EC technique / methodical

[dfense]

All,
I have tried to learn the EC technique by trial-and-error, with some success. My background is many years of race boarding and a couple years of a break from winter sport up until 2012/2013 season, picking up a swoard.

Where I am still struggling is with the backside turn where I occasionally either lose my balance and sit down (ca. mid turn), or can't keep a clean line and the tail slips outward, sending me into a spin on my back.

As I am normally a very methodical learner, I went through the forum, the swoard site and many youtube videos and tried to distill all this in a table, for time versus different aspects of body dynamics:

Code: Select all

                         Weight distribution              Upper body position longitudinal                Upper body position crosswise              knee position/vertical axis
                         *******************              ********************************                *****************************              ***************************
transition               Heavily on the back leg          slight layback                                  centered                                   fully bent
Beginning of the turn    Mainly on the back leg           starting to lean forward                        going down / ca. 45°                       extending
Midsection               Even between front an back       clearly toward the nose, angled at the hip      fully layed down                           maximally extended, but not compl. straight legs
End of turn              Slightly to the front            centered                                        getting up, but faster than getting down   extended, at the very end fast "pull" for trans.

Please let me know what you think if this makes sense / is correct. Add more columns if it makes sense, split it for frontside/backside (if it is different).

Last question: I learned in my old days to never put my knees together (not putting the back knee in the hollow of the front knee), especially on the backside. I have seen this in quite a few videos though.
What I try to do is this:
frontside turn: push back kneecap toward center of turn
backside turn: push front kneecap toward center of turn
this results basically in pushing the knees apart, which for me works well. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks for any help and thoughts,
Andreas

[Arnaud]

Hi Andreas

Interesting discussion

First impression about the table you made : the key point is more the rotation/position of the body at the exit of the previous curve then the F/R weight distribution or longitudinal position.
- frontside turn : very important to cross the slope with the body facing the nose ("+" position). Initiate the turn by rotating the upper body and start to push away the board.
- backside turn : at the end of the frontside, the upper body must be positionned with the shoulders parallel to the board axis (egyptian position or "-" position). Cross the slope in this position (don't try to see what happens downhill).
Sit down position at the middle of the turn is typically linked to a lack of rotation.
Imho opinion don't think about the knees, but more about the shoulders position.

[rcrobar]

Hello Andreas

There is a lot of good information in your chart and I bet it was quite a bit of work to put together!
Here are a couple of thoughts that I hope will help this thread to get going.

Here is a DRILL or Mental check points to think of while your are making a backside EC carve. Try this with a lay down carve or while linking carves.

1) As a guideline or a drill with your backsides I would suggest concentrating on keeping the majority of your weight more towards the backfoot/tail of the board; think of loading the edge from the middle of the board to the tail.

Note - My feeling is that a common error is to get too much weight, too early in a turn, on the front foot. The idea with this drill would be to ensure that a rider is keeping your weight back long enough.

2) Next make sure you are in the '+' Position as Arnaud recommended.

3) Get low, I would suggest that the back leg be bent to 90 degrees.

4) Wait - What I mean by this is make your transition from edge to edge, get into the '+' position during the edge to edge transition, get the back leg to 90 degrees during the transition, get your weight on the tail/back foot during the transition ..... then let the board carve a good section of the turn .... wait ... hold the carve ....wait .... keep the tail of the board loaded by your weight .... wait ... then go to step 5.

5) There is moment, while you are waiting during this carve, that you will just fall over if you don't extend your legs. My suggestion or drill is to do the leg extension and the arm reaching out while touching the snow at the SAME time ... at the moment that you are just about to fall over. Experiment with pushing/extending your legs and reaching with the arm/upper body very slowly and with more authority; concentrate on maintaining the edge in the snow while doing this.

Note - IMHO another common error is that when a rider is getting low they don't extend their legs and/or they reach with the upper body too early, way before the legs should be extended at that magic moment in the turn; this causes the weight to go on the front foot too early in the turn.

Take these ideas with a grain of salt, shoot holes in them, etc ... hopefully this will lead to more post and more good information.

Cheers
Rob

[yomama]

Hi Andreas,

After the expert advices from the pro Arnaud and Rob, there is not much left for others to chime in

That said, here is my 2 cents

1) For your heelside, Arnaud correctly pointed the lack of upper body rotation. Remember that when you rotate, ensure your waist also rotates and not just your shoulders. To make sure you have the upper body rotation, try to have both arms on the snow as this will force the rotation and even over rotate slightly but this is not bad to overcome lack of rotation issues.

