Carving question

[tinymoose]

I was wondering who your boot fitter is, and where you took the lesson, if you wouldn't mind sharing. I am having a heck of a time finding one locally, and can't seem to find any local instructors certified above level 2. I am not against PSIA 1, by the way, but I have some leg length discrepancy issues that are better understood by higher than level 1. Thanks! Glad to hear you had a positive experience!

ladyluck... We took our lessons up at Bear Creek near Allentown. They certainly have PSIA 2 & 3 instructors there. It's a nice hill, with fabulous facilities. We like Blue as well, but it's really too far for us to haul to from the Philly area after work. So far we've been very happy with making Bear Creek "home." I'm assuming you're in the Philly metro area?

As far as boots, we went to Bill Kaplan (Performance Pedorthotics) in Feasterville. Had a great experience with him, and will definitely go back to him when my current boots need replaced. Bill doesn't sell boots though, but he will recommend boots for you if you need new ones. He had my H buy 3 boots from the list of recommendations, and then we brought them in for a fitting and Bill helped him narrow it down to 1 boot. Here's his contact info:

Cantman
Billy Kaplan
Performance Pedorthics, Inc.
1753 Bridgetown Pike
Feasterville Pa 18966
215 760 8226
800 283 2370
[email protected]

 

[ladyluck]

ladyluck... We took our lessons up at Bear Creek near Allentown. They certainly have PSIA 2 & 3 instructors there. It's a nice hill, with fabulous facilities. We like Blue as well, but it's really too far for us to haul to from the Philly area after work. So far we've been very happy with making Bear Creek "home." I'm assuming you're in the Philly metro area?

As far as boots, we went to Bill Kaplan (Performance Pedorthotics) in Feasterville. Had a great experience with him, and will definitely go back to him when my current boots need replaced. Bill doesn't sell boots though, but he will recommend boots for you if you need new ones. He had my H buy 3 boots from the list of recommendations, and then we brought them in for a fitting and Bill helped him narrow it down to 1 boot. Here's his contact info:

Cantman
Billy Kaplan
Performance Pedorthics, Inc.
1753 Bridgetown Pike
Feasterville Pa 18966
215 760 8226
800 283 2370
[email protected]

Thanks for the info! I have heard of him, and give him a call. I have horrible woes with my boots, but i won't go into it on this thread, lol! Thanks again!

 

[snoWYmonkey]

:duck:OK, so I'm reading Lito Tejada Flores, and he seems to like one-footed skiing, and stresses being able to balance the weight on the stance (outside or carving) foot.

I'm a purely recreational skier, but when skiing on ice, I find myself skiing a lot better when I balance almost entirely on my outside ski in the middle of the turn

but my understanding is that the softer the snow, the more two-footed the skiing is. But at higher speeds I find my inside ski often just brushes the snow at the apex of the turn.

It's funny, I teach my students to balance more evenly on ice as it gives us a wider platform to balance over when we start to slide, and also it distributes to pressure more evenly so it helps prevent chattering. That being said, if it works for you don't change it.

In terms of drills, I think one of the best ones is skiing on only one ski, but not switching to the outside ski. Instead get comfortable working first your one leg through a series of turns then you other leg. This helps hone many skills that are key to a great turn.

With carving I often have my students look back at their tracks and ideally there should be two equally deep, and parallel tracks left in the snow with no visible skidding when practicing truly carved turns.

As for powder skiing, I restate the importance of fairly even weighting of both skis, and a narrower stance than for carving. Not weighting the inside ski much would lead to some serious banana splits pretty fast when it snows around our mountain.

 

[tinymoose]

It's funny, I teach my students to balance more evenly on ice as it gives us a wider platform to balance over when we start to slide, and also it distributes to pressure more evenly so it helps prevent chattering. That being said, if it works for you don't change it.

That's interesting, because I've noticed my outside ski really chatters badly on ice. Now I know why! I'll have to try and keep both skis more evenly weighted next time I'm on ice, and see if that cuts down on the chatter.

 

[Celestron2000]

:duck:OK, so I'm reading Lito Tejada Flores, and he seems to like one-footed skiing, and stresses being able to balance the weight on the stance (outside or carving) foot. I hate to get into a one-footed vs. two-footed war or anything, but...

I'm a purely recreational skier, but when skiing on ice, I find myself skiing a lot better when I balance almost entirely on my outside ski in the middle of the turn (I think I fell last week because I spaced out, forgot this, and lost my edges on the ice). There's a transition between turns, but the faster I get over that outside ski, the less scrapey the whole experience is, and I get some of that carvey speed in the middle of the turn. On softer snow I put some weight on the inside ski, and it's on its little-toe edge and tracking with the stance ski. I haven't skied powder, but my understanding is that the softer the snow, the more two-footed the skiing is. But at higher speeds I find my inside ski often just brushes the snow at the apex of the turn.

Sorry, just yammering on. I wish there were nice soft snow; my shoulder's starting to feel better and I wanna ski. Oops, wrong thread.

I'm curious to hear what the experts have to say about this as well. I've been watching his videos and he difinately stresses putting all your weight on the outside ski.
It seemed to help my skiing a ton when I put this into action, but am now wondering if this is an outdated technique or something.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

TinyMoose,

The more even weighting is only one possible cause. The other primary one seems to be having the skis on too high of an edge angle. Try softening that edge just a touch and see if that helps. Other issues may have to do with too much pressure at the end of the turn...as I assume they are chattering then and not through the whole turn. So working on getting higher edge angles earlier to start shedding speed throughout the turn instead of a large increase at the end can help.

Though I confess, in icy conditions, I become scared to lay those skis on edge as early, mostly because my whole body tenses up, and I end up with a more skidded turn.

In my opinion though safety trumps all other matters on the hill, so whatever can keep me standing works!

