Counterrotation vs Neutral Postion (Attention large Pictures

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Post by skywalker » Friday 16 November 2007, 15:50

Felix wrote:The impulse for changing the edges on carving skis/snowboards is however NOT the rotational movement BUT the unweighting/weighting of your legs in the form of Cross-Under, Cross-Through, or Cross-Over. Trying to carve without unweighting will not work at all.
Hi felix,

I always try to avoid this word in this forum, but this is plain wrong (technicallly). I have to move me center of gravity across the board axis (or the board axis to the other side of my COG) to do turns. Nothing else. For me this is the main difference to drifted skiing turns (but they also work without unweighting).
Felix wrote:Try some skiing on slalom carvers to notice that you don't need any rotation at all to do it. The main technique needed is bending at the waist vs leaning in with the whole body plus initiation for the turn by up/down movement (Cross-through or Cross-under for skiers slalom)
Keeping an "active" neutral position is kind of rotation, too (of course). I hear, what you say, and most of it is technically correct. But if I wait with my upper body to remain in a neutral position while initiating the turn with whatever, I for sure will end up in counterrotation. This IMHO is the most common mistake amongst Motor-cyclists: They just wait for their tool to act, and then are fighting to stay on it. "passice counterrotation", which is just waiting to be bent by the movement of the board will always lead to limitations in the turn's arc. We discussed this several times before: There will be a moment, where the cutting edge of my board has to accellerate my upper body. This will work on "mild" carves, but will lead to loss of edge grip at the limit. I think, what you are talking about is something like "active rotation technique to neutral position", but unfortunately I can see that on almost nobody's ride.
Felix wrote:Carving on skis is essentially the same technique as carving on a snowboard.
Maybe. Maybe we could discuss about this topic one week without any benefit to this topic.
Felix wrote:Concluding, for extreme rotation or counterrotation your upper body should follow (follow or go hand in hand but not lead) the rotation of your hips.
Maybe rather the hips follow the shoulders. IMHO head and shoulders are crucial for proper hip rotation. I'm pretty sure, hip rotation can be done without head and shoulder rotation, but it is alsp pretty sure much harder to do.
Felix wrote:If your hips stay neutral there is no need at all to do any pre-/counter-/ or same time rotation. The most stable position if your hips are neutral is if your upper body stays neutral too. If your rotated with your hips its best to rotate with upper body too, however only so far that you can still rotate even furter on taking shocks, bumps etc.
Right! Please see above. Can you rotate hips and shoulders independently?

not fully convinced (due to the difference between beautyful theory and the reality my eyes can see...)

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Post by pokkis » Friday 16 November 2007, 16:14

I have still not yet read thru first message :oops:
But few general comments, we should not perhaps read all statements literally, i mean that all depends also of riding style.
On over active riding style one moves parts of body very actively and much and some rules above are more valid then. But if rider choose passive (almost flegmatic) style then all this can be done basicly without or with extreme minmal body movements.
As Tom states correctly, one can make turns just by movin COG from side to side, no rotation etc is required. Yo can practice that on living room floor, if you are not lucky one to go for snow, by standing and moving your weight between legs. Same ammonut work or rotation is required to make board to turn, except if one rides with 0 angles.
And as well stuff Felix wrote is also correct, all depends of riding style.

Anway, this is how i see this one :wink:

EDIT: Small addition, what i like?, i prfer riding either over active or very passive style when free carving. On track i try to ride active style just notch down from free carving way and then will turn angles 5 degree lower for extra balance.

