Here’s a short clip of me making some turns near the end of the season. This is a flatter blue, on this day the snow was pretty soft and slow but consistent. I am not good enough at carving to do it on slopes that are much steeper than this, though at the very end of the season I was having a bit of success on steeper blues.
Please roast my form and give me the full rundown of feedback.
My stats: 5’ 10”, 177 lbs, 30” inseam. 29cm feet.
My gear: Donek Saber 158 with 30cm waist. 8.5-10.5 progressive sidecut, flex is a 7 or 8 on the Donek scale. Flow NX2 bindings, Nidecker Talon boots. I can carve quite tight turns on this board so I am looking for something stiffer next, but I hope the JJA C4 medium isn’t too much to handle.
Turns are clean. The pencil line is respected. I'm at the same riding level so this observation wants to be humble. I see that you don't maintain the rotation in the backside turn, the move seems rushed and legs try to apply more pressure on the edge by extending a lot during and after the 90° of the turn. I make the same mistake and think that it's a really common pattern. When there is a lack of rotation at the hips, bodyweight is not stacked perfectly on the edge, legs extend to put more pressure on it to maintain grip and tighten the end of the turn. As @wild-cherry suggests, it's fundamental to set the angulation and rotation before the 90° and then patience comes. Hope this makes sense. Please roast my observation, not @parkcityguy's technique! 🖐️
Thanks for the reply @iacopo. I am not sure I understand all of your feedback so let me try to summarize. Please let me know whether I'm understanding you correctly.
1. I am rushing the transition out of heelside too soon and into the transition to toeside.
2. During 2nd half of heelside turn, the legs are extending. The extension should happen during the first half of the turn, much sooner after the transition?
3. During heelside, hips are not open enough or hips open too late?
4. During heelside, board angulation is set too late. Angulate sooner and/or higher?
1. I am rushing the transition out of heelside too soon and into the transition to toeside.
I'm saying the opposite. You're rushing the transition the heelside turn itself. You extend the legs too early (during the apex) to create more pressure and to tighten the turn. Instead, it's easier and less fatiguing if you keep the rotation from the hips and keep legs slighly bended but strong. In this way your bodyweight is better stacked over the edge and you can angulate the board more and earlier, making it turn by itself. This is fundamental when terrain gets steeper.
2. During 2nd half of heelside turn, the legs are extending. The extension should happen during the first half of the turn, much sooner after the transition?
I'm saying the opposite. You have to extend when you want to end the turn and the transition to happen, which is called up-unweighting. You're trying to maximize edge grip by extending legs a lot because your center of mass is not placed efficiently. You need to keep the rotation from the hips tucking the tailbone and to keep legs a little more bended in every part of the heelside turn, except for the ending, when you want to unweight and transition to frontside.
3. During heelside, hips are not open enough or hips open too late?
It seems that you are perfectly open and facing the turn in the right way, but getting near to the apex you lose that rotation, and your legs extend too much to regain the edge grip that you want to feel, which is ok, but not efficient, especially in steeper and more bumpy terrain.
4. During heelside, board angulation is set too late. Angulate sooner and/or higher?
Remember that in this clip the terrain is not steep so you don't have to get extremely angulated. I think timing and angulation is ok. Only when you ride in steeper terrain this needs to happen really fast, to control the speed.
You're riding very good, don't get me wrong. I attach two screenshots that show how your bodyweight is not placed efficiently over the edge during the heelside. You can be a lot more stable and in control if you get your centre of mass closer to the edge, by rotating and bending from hips and legs.
Remember that in this clip the terrain is not steep so you don't have to get extremely angulated…
This was my thought as well… it looks like you’re finding your balance on the edge sometimes (and once even falling into the toeside). You clearly have no issues getting angulation & inclination and this will serve you well as you step it up to steeper terrain with a little more speed.
I’m no instructor, but I think this pic looks awesome. Though if I wasn’t doing at least 30kph on a steeper blue, there’s a good chance I’d just fall over… Even in good conditions. 😂 I know people do go further Extreme Carving though (on similar slopes).
