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Feedback on carving for a beginner

wildest_comfortable

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Hi SkiTalk! Long time lurker, new member.

Wanted to get some feedback on my skiing technique. 2nd season skiing and trying to get better at skiing on my edges and on piste with an 85 underfoot ski. It was really windy this day so there were some balance issues but this still feels like a good example to show. I'm in yellow jacket blue pants at the top of the slope.

Not really sure where I'm going wrong in not being able to angulate further into the turns. Feels like I'm very upright and I don't know what I'm doing with my inside leg. What should I be doing with my torso? Leaning forward? Leaning towards the side? Just moving my legs outwards like this video?

Any help would be appreciated!


 

Henry

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1679936982304.png


You're too heavy on the inside ski, your right in this right turn. You are doing very well for a 2nd year skier and NOT making may of the mistakes starting skiers often make.

On a slope where you're comfortable practice balancing on the outside ski all the way through the turn with the tip of the inside ski sliding on the snow and the tail of the inside ski lifted just an inch or two off the snow. (Lifting the whole ski off the snow for this drill often results in the skier getting back on their heels.) Add counter where your hips & torso twist toward the outside of the turn while you do not push your inside foot forward. Add angulation where you bend a bit in your midsection for balance over that outside ski. Send us a video of the result.
 
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wildest_comfortable

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Hi @Henry -- Thanks for the help!

Two follow ups:
1. What do you mean by this? I didn't understand: "Add counter where your hips & torso twist toward the outside of the turn while you do not push your inside foot forward."
2. I had a lesson at Alta where I was told to shift pressure from the front of my foot during the top of the turn towards the mid/back as I finish the turn for more grip in the tail. I've been doing this and it has helped prevent a lot of smearing, but sometimes I feel a bit as if the skis are going to shoot out from under me and I feel very backseat. Not sure how to reconcile the benefits of this foot weighting vs. the feeling of losing control of the ski. Is there a better way to apply this advice?
 

Tony Storaro

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Hi SkiTalk! Long time lurker, new member.

Wanted to get some feedback on my skiing technique. 2nd season skiing and trying to get better at skiing on my edges and on piste with an 85 underfoot ski. It was really windy this day so there were some balance issues but this still feels like a good example to show. I'm in yellow jacket blue pants at the top of the slope.

Not really sure where I'm going wrong in not being able to angulate further into the turns. Feels like I'm very upright and I don't know what I'm doing with my inside leg. What should I be doing with my torso? Leaning forward? Leaning towards the side? Just moving my legs outwards like this video?

Any help would be appreciated!


View attachment 198430

You get my admiration and compliments for the bravery of posting a vid of you skiing in this pool of sharks.
That’s first.

Second-imho you are too upright, a bit in the back seat and carry to much weight on the inside leg.

But again, kudos for posting this! And yeah, for second season only this is very good.
 

Tony Storaro

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2. I had a lesson at Alta where I was told to shift pressure from the front of my foot during the top of the turn towards the mid/back as I finish the turn for more grip in the tail. I've been doing this and it has helped prevent a lot of smearing, but sometimes I feel a bit as if the skis are going to shoot out from under me and I feel very backseat. Not sure how to reconcile the benefits of this foot weighting vs. the feeling of losing control of the ski. Is there a better way to apply this advice?

All said here is true. There is that migration front to back during the turn and what puts you in the backseat is the acceleration out of turn. Some skis go off like rockets out of turn. You need to be ready for that. Need to get forward and be on them at all times. Most weight on the outside ski.
 

trailtrimmer

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You get my admiration and compliments for the bravery of posting a vid of you skiing in this pool of sharks.
That’s first.

Second-imho you are too upright, a bit in the back seat and carry to much weight on the inside leg.

But again, kudos for posting this! And yeah, for second season only this is very good.

Agreed on all accounts, especially on the inside/uphill leg.

Can try doing one footed drills to gain confidence on that downhill leg.

Find an easy green, lightly pick up your uphill ski a little more. You don't have to fully lift the uphill ski off the snow, just get it to barely touch or drag while you turn. Drop it back down as you transition and it becomes the downhill ski. Do this a couple runs off and on during your ski day.

When you start gaining confidence in that downhill ski doing most of the work, you can start to pick up a little speed and roll your skis over on edge a little more.

It's really about teaching your brain the skis are going to hold in a turn and to have confidence in them. Your brain wants to think you are going to tip over and wants to back off and lean back. Making it think otherwise helps you progress.
 