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some things never change

Post by xyxx » Friday 16 November 2007, 17:08

- racers will always say that the only way to ride is to be in a natural position
- freecarvers without certain experience will always say unweighting has no importance
- carving is a very small part of a PGS race. Thus, carvers will always find PGS technique ugly
- beginner carvers will try to copy contemporary racing technique and their riding will continue to suck for years because of improper counterrotations
- carvers and racers have different goals. The former show off in front of gals, the latter primarily in front of timer, and then in front of gals.
- I will always be convinced that it is way easier to learn to carve good than to race fast

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Post by vkrouverk » Friday 16 November 2007, 17:52

skywalker wrote:
Felix wrote:The impulse for changing the edges on carving skis/snowboards is however NOT the rotational movement BUT the unweighting/weighting of your legs in the form of Cross-Under, Cross-Through, or Cross-Over. Trying to carve without unweighting will not work at all.
Hi felix,

I always try to avoid this word in this forum, but this is plain wrong (technicallly). I have to move me center of gravity across the board axis (or the board axis to the other side of my COG) to do turns. Nothing else. For me this is the main difference to drifted skiing turns (but they also work without unweighting).
I'd say that Felix is correct here: in order to change edge during carving you have to release snowboard's carving edge and this is done by unweighting, after that it's possible to move COG over board and engage opposite edge to next carve. Without unweighting centrifugal force won't allow you to move across board and you will be locked into carve.
Converting potential energy to kinetic..

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Re: some things never change

Post by skywalker » Friday 16 November 2007, 17:56

xyxx wrote:- freecarvers without certain experience will always say unweighting has no importance
well maybe Pokkis is right an yu should not read posts literally. But you may read them correctly. All I need for carving is relative movement of COG and board axis. Usually I'm the one to tell others, that more "unweighting" or "weighting" is needed for better riding style ;)
xyxx wrote:- I will always be convinced that it is way easier to learn to carve good than to race fast
For sure. But if somebody carves, this does not mean to carve good and if someone is a racer, this does not mean, he's fast :P . Usually the same amount of perfection in different sporting disciplines takes the same amount of effort. This should be true for two ways of the same sports, too ;)

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Post by rilliet » Friday 16 November 2007, 18:01

xyxx wrote:- carvers and racers have different goals. The former show off in front of gals, the latter primarily in front of timer, and then in front of gals.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Post by pokkis » Friday 16 November 2007, 20:43

My, as old time carver :wink: , still prefer old time habits.
So i start turn from knees and follow them with shoulders.
And that is it.
So if you turn your knees and shoulders in one direction, hips will go/follow quite nicely that path. And that is way to avoid getting hips too forward in back side wich is easily creating problems for some folks.
BUT this only works for me, so dont try to follow these ones :naughty:

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Post by Felix » Saturday 17 November 2007, 0:50

skywalker wrote:
Felix wrote:The impulse for changing the edges on carving skis/snowboards is however NOT the rotational movement BUT the unweighting/weighting of your legs in the form of Cross-Under, Cross-Through, or Cross-Over. Trying to carve without unweighting will not work at all.
Hi felix,

I always try to avoid this word in this forum, but this is plain wrong (technicallly). I have to move me center of gravity across the board axis (or the board axis to the other side of my COG) to do turns. Nothing else. For me this is the main difference to drifted skiing turns (but they also work without unweighting).
Try riding with knees fixed completely by something. It's impossible. You don't need much to move your COG over your board, but you need some. Otherwise you will continue your turn definietly till your riding upwards, loosing speed and falling down inside. It doenst matter if you unweight or weight, but you have do to a tiny bit of one or the other. Tell me how you move your COG if not by weighting/unweighting if you think it is possible. According to EVERY technique book and my own experience it ain't possible. With no legs you can't carve a snowboard, you may still be able to ride a motorcycle though. With one leg I've seen very very good riding to a certain point (I'm somtimes riding in the same resort as a guy who has won several times medals at Paralympics snowboarding who has lost one leg in a motorcycle accident) but it is really difficult for him you can imagine. Hard is easier than soft BTW. With no knees it simply would be impossible.

