The CARV looks interesting. How does it get points across to the skier? I heard it say "keep your weight forward." Now how many of us instructors have said that in all different types of ways; then we watch our students bend at the waist and do all sorts of contortions that are not effective? I can’t see this as an only thing you need. I see it as an assistive device in conjunction with an instructor/coach providing the technical know how to student. Feed back is great, but it needs to be tailored to the student. Also the student needs the knowledge of what to do with the feedback. That’s where the professional ski instructor comes into play.
Yep, it is a useful compliment to instruction, not a substitute IMHO.
To use the device, you need earbuds or a helmet with headphones that attach (with a wire or wirelessly) to your phone. The modes I find most useful are the "monitor" and "drill" modes. For the monitor mode, you select a metric, such as fore/aft ratio, outside/inside pressure, edge angle, parallel index, etc. There will likely be additional metrics in the next software update, due out shortly. For each turn, the software will issue a score shortly after the completion of the turn. So, for fore/aft, the score might be 70, meaning that the center of balance along the ski was 70% forward/30% aft. You can decide yourself what you'd like to see, but Carv suggests the target should be between 50 and 60 based on their analysis of "top ski instructors" data, presumably their ski ambassadors. Their ambassadors include a number of Level 4 instructors, such as Tom Gellie, Tomas Mical, and demo team members such as Eric Lipton and Jonathan Ballou (although Ballou is no longer part of their program).
The current drills include 1000 steps, balance, carving, pivot slips, and outside ski turn. I've only done the balance, carving and outside ski turn drills. They have 20 levels, and you have to be successful at the lower level to unlock a higher level. For the balance drill, for example, you have to score successful turns within the target fore/aft metric in 16 turns to move to the next level. As the levels increase, the range of acceptable fore/aft pressure, at phases of the turn, becomes tighter, and the edge angle at which turns are score must be higher. For each turn, the software gives a sound that either denotes success or failure. If a sequence of turns isn't successful, the software will make a suggestion, such as "maintain balance through the turn," "move a tad back," or "you are in the backseat." I've only made it through level 19, in part because we don't have sufficient terrain open to be able to lay down sufficient high angles. Or it could be that my skiing needs improvement.
There are other items that are potentially useful, but they require some study and they have some limitations as they represent an average of the turns in a run. So they show tendencies, rather than what happened in a specific turn. They still can provide some insights though. So here is a screenshot of a run I made yesterday:
My Carv sensors have a problem with rotation and replacement sensors are being shipped to me under warranty. This is the summary page for a run, and it gives an overall score (ski:iq) as well as scores on four aggregate metrics: balance, edging, rotary, and pressure. Moving into the edging area, the information is further broken down into a graph that shows the averages of edge creating in the phases of the turns for both the inside and outside ski as well as a series of metrics:
You can see that my left footed turn (the right turn) is stronger than the right footed turn. Looking at the graph, you can see that I hold the edge angle on my left foot longer than on my right. But the inside and outside skis are edged pretty symmetrically -- you can see this both in the graph and in the edge symmetry metric.
The pressure metrics/graph looks like this:
This run was pretty decent for pressure management, so there's not a lot to break down here. You can see that I was achieving pretty early pressure -- it's coming close to the apex of the turn. And it was relatively similar between the right and left turns. The big area for improvement is the pressure smoothness. I suspect my issue is the quickness with which I've been flexing the outside leg to topple into the next turn. But that's an area for me to still explore.
So, in summary, Carv provides a lot of data and information that can be used in assessing your ski performance. I don't think it is a substitute for ski instruction (well, competent ski instruction). The monitor and drill modes can be used to compliment instruction, and provide a way for a skier to practice with feedback -- the cues are external, which research shows to be the most effective in reducing learning time and retention.
The advanced metrics are more challenging to analyze, and probably are better suited to more advanced skiers. Personally, I think this is a useful tool for me. I think it might be a useful tool in teaching as well.
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