Yeah, I did fall unexpectedly into that toeside 🙂 I was going a bit slower than I’d thought. A very unusual occurrence but since this is basically the only video footage I have, I didn’t have a choice but to let you see it too.
Anyhow, on this particular run, my goal had been to angulate on heelside as much as possible. The last few weeks of the season, I was basically laser focused on heelsides and getting deep. You’re right that this terrain doesn’t require angulating practically at all but that wasn’t what I was trying to do 🙂
I think the main takeaways from this 2nd round of feedback are:
1. increase compression by bending knees and hips even more through the heelside, and maintain this compression longer through the turn.
2. hips and upper body rotation are lost during 2nd half of heelside, need to hold onto that rotation for longer.
I for one really enjoy these super technical technique breakdowns. Thanks!
It's also an interesting take from James on doing the strap around the highback. When I first heard about the concept, I thought the main purpose of the straps was actually to wrap them around the highback. I think for example the prototype bindings with a highback that doesn't fold forward would be super interesting to try riding like this to get the same kind of leverage on the toe side as you get on the heel side...
I almost missed this as all the timestamps have been updated.
After watching the analysis, I can’t help but wonder if you’ve been influenced by the Asian style (with the rear leg flexed to get weight back on board)? I’m no expert, but I think those guys get their chest more forward to get their weight a little more forward at the start of the turn.
James talks about how the board comes out in front of him at the end of the turn, but I’m not sure if he really mentioned how he gets back up over the board at the unweighting (and he certainly does) to enter the next turn.
I think of it like this… In your frame of reference, it kinda feels like shooting a skateboard back behind you in a linear motion. Of course the board is actually still moving forward, it’s just that you move yourself forward at a higher rate. I do acknowledge that I’m a front heavy rider, especially on steeper terrain where a speed deficit is more advantageous.
I’m an analytical thinker so I’ve really been enjoying these analyses and learning a lot. I’ve still got a lot to learn… and it ain’t always easy getting the old bod to do what I want either.
Putting myself out there, feeling vulnerable 🙂 Go easy... but the truth is appreciated. This is my first day on the JJA C4. I'm loving it a lot. Bindings are at 27/15 and 20" apart. This was just the run my buddy shot after I cam followed his kids around all morning. Maybe not my best turns of the day as the morning surface was much cleaner. Thanks! (having trouble getting the attachment vid attached)
First impressions are that you seem much more at ease on toeside turns than heelsides. Toesides are quick, confident and leave a pencil line in the snow, while heelsides are slow and mostly slarved. Looks like you're mostly waiting for the board to turn, while on toesides you're MAKING the board turn.
Don't sweat it, though, I was doing exactly the same most of the season last year. I think I was starting to crack it by the end, but the season ended and I'm still not sure.
Comparing it to the heelside turns here:
(I know, it's a Knapton video on Carver's Connection, heresy! but it caught my eye as I was about to go look for some footage of James) looks like Mike keeps his legs more extended than you do, and leans much further back into the heelside turns while you look like you're crouched on heelside (I was making the exact same mistake). I think turning your shoulders more into the turn (basically trying to look uphill, especially towards the end) would probably help you with your heelside position.
@7b808 If you look at 3:40 in the above video, this type of "wiggle-carve" / quick cross-under turns really helped me with the sensations around turn initiation. I don't know exactly how to explain it, but something just "clicked" when I tried that a few times.
@7b808 Rotationally your upper body is pretty much static relative to the board throughout your turns, you keep your left hand by your left knee all the time, that's good form for toeside, but not for heelside turns. James uses the cue to put your right/back hand on your left/front knee on heelside turns, which is another way to say what @emilecantin said when he said "turning your shoulders more into the turn" on your heelside turns.
Then the other big one is keeping the shoulders level/square to the horizon. Here you're better on heelside compared to toeside. The inside shoulder just drops on the toe sides turns as you reach for the snow but on the heelside you keep the shoulders level.
Level shoulders, rotating enough and attacking the front of the board early in the turn are the three big things I'm going to focus on myself when I go to the mountains on Thursday! Hopefully I'll be able to get my friends to film me too and as long as I'm not catastrophically bad I'll share it here too