For me the difference between carving nicely and racing fast is the learning curve. Once somebody carves nicely you can notice that and most improvement will depend on personal vision, style and preferences. To race fast you can be compared much easier. Therefore to be one of the fastest racers will allways be harder than to subjectively be one of the best carvers. Furthermore you can race professionaly while there is no possibilty to make a decent job out of carving only. Therefore with the same amount of time you might become a very good carver, but in the eyes of a worldcup racer only a mediocre racer (as there loads of racers who train every day just to get faster - few if no carvers can do that).
xyxx wrote:- beginner carvers will try to copy contemporary racing technique and their riding will continue to suck for years because of improper counterrotations
Completly agree here. Racing is much more complex and difficult to copy simply by watching. Beginners think that the racers counterrotate, but as you can see in my first post racers don't counterrotate with the hips (at least for Backside) and beginners counterrotate with the hips, which should be avoided at all costs on BS. This is also why beginners ride way too fast. They counterrotate (counterrotation normally causes your COG to move to the back of the board) and without pressure on the nose the snowboard doesn't engage properly in the turn and they ride huge radius. I had a friend of mine who rides with splendid technique on Soft equip step onto my slalom with 9m radius and he couldn't carve as small radius as mee with a 13-14m radius GS, he however got down even the steepest slopes with high speed and stability directly from his second run. This was a cause of counter (huge stability, but no engaging into the turn).


Jacques vs Patrice Extremecarving Technique
I would really like to hear opinions on the difference made between Jacques (nick Rilliet) and Patrice (nick Fivat)/Nils for rotation on extremecarving turns. To me it seems they differ a lot (even if they achieve the same excellent result of fully laid out turns). Jacques and Patrice what's your take on this? Am I correct, that you, Jacques, allways stay in a rather natural position with your hips, while rotating mostly with your upper body, while you, Patrice, rotate mostly with your hips, while staying in a natural position whith no further rotation of the upper body in relation to the hips?


P.S. In this view rotation with upper body is only achieved if upper body is rotated further than the hips, while if upper body is facing the same direction as the hips I call this rotation with hips only but natural position of upper body (relative to the hips, not your boots/feet of course).
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Post by skywalker » Saturday 17 November 2007, 9:15

Felix wrote:
skywalker wrote:
Felix wrote:The impulse for changing the edges on carving skis/snowboards is however NOT the rotational movement BUT the unweighting/weighting of your legs in the form of Cross-Under, Cross-Through, or Cross-Over. Trying to carve without unweighting will not work at all.
Hi felix,

I always try to avoid this word in this forum, but this is plain wrong (technicallly). I have to move me center of gravity across the board axis (or the board axis to the other side of my COG) to do turns. Nothing else. For me this is the main difference to drifted skiing turns (but they also work without unweighting).
Try riding with knees fixed completely by something.
Again, Felix:
I think, you are talking about something different now. Knees fixed means no movement within your legs. No weighting/unweighting means, that the load on my board does not change during or in between my turns. Simply: Nice answer, but maybe to an other issue ;)
Felix wrote:Therefore with the same amount of time you might become a very good carver, but in the eyes of a worldcup racer only a mediocre racer (as there loads of racers who train every day just to get faster - few if no carvers can do that).
Again you may be right (a professional rider will usually achieve a higher level than a recreational rider). But comparing apples with apples: A mediocre racer may still be a lousy carver ;)
Felix wrote:P.S. In this view rotation with upper body is only achieved if upper body is rotated further than the hips, while if upper body is facing the same direction as the hips I call this rotation with hips only but natural position of upper body (relative to the hips, not your boots/feet of course).
So this is getting too complicated for me. I still don't think, that anybody is able to totally independently rotate his shoulders and his hips while extremecarving. Furthermore I think I have seen both (Jacques and Patrice) starting their turns with a shoulder movement and using this to lead their body. Maybe you should look at moved pictures instead of some shots.

BTW: What about the "active/passive neutral position thing? What do you think?

