Percentage of skiers that can carve a turn... way too small...

[esteban525]

Skidding is a much more important skill, I agree, and that's why it is introduced before carving in the skier's progression too.
Skiing with an hourglass shape ski making only skidded turns is like owning a plane and only use it for taxing on the runway, and never take off. Taxing is very fun and safe for sure, but flying is another league. It's perfectly acceptable to choose to ski only skidding. But carving is so awesome that it is kind of sad that so few skiers are able to do it...
We (Argentinian instructors) introduce carving only after the student has very good and confident skidded parallel turning. And the majority of students tend to urge the turn and pivot the skis, in order to turn quickly out of the fall line (out of "danger"). That's why we introduce carving on very easy (almost flat) slopes, even though the skier is skiing black diamond trails pretty well sometimes.

I'm just thinking out loud on ideas to help a decent amount of skiers to feel the incredible sensations of carving... that's all...
I happen to had students with more than 30 years of experience on the slopes that never carved a turn, and after introducing them to carving they got full of tears of happiness... that touched me deeply...

I'm currently working on a new blog post, with a complete yet very gradual progression of how to introduce carving... with several drills, the ones I've found most useful in my experience as an instructor. A step-by-step approach that hopefully will help some skiers to have more fun on the slopes...

I've tried during these past years to specialized in taking students from confident parallel skidded skiing to carving. And it was worth it...

All the best,

Fede

 

[Tony Storaro]

it has been said that only 10% of all recreational skiers can actually carve a turn.

That seems to me an exaggeration. I'd put that at around 5% not more. Perhaps less.

Vast majority of people do not care enough to learn how to carve. They reach the point of skidded turns on reds and call it good enough.

 

[Tony Storaro]

with more erasers than pencils on the hills

Oh boy, am I stealing that...

 

[JWMN]

Exactly!! I do not want everyone on the hill to be carving arc-to-arc turns. The runs won't be able to sustain all of that extra speed and extra side-to-side motion. If everyone were carving arc-to-arc turns I think it would be very dangerous and the runs would feel more crowded.

I agree. There is a time and place for these kind of turns. I have a buddy that loves to do this, and does it well. When on boys trips he has nearly his some of us and others. He gets in a carving zone and is in his own bubble. We had to clamp down on him for doing this.

 

[slowrider]

My first year at our little bump as an instructor one of the lifties said you're not from here. Why is that? You don't ski like it.

 

[Ogg]

I think the percentage of people who can carve depends on the usual conditions where you ski. Icy places tend to have more skiers that can carve in my experience. The percentage is still low.

 

[Jack Lake]

My wife gets on me sometimes, especially when the slopes start getting a little busier. I tell her, you're a lot more in control when you're on edge, varying your turns and controlling your speeds, opening up when you can. Consider ice skating, an analogy I love because i played hockey competetively when I was younger. Who's more dangerous? The pylons flopping around on the rink or pond, or the players and skaters?

 

[mdf]

Fistful of Moguls...Glen Plake:

The old carved turn. Nobody can carve a turn. You’re not supposed to be able to carve a turn. That’s like the sacred cow, man. But for 650 bucks go get yourself some hourglass skis and you’ll out carve half the guys teaching skiing at Vail!

Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when carving was an esoteric skill.

Now there we still have a minority carving, but it is a pretty sizable minority.

 

[oldschoolskier]

I have taught a few to carve and in most cases get them to roll onto the edge, with small radius shaped skis this is easy. Get this as the natural feel at the beginning makes it easier to retain it as they progress. Down side is they miss learning other skills at the beginning and this again shows up in a lot of skiers as they get over confident and in over their heads in bad situations.

They second part is most are happy skiing and getting down safely and having fun. Improving means working at it and they see it work not fun. They few that like to push the limits will improve.

 

[KevinF]

Carving? I would put a pretty low percentage on the percentage of skiers who are balanced on their outside ski.

I generally ski weekends, so it’s generally crowded. I could probably rail turns on a blue groomer, but I generally don’t feel like it. Narrow trails, icy conditions, crowded slopes and edge lock turns? No thanks.

There’s tail- push skidding where you might as well have 2x4’s on your feet, but there’s a whole spectrum of turn shapes between that and “edge lock” that still utilize ski design to varying degrees. I can still feel the ski turning me despite the ski drifting slightly through the turn.

My preferred terrain- bumps and trees - is a really bad place to be if you don’t have the full spectrum of turn shapes at your disposal.

This whole discussion strikes me as being the groomer equivalent of “bumps must be skied zipper line World Cup style”.

 

[aveski]

I don't know if I carve or not, but I usually turn when I want to.