Nancy Hummel

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Flex your new inside knee (old downhill ski) you start the turn. That will allow weight to go to the new outside ski)
 

Bad Bob

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Kudos! for a 2nd year skier, you are doing great.
Same read as everybody else here too much weight on the inside ski...........
Here is a little drill I have worked on the past 2 seasons, till I broke myself, and has translated over well with some of my students. It is kind of fun and can help with a lot of different stuff like standing more on the outside ski and edge engagement. Start doing this on a flatter slope and as you get comfortable take it to a steeper slope (same for most all new drills or skills). This one sounds a little weird but try it you will feel muscle groups activating that you rarely will and notice how the outside ski preforms.
As you transition between turns (the start of a turn) tighten up your outside glute (yep your butt cheek). Hold the tension till the beginning of the next turn then work the other glute. The secret is just one at a time. Think you will feel a lot more engagement of the outside ski.
This is not something to do all the time, it is a stimulus to get you more involved with the outside ski. If you find yourself getting lazy in your turns you can throw it in to get the feel again.
 
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wildest_comfortable

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Thanks for the advice everyone!

Seems like the main point of feedback is more outside leg pressure vs. the inside leg. I've done something similar to what @Nancy Hummel suggested before of retracting the inside leg, but I've slipped out a few times with my outside leg giving way. It hasn't felt stable to increase the distance between the two skis.

Perhaps I'm missing how to put pressure on the outside leg correctly. Is there an explanation for what I'm supposed to feel when I'm not fully upright (as in the drills)?
 

Tony Storaro

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Thanks for the advice everyone!

Seems like the main point of feedback is more outside leg pressure vs. the inside leg. I've done something similar to what @Nancy Hummel suggested before of retracting the inside leg, but I've slipped out a few times with my outside leg giving way. It hasn't felt stable to increase the distance between the two skis.

Perhaps I'm missing how to put pressure on the outside leg correctly. Is there an explanation for what I'm supposed to feel when I'm not fully upright (as in the drills)?


Also-now you are skiing from feet/legs only. With time you will realize that core/upper body is extremely important and your whole body needs to move with the skis, not just the legs.
It will surely come, just keep at it.
 

Fuller

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So we are talking about carving here right? There's plenty of times when expert skiers are not carving but the mechanics of arc to arc "railroad tracks" are used everywhere on the mountains whether on-piste or in soft snow. It feels good, it looks pretty, it's worth learning correctly.

Everything you do - edge angles, upper body position, stance, etc is in service to the arc you want to create and how fast you want to ski it. But first, make sure you have a good idea of what a perfect turn shape is: full, fat, progressively tighter and taking you to where you need to be to make the next turn.

I'm not going to tell you how to accomplish this miracle of physics (others will, I'm sure) but I just want to leave you with the thought that as you go through the journey, stop and reassess whether your turns are shaped correctly. If you really want to improve, ditch your friends and spend half a day making perfect turns at the lowest speed possible. As the turn shape gets better and the speed and intensity get higher then by definition you're doing it correctly.
 

Nancy Hummel

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If your outside ski is sliding away, you still have too much weight on the inside ski.

Do some pole drag drills.

Put the tips of your poles in the snow next to your feet.
Keep the poles touching the ground throughout the turn.

This should help you get the feeling of having more weight on the downhill ski and not leaning up the hill.
 

LiquidFeet

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....Not really sure where I'm going wrong in not being able to angulate further into the turns. Feels like I'm very upright and I don't know what I'm doing with my inside leg. What should I be doing with my torso? Leaning forward? Leaning towards the side? Just moving my legs outwards like this video?
You say you want to be "able to angulate further into the turns." I think you mean you want to get your hips farther inside the turn with skis on higher edge angles than you can get now. Is that right? I'm going to focus on that goal and specifically on your words above.

1. "I don't know what I'm doing with my inside leg."
This lack of attention to the inside leg is a major issue. You need to use that inside leg to start your turns, to direct pressure to your outside ski, and to create your edge angles. So you definitely need to know for certain what that leg (and foot) is doing if you want to get your hips farther inside the turn with edge angles high. More below.

2. "Just moving my legs outwards like in this video?"
You should not be focusing in moving your legs outwards. When you move both feet outward, you will end up with too much weight on your inside ski and too little on the outside ski. That inside leg will be long since it is reaching outward, and it will have significant weight on it. This will leave the outside ski with too little weight and unsatisfactory grip. Also, that long inside leg will block your outside leg from tilting over far enough to give you the high edge angles you seek. Instead, you need to do different things with the inside leg and the outside leg. These two different things need to start as the turn starts. More below.

3. "What should I be doing with my torso? Leaning forward? Leaning towards the side?"
The torso's task is two-fold. It can tilt outward laterally to direct pressure to the outside ski, and it can be positioned along the fore-aft plane to keep you from having too much weight hovering over the backs of the skis. Where you focus that torso's mass depends on how wide the turns are, how fast the tempo is, which part of the turn you're in, and other things. So the answer to this question is "it depends."