 

[tinymoose]

I'm curious to hear what the experts have to say about this as well. I've been watching his videos and he difinately stresses putting all your weight on the outside ski.
It seemed to help my skiing a ton when I put this into action, but am now wondering if this is an outdated technique or something.

I'm trying to remember exactly what my instructor said about putting most your weight on the outside ski... I think he said it was how they turned back in the days of straight skis? I remember he noted that something I was doing was a technique from the days of yore. Which is funny, because 99.9% of my skiing has been done on shaped skis.

 

[litterbug]

It's funny, I teach my students to balance more evenly on ice as it gives us a wider platform to balance over when we start to slide, and also it distributes to pressure more evenly so it helps prevent chattering. That being said, if it works for you don't change it.

I'll try that. I've only recently been trying this one-legged thing, so I'm hardly committed to it. I had the sense that I was turning better when I really committed to that outside ski, but that involved going fast.

In terms of drills, I think one of the best ones is skiing on only one ski, but not switching to the outside ski. Instead get comfortable working first your one leg through a series of turns then you other leg. This helps hone many skills that are key to a great turn.

I've just started practicing this. I'm getting OK on the downhill ski, but skiing on the little toe is pretty challenging, which means I have a way to go.

As for powder skiing, I restate the importance of fairly even weighting of both skis, and a narrower stance than for carving.

Even with 6 or 8 inches of powder on groomed runs it's been fun to practice this. It was a little surreal because it didn't seem I should be turning at all. Last year, I mean, when we had powder.

 

[Skisailor]

Yes. Putting most of your weight on the outside ski is definitely an older technique that was required to bend a straight ski thus creating an arc when you put that ski on edge. With the shaped skis this very unequal weighting is not required and I think (though I'd love some of the PSIA instructors to weigh in) that they teach a generally more equal weighting today. (and yes . . I'm giving away my age .. )

That said, I love the idea of being able to know and use both techniques as the spirit moves me and based on conditions. I think it's a fun "feeling" to weight the outside ski alot. And fun is the name of the game.

But I also like to practice really using that inside ski too (I do it by thinking about the pinky toe of my inside ski during each turn) because I begin to use more equal weighting as soon as I get in chopped up conditions and certainly in deeper snow. On ice I weight more evenly as well, but I try to be very light on my edges in general in those conditions.

 

[Pequenita]

So, I grew up weighting the outside ski significantly as well, probably because I skied on ice and with straight skis, but I promise you that this habit has been extremely difficult for me to break when I get into powder.

I think it's almost better not to pick up the habit than to have to try to break it.

 

[snoWYmonkey]

The outside ski habit can be changed but is oh so hard to permanently overcome. Two footed skiing is indeed a (not so) new (anymore) way of skiing the shaped skis. As is a wider stance, which is for me even harder to change from my early skiing days 35 years ago.

I did want to mention that for some skiers instructors have them weight the outside ski more, to resolve a leaning the whole body too far to the inside problem. This is a different matter, than even weighting if the turn is generally happening as it should.

I like the comment by Skisailor: "That said, I love the idea of being able to know and use both techniques as the spirit moves me and based on conditions. I think it's a fun "feeling" to weight the outside ski alot. And fun is the name of the game. ".

There are no rules in skiing other than the ones on the back of the ticket. The more we play with how we ski the better we become.

 

[bluebird]

Check out Sofa Ski School on utube...Klaus is the most incredible skier and gives great advice ..he gives out some free drills and the visual totally helped me.

 

[Matoaka]

Ok, so after my first full night out for the season, I think I'm only getting my downhill ski on edge in my turns. So basically I'm turning with just my downhill ski and the uphill ski is just kinda along for the ride. I'm sure an instructor will have all kinda of advice for my skiing (hopefully next week!), but does anyone have advice on what causes this? Is this just a practice makes perfect thing? I did have some alignment work done on my boots, so it shouldn't be that. It's my understanding that both skis should be on edge, correct?

Sorry for all of my incorrect ski lingo and descriptions. I'm sure lessons will help with that too. :p

I would play with the pressure on that inside ski, I don't think the edge will engage if you don't put pressure on it. You gotta bend that ski. Finish the turn too. Keep pressure on til that ski wants to come around. You will feel the "pop".

 

[Tammy]

Figured I'd revive this thread a little.

I had an amazing lesson today where the focus was on carving. Finally, I had an instructor (PSIA level 2) who really helped me to understand the feeling of my edges carving the snow while at the same time feeling relaxed. He had me pressure my big toe to the arch of my foot on my outside ski as well as pressure my little toe to the arch of my foot on my inside ski to feel those edges bite. It worked!

We also ran drills where I would raise my body up slightly during the transition to the next turn as well as lowering my downhill hand to help engage the edge there better. I'd then prepare my uphill hand during the transition to make it smoother. Once I got all of these motions down I felt so relaxed, mellow, and very in control even though I was flying down the hill.

In previous lessons, it's been really drilled into me that I have no skid in my turns whatsoever; this has been really hard for me to achieve despite many lessons I've had over the last few years. This particular instructor very kindly disabused me of this notion and said that not even World Cup alpine skiers have a perfectly carved turn. He explained that while it's important to have C-shaped turns with smooth transitions, it can be difficult to have a perfectly pure carved turn depending on the snow conditions, and the ski's turn radius. I think once I stopped worrying about a perfect carve, my carving became better.

And the best part, I was on my Auras, which I've had a heck of a time skiing on groomed snow/hardpack-- up until now.

 

[geargrrl]

Tammy, are you heading to Lookout regularly?

 

[Tammy]

Yep! There every weekend practically.

Hear they're supposed to get a major dump by Thursday. Wish I could get up there.

We have to have another Diva Day up there this winter .