 

[Tony S]

My preferred terrain- bumps and trees - is a really bad place to be if you don’t have the full spectrum of turn shapes at your disposal.

Totally.

This whole discussion strikes me as being the groomer equivalent of “bumps must be skied zipper line World Cup style”.

Well, it WOULD be, except for ... well ... ... ... pride, I guess.
Pulling off a whole hillside of good carved turns with well-controlled radius and speed control is an accomplishment, whatever you think of it. Same with skiing the zipper line in bumps. The demonstrably small number of practitioners is testament to this. If you actually CAN ski the zipper line in non-trivial bumps, and if every level 6 jamoke on the chairlift and in the bar and on the internet is constantly talking about how great such-and-such a ski is as a tool for that (while this other one, that you happen to ski, is a limp noodle), and about how they coach mogul skiing at such-and-such an establishment, and about how they are zipper-lining Al's Run top-to-bottom - that might get a bit annoying after a while. Same with real carved turns. I'm not sure this reaction is something to be proud of, but it is natural.

 

[Pequenita]

I think the percentage of people who can carve depends on the usual conditions where you ski. Icy places tend to have more skiers that can carve in my experience. The percentage is still low.

My experience is that skiers in icy places tend to skid, otherwise they'd be picking up a ton of unwanted speed carving.

 

[anders_nor]

I carve, I ski rails, I ski jumps, I ski pow, I tour. I have multiple personalitets on skis, so kinda hard as nobody seems to like the other "guys"

But when I Carve, I carve, I want high edge angles, I want hip scrapeing, I dont wont none of that skidding nonsense, Feeling the G's load up in the turns is such a rush for me. Also doing it at higher speeds is fun quite often, but sometimes just shorter radius, less speed.

You have to know when to do it and when not to. Of course the higher the edge angles and the more you can bend the ski the better for tighter radius carves. Or you can use a pair of FIS spec slaloms and carve all day in a pretty tight corridor. 30 meter GS skis not recommended on a busy weekend unless you want to be putting the brakes on all the time!

Eearly morning on Titlis all the way out on the side on glacier, then you can bring your FIS GS ski, or late in the day, but in general few people. Such a magic feeling, very few people, and you can see everything pretty much all the time depending on which side you go, on left there is a single roller only, 0 on right.

My experience is that skiers in icy places tend to skid, otherwise they'd be picking up a ton of unwanted speed carving.

Air is such a good brake really, with normal ski clothing its hard to hit much more than 70's anyway, and you can just stand up a bit more to regulate speed, of course you want something stable with longer radius then.

 

[geepers]

I don't know if I carve or not, but I usually turn when I want to.

It's one of the easiest things to determine. Walk back along your tracks (assuming it is safe to do so) and if the tracks are two well defined thin lines in the snow then you were carving. Thin is relative - on hard snow where the ski only just penetrates they will be very thin. On softer snow where the ski, binding and maybe some of the boot displace the snow then they'll be a ski+ in width.)


On the OP

 

[François Pugh]

@esteban525
I'm no ski instructor, but I kinda like Tom's approach here

 

[Tony Storaro]

It's one of the easiest things to determine. Walk back along your tracks (assuming it is safe to do so) and if the tracks are two well defined thin lines in the snow then you were carving.

You can tell it even by the noise your ski make, the less noisy your skis are during turn-the less are the chances you are skidding.
That-on hard snow obviously.

 

[raisingarizona]

I agree, it's a sad state of affairs, with more erasers than pencils on the hills, but I can foresee problems for your students down the road with your approach to introducing it, bad habits like too much weight on the inside ski, skis not parallel, stemming, etc. There has to be a better way.

I've also eventually realized that many folks don't want to carve their turns, even many of my fellow ski patrollers whom I've tried to convert; they are perfectly happy making stylish speed-controlling turns, and think I'm crazy to want to be skiing as fast as I do all the time. That being said there are a few who carve just fine, just not that many.

I think you will also have a safety concern with typical carving speeds when mixed in with lower skill levels.

You can carve slalom turns with a gs profile but you have to be strong and eat some chatter.

I don’t think most people care about this. They ski a few times a year and it’s a simple weekend escape and non serious recreation. They make a few runs, sit in the bar or on the deck, have a few beverages and enjoy the sun.

if it works for them, who cares? They are like the poseurs that buy the latest and greatest gear to keep up with their friends but never use any of it. They keep the industry going.

 

[raisingarizona]

Many can't carve as they are on 90mm skis. Hard to get those puppies over to edge. But I would have to agree that few can really carve.

I have some old kendos and they are my go to groomer ski. They shred groomers!

 

[KingGrump]

But, but. but ..... I like skidding.