4. You haven't mentioned what to do with your ankles. You need to "dorsiflex" both ankles so that your lower legs extend up out of your boots at a forward tilt relative to your skis. Keep them that way. The direct way to accomplish this is to lift the top of your foot upward towards the top of the boot. An indirect way to accomplish this is to pull both feet back and hold them back; do not let your feet reach out ahead of you. When you keep your ankles dorsiflexed while holding the feet back, your body weight will be focused (as it should be) under the arch, right where the tibia connects with your foot (not under the ball-of-foot.)

..........
So what to do with the inside leg? Bend the new inside leg (it's the downhill leg before the new turn starts). Do not bend the new outside leg, just the soon-to-be inside one. The more you bend it, the lower that side of your pelvis will drop to the inside of the new turn. When the pelvis drops, that means the hips get closer to the snow. And your edge angles get higher.

People upthread have mentioned lifting the tail of that ski to start the new turn. This is a good drill. It teaches your to bend that new inside leg. If you lift the tail (a little) and keep the tip touching the snow, all of your weight will go to the new outside ski, that side of the pelvis will drop, both legs will tilt sideways, and your skis will get lifted up on their edges. How much you bend that inside leg as the turn progresses determines how big the edge angles will be. *Sliding that new inside foot slightly back as you bend the leg helps avoid back seat problems as the turn develops. *Tilting that new inside foot to its little toe edge as you do these things helps get that inside ski up on an edge angle that matches the outside ski.

Outside leg action is not the primary factor in how high your edge angles will be, nor how far inside your hips/pelvis will go. It's the inside leg action.

As for the torso, you tilt it fore-aft and laterally in such a way that you don't fall over sideways, nor end up in the back seat. Stated more positively, you lean your torso outward enough to hover weight over the outside ski. And you hover your torso fore-aft over the skis so that you can feel the shovels and tails both engaging with the snow. Dorsiflexing the ankles is an important part of accomplishing this fore-aft balance.
 
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AchtungSki

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For this being your second season you're doing quite well as others have noted.

backseat.PNG


If you're talking about specifically carving, I think getting solid edge engagement is going to be difficult with being in the backseat like you see in this still. In the video you are transitioning at this moment so your hips being a little back is normal, but your ankle is basically open. Can you see how your hips and core are fully behind your heel indicated by the red line? Ideally you want to rest your bodyweight against the tongues of your boots, then if you were to imagine a line extending out along the axis of your tibia that line should intersect with your head. You can practice this just in your boots standing in front of a mirror. When you do this your should feel that your weight is more or less evenly distributed along the arch of your foot.

Stork turns like Henry mentioned worked really well for me learning to balance on the outside ski. I think you need to bring the right focus to the exercise though. Don't just lift your heel, actively pull that heel/ski back and lever the inside ski tip against the ground. This has the effect of levering your torso forwards into a more athletic stance, you should feel the posterior chain muscles engage on the outside ski as well when you do this. Start on flattish terrain and then work up. I'd get good at that before attempting javelin turns.

Pole drags are great too, making sure to keep your arms straight and not allowing your hips to rise as you transition is important though. The challenge is keeping the outside pole in contact with the snow for the entire turn. These two drills together are a nice one two punch of developing outside ski balance and appropriate angulation.
 

Sherman89

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It is extremely difficult to go from a forum discussion to on snow reality so my suggestion is to fine a Level 3-4 instructor or a Race coach and work with them, it will be the best money you can spend to get to where you want to be on snow.
 

AtleB

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I would not think "beginner" if I saw you on the hill, well done for 2 years skiing!
Lots of good drills have been suggested, and getting lessons from a good instructor is NEVER wrong.
Either way I'd reccomend finding a wide hill with a good gradient to train on. The one in your video is rather narrow.
 
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wildest_comfortable

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It is extremely difficult to go from a forum discussion to on snow reality so my suggestion is to fine a Level 3-4 instructor or a Race coach and work with them, it will be the best money you can spend to get to where you want to be on snow.
@Sherman89 how do you do this in a cost effective way? Feels like every lesson program other than the Taos week is prohibitively expensive.
 

Sherman89

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What you are trying to learn is at a difficult level. Less than 5% of skiers learn to carve linked turns on advanced terrain. There is no easy way or tricks to it. It takes the knowhow of good instructor/coaches to teach the technique required and it does not happen over night. Unfortunately there is no cheap way unless you know a qualified individual that wants to work with you. The instructor coach capable of teaching true carving have invested a lot of their time to learn and the ability to teach the technique. An other way is to get into a racing program where you share the cost of a race coach with your fellow competitors. There are some resorts that do adult race clinics that may work for you.
 

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