' mentality, in a good way (sometimes at least, other times it's a nightmare)
We'll see how the 22-23 season goes as I still have until March before I have to renew, so I will have had a full season with them.