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Do I have to carve?

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Hankj

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He's not on a race board either. Impressive.
If you folks can tolerate snowboard carving, Ryan Knapton is an ex freestyle pro who started carving piste as a main focus. In the first 25 seconds he slarves turns goofing off like a newbie, and then the talent show starts.

Boy oh boy how incredibly fun carving can be, it must feel amazing to be him


 

James

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Wow, that guy is good on a board.

That’s at Breck? They really have some amazing cruisers-if you can be there without many people on it.
 

Andy Mink

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Not only must you carve, you must be horizontal on the snow surface with your board or skis extended fully away from your body, while passing under a limbo bar. See above.
Some people boot out. These guys armpit out.
 

slowrider

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Today at Bachelor(corn central) some guy with a hard boot alpine board setup was layn down 9m turns. Too much fun...
 

slowrider

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"Oh, but do I have to ? " :roflmao:
How low can you go.
Screenshot_20220515-081241_Samsung Internet.jpg
 

Chris V.

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Steering wheels are things we turn with muscular effort.

I've always understood "steering" when applied to skiing to mean the skier is manually, muscularly, turning the skis, either with the upper body or the feet/legs. Steering = rotating, twisting, pivoting the skis.
The term "steering" seems to be used in more than one way (which is a big reason I'd shy away from using it in a lesson). The definition you've given is surely one that I've often heard. But I maintain that "manually, muscularly, turning the skis"--with a movement that rotates the feet relative to the upper body, separated at the subtalar joints or at some higher point--is impossible. The skis encounter the snow giving resistance to pivoting. The upper body encounters only air, which gives minimal resistance to pivoting. Any rotational body movement creating an upper-lower body separation will result in the upper body rotating relative to the snow, not a rotation of the skis relative to the snow. An engaged ski is not going to be muscled into making a tighter turn than the ski's design and the nature of its engagement with the snow creates.

The exception is at the point of transition, when the skis are light and flat to the snow surface. Here it's possible to create an abrupt pivot. This is how many skiers initiate their turns. It has its place in moguls and perhaps steeps. Otherwise, it's precisely what we're trying to get away from, whether we're talking about carving or about creating high quality brushed turns.

The other exception is the stivot, which requires a momentary flattening of the skis. Again, this is a quick movement that occupies just a small fraction of the turn cycle.

Instead, when people use the term "steering," they generally mean something that's done progressively as the turn develops.

I don't mean to minimize the importance of upper-lower body separation. But the good effects it has don't include "manually, muscularly, turning the skis."
But I'd also like to have a readily usable term for ski turns that grip at both the tail and the tip through the entire turn, and make round turns based on the bend in the ski, while slipping/skidding over the surface of hard snow. These turns are not arc-to-arc carved turns by the definition in the paragraph above, but they do rely heavily on the ski's self-turning capability.
Playing the iconoclast again, I maintain that the quality brushed turns you're discussing do not feature tails following the same path as tips. Instead, the feature greater grip in the tips than in the tails, with the tips following a clean arc, but the tails slipping out slightly relative to the paths taken by the tips. Hence the wider tracks such turns leave.
 

François Pugh

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Yes, the problem with the term "steering" is that it that it is too susceptible to fallacious argument, being that most folks not used to ski instructors technical jargon will have a different definition in mind than pivoting a flat ski.

A skier's body's inertia (or portion there of) allows a skier to pivot ones skis. How parallel to the snow they (the skis) have to be and how much they resist at any given tipping angle depends on how much inertia (including rotational inertia) the body has and how much weight is on the skis.
 

Racetiger

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Dude (OP), you never have to carve if you don’t want to. Most people that carve are really just posing for photos and videos which is why you see a lot of it. It is just that when there are no cameras around, the bad habit continues because it becomes ingrained. Things change and today, skidding is the new carving … minus all the posing.

I am starting a new ski forum called skidtalk.com where people who just like to skid can share their love for skidding, talk about the best equipment for skidding, the best places to skid and the best techniques for skidding where we will only allow skid positive contributions to the sight. This is where sayings like hitting the skids, being on skid row and leaving skid marks always means something positive in the world of skiing. For us, things going sideways is not the headache it is for everyone else. Here, carving is considered for posers who let the ski tell them what to do and who are too lazy to apply all the upper body movements good for skidding. A “new” skid development program I am working on, OCMS (orchestra conductor movement system), where everything starts with the hands and arms resulting in all sorts of skid types. Advanced skidders have many types of skids in their toolbox from swerving, veering and sliding to drifting, shearing and shaving. For training, we remove the poles and replace them with a conductor’s baton in each hand, Beethoven in the ear phones and the metal edges removed from the ski. There will also be a movement sensor system that can be installed into your gloves and under your boot soles called SKID to give you real time tips on how you are conducting your skidding. It will also measure the amount of snow you push out of your way, a primary skidding fundamental output, while skiing. The more lbs of displaced snow measured at the end of the run, the better the skidding where 400 lbs of snow pushed per 1K of vert is a good result. A lot of work but a good result. Those having experience with the discus, hammer throw, javelin and shot put tend to learn the fastest. Plow drivers and band leaders tend to do very well also.
 

LiquidFeet

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But I maintain that "manually, muscularly, turning the skis"--with a movement that rotates the feet relative to the upper body, separated at the subtalar joints or at some higher point--is impossible.
Nit picking.
Pivot slips = manually, muscularly, turning the skis relative to the snow and relative to the upper body.
Not impossible.
 

James

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metal edges removed from the ski.
Y’all are using the Armada BDOG? No steel edges.
Not too soft?

 

Cheizz

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If you don't want to carve, find a ski that doesn't just want to do that (carve) all the time. There is a tendency to make it easier to carve than to skid certain skis, especially in narrow piste skis. Avoid those.
 

David Chaus

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I thought we were done with useful information in this thread, and had long since moved on to our typical non-consequential irreverent humor. I guess I was mistaken.
 

Tony S

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There is a tendency to make it easier to skid than to carve certain skis, especially in wide all mountain skis.
Fixed it for you.
 

Wilhelmson

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The dentist has nothing on this. It’s an important discussion though. Distilled, it beckons contemplation of why do we ski, why do we endeavor, must we conform?
 
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