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Post by pokkis » Saturday 17 November 2007, 9:28

Felix wrote:Try riding with knees fixed completely by something. It's impossible. You don't need much to move your COG over your board, but you need some. Otherwise you will continue your turn definietly till your riding upwards, loosing speed and falling down inside. It doenst matter if you unweight or weight, but you have do to a tiny bit of one or the other. Tell me how you move your COG if not by weighting/unweighting if you think it is possible. According to EVERY technique book and my own experience it ain't possible. With no legs you can't carve a snowboard, you may still be able to ride a motorcycle though. With no knees it simply would be impossible.
That is perhaps too straight statement. Carving without any movement on knees/knee movements is possible. One could carve board even sitting on board. Moving COG can be done very different ways. Another issue is naturally which is best and most efficient way to COG.

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Post by rilliet » Sunday 18 November 2007, 21:47

Pogokoenig wrote:Don't think so. As you can see in other (similar) sports (Motorcycling, Biking, Car-racing), the movement is not initiated by the center of gravity.
I'm not sure that these sports are a good example as they all don't have only the feet in contact with the gear: how can you move your hips in a car? Furthermore, the gears have all a mechanical system for turning that is independent from body movement and is more efficient than a board sidecut. But I agree that for motorcycling and biking, body movments are crucial in a turn.
skywalker wrote:I hear, what you say, and most of it is technically correct. But if I wait with my upper body to remain in a neutral position while initiating the turn with whatever, I for sure will end up in counterrotation.
That's the problem when teachnig rotation. If you don't show a HUGE rotation people will not « record » the movement and stay in counterrotation. To me, the rotation is only a tool that helps to turn. Its amplitude should be adapted to the situation. For tight turns at very low speed, you can't use your sidecut radius so the only way to turn is a rotation (that has to be quite important) or a counterrotation. In a situation where the board turn easily (ie with a freestyle board or with a carving board at the speed where the radius works) the rotation can be very light or even an accompaniment (that is also called here « no-rotation »).
Pokkis wrote:My, as old time carver , still prefer old time habits.
So i start turn from knees and follow them with shoulders.
And that is it.

This depend also of the board. Pokkis, I remember your long and heavy Tinkler that is difficult to turn with rotation because of its inertia that is higher than the one of my body. Hence I had to switch to the technique you are talking about (knees first then upperbody) and all was fine.
felix wrote:You can see on the following pics that while Nils and Patrice rotate mostly out of their hips while upper body is facing about the same direction as the hips, Jacques is rotation less out of the hips but more with the upper body (this are momentaneous shots, not video but I'll hava a look at the videos tonight).
http://carving.grewu.org/gallery/ecsIV/ ... c_4287.htm
Or here.
http://carving.grewu.org/gallery/ecsIV/awards/index.htm
felix wrote:Jacques vs Patrice Extremecarving Technique
I would really like to hear opinions on the difference made between Jacques (nick Rilliet) and Patrice (nick Fivat)/Nils for rotation on extremecarving turns. To me it seems they differ a lot (even if they achieve the same excellent result of fully laid out turns). Jacques and Patrice what's your take on this? Am I correct, that you, Jacques, allways stay in a rather natural position with your hips, while rotating mostly with your upper body, while you, Patrice, rotate mostly with your hips, while staying in a natural position whith no further rotation of the upper body in relation to the hips?
This question has two answers and I will take the backside turn as example.
1- In a laidout backside turn, Patrice and I are reaching two different sensations: Patrice loves to have his face the nearest possible of the snow. Sometime he is able to lick it :tongue: :silly: . See his head position.
My quest is to ride « against a wall ». I love to feel and see the mountain « rocking » against my back. During such a turn, I feel that I'm vertical. It's the whole planet that has changed its position, not me! You can see that in my inclined head position.

2- since a long time I have the feeling that the neutral position (hips facing the feet direction) is the strongest one. Instead of starting a rotation from a neutral position, I often start it from an exagerate rotation at the end of the previous turn. So when the rotation is done my hips are in neutral position allowing to me to be the strongest as possible. At the end of the turn I give a little bit more rotation before to start the next one. Of course all these movements are combined with vertical legs work (push-pull in this case).

Jacques

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