More carving exercises
Contributed by tom. March 2005.
Activity: Alpine snowboarding
Location: Monarch
Easter came along, seems like just a few weeks of the season left, although I'm sure that we'll head up to A-Basin to make turns with Jeff. Both Lisa and I have been working on improving our technique, feeling the desire for smooth elegant turns. This weekend we took the camera to the slopes, and filmed each other doing some exercises. Following are photoshop merged video captures that show what we tried. The quality is rather poor, the video was a 30fps 640x320 quicktime, and my camera's zoom is very poor.
Following each of the pictures are my comments on what I think we're doing and could be doing better -- and I'd very much appreciate any additional input. Various BomberOnline.com folks have already been very helpful with my bend-at-the-waist questions, and Jeff Cooper has been especilly generous inviting us to ride with him and offering many suggestions.
Lisa's toe-sides
Lisa toe-side 1
Lisa has sometimes a hard time with her heel-to-toe transitions, and that shows in the tripod-like stance at the start of the turn. She is looking into her turns, which is good. Bending her knees more, and getting more angulation (perhaps by NOT reaching for the snow) would make the carve tighter. Also, usually she pushes out her back knee to "hook" the carve better, and that's not in this picture.
Lisa toe-side 2
Here's Lisa's turn seen from the back. She's getting pretty low on her turns, and her outside (right) hand is resting on her thighs -- we've been trying to keep a quiet upper body. Otherwise, same comments as for #1.
Lisa toe-side 3
Here she turned to smile at me as she was going by, but otherwise same comments as #1 and #2.
Lisa toe-side 4
Same initiation, with the tripod-like back leg. But this turn is more aggressive, and she's reaching down with both hands, angulating better too. To improve I think she needs to bend her knees more, to keep the center of gravity over the edge.
Lisa Movie
Tom's heel-sides
As Lisa's toe-sides are her weaker turn, so for me are the heel-sides. In order to get rid of the toilet-seat-style static turns, I tried to introduce some dynamism by trying to put both hands down, forcing me to twist my body and angulate the board more. Again, this is just an exercise, I'm not sure that I want to carve that way in general..
Tom's heel 1
My legs are a bit too straight when initiating, although I do bend them as soon as I get into the turn. Also with reaching down with my hands I seem to be looking at the snow instead of in the direction of the turn. The turns feel good, though -- angulation is strong, I feel that the board is hooking up, and I'm driving hard with both knees to my left.
Tom's heel 2
Poor quality picture, but it shows the turn from below, so it's OK for educational purposes. I'm driving hard with the knees, and so the first two frames look like I'm tripoding (keeping the back leg behind the front one). Frame 4 seems to have me with somewhat straight legs, and I'm already looking into the next turn by frame 5..
Tom's heel 3
Heel close-up seen from behind. Again, very bent at the waist, should be bending knees more in frame 2, but I'm also pushing on the board, which results in straightened out legs in frame 3. Those carves feel strong -- I don't have to do very wide-radius carves to control my speed anymore.
Tom's layout
Tom's layout
Yes, I admit it, part of the reason that I started this sport was watching Jacques and Patrice from Extreme Carving. I'm nowhere near doing the full layout carves like they do, but here's a sequence of doing a toe-side layout, from which I recovered properly.
I think I should be pre-rotating my upper body more, going faster, and so in frame 3 I shouldn't be bend at the waist but instead keeping my body straight, laying on the snow. Frame 4 is more like it, but by that time I'm laying on the snow and not really being held up by the G forces...
Tom's toe-sides
Tom's toe 1
A toe-side from a steeper run -- that trail slopes to one side, funnels into a left-hand traverse, and it's been a good place to practice making tight turns. I'm always trying to make one more turn there, make it a bit pregnant to go up the hill, control the speed, and then transition to the other side.
What's good -- I push a lot at the peak of the turn, and it ends up being a pretty narrow radius, with good speed control. What's bad -- the bending at the waist, it's almost psychological -- if I don't reach for the snow, I have a hard time committing into such a tight turn.
Tom's toe 2
A close-up of the toe-side. Very bent over in frame 2, but looking into the turn in frame 3, with bent knees. The turns do feel very solid, and I've been practicing angulating and keeping my hands an inch over the snow...