2) A split second after the Egyptian position, ensure your downhill edge starts to engage while going across and just before the turn itself. Most racers tends to slide then engage.

Good luck and have fun!

[piorek]

Hi Andreas,

I can really sympathise with you. For too long a time I was in the same situation. Frontside laydown turn was no problem at all, but in the backside turn I landed on my backside far too often.
This season I felt I made good progress.

My problems clearly were:
1. Too much weight on the front foot too early
2. sometimes a minimum slide at the beginning of the turn before engaging fully

A lot of excellent and very good and comprehensive advice was already given from the experts, which addresses the common mistakes.
Everything has been said,
I would just like to give the viewpoint from an intermediate rider who has only just got over the difficult bit.

Here is what worked for me.
After realising what my problems were I still struggled for a long time to change anything for the better.
How do you put more weight on the back leg, how do you avoid the slide at the start of the back turn?

For me the one key was the body rotation (shoulder and hip), the rest fell into place.
This alone enabled me to avoid the slide at the beginning of the turn.
It enabled me to first wait for the edge to dig in, like Rob put it.
And it made me put my weight more on the back foot automatically.
Actually I think of it that way, with more body rotation during the start of the heel turn you keep weight of the front foot.
I think it is better to think of it that way, keep weight of the front foot, rather than put weight on the back foot.
At all costs avoid the back arm going up.
I try to bring it forward to the front knee, or upper leg. The rotation then follows.

As for the knees, I wouldn’t worry about not putting the back knee into the hollow of the front knee.

Get someone to film you. Videoanalysis is a great learning tool.

all the best
Thomas

[rcrobar]

Hi Thomas

I really like your advice about how to keep your weight back:

I think it is better to think of it that way, keep weight off the front foot, rather than put weight on the back foot.

A busy family life keeps me away from riding very often these days. When I do get to ride it often feels like I am re-learning again; this can be frustrating at times! When getting back to riding I believe that simply riding 'push-pulling' on green and blue slopes is the best way to get ready to do a few EC turns.

A key for me is remembering that ECing is really just push-pulling to the max. As soon as I just think about getting low, it all falls apart. When I think about nice correct turns, next thing you know you are linking EC turns.

I also noticed you linked a soft boot EC question to this thread, I can't do EC turns in soft boots; those guys are amazing to me! Here are a few pictures to show the back leg position.

I also think it is important to get the arm and hand 'ready' to touch the snow early. These pictures do a good job of showing this as well.

I really hope more guys will add their thoughts as I know from the many YouTube videos that there are many, many riders that are way better at EC than me ... I'd love to hear your thoughts as well.



Cheers
Rob

[piorek]

Hi Rob,

Very good snapshots of a critical phase in the turn.
Thanks for sharing!

I compared them to a video I got of myself.
Personally I think I am getting there with the +Rotation,
but not going low enough at the start of the turn.
Would be more than happy for comments.

Could be the stiff boots that are limiting me.
Need to invest in new boots with ACSS.

Take care
Thomas

[rcrobar]

I compared them to a video I got of myself.
Personally I think I am getting there with the +Rotation,
but not going low enough at the start of the turn.
Would be more than happy for comments.

Hi Thomas

I am not sure that there is an ultimate truth with regards to getting low at the start of a turn.

When pondering this and watching videos of the many talented riders it seems that some of the riders get very low while others are able to keep very straight legs and do nice EC type turns; the videos of the Korean riders is a good example of this. Some riders get very low in their frontside but have straighter legs on the backside; or visa versa. What is cool about this is that is seems like the EC technique is maturing as more and more riders continue to develop their understanding and skill of this movement. I also think that personal body types (flexibility, etc.) and styles is a factor with this as well.

There seems to be three factors in getting low, bending your legs, bending forward at the waist while still keeping your weight back and the fact the the board goes from one edge to the next; it isn't ever really flat on the snow in the transition but is tipped on edge making it easier to get closer to the snow.

One observation I'd like to throw out there is that the wider, steeper, harder and faster a piste' is, the less a rider really needs to bend and extend the legs to link EC turns. The narrower, flatter, softer and slower the piste' is, the more a rider needs to bend-extend, hard push-pull, the legs to link EC turns. Again, this is just the humble opinion of one EC apprentice to another!

One suggestion for making sure you are fully getting into the + position is to really finish the previous turn and then hop during the transition; make the board go from one edge angle that is pretty steep to the other edge that is also leaned over quite a bit. The mistake is to go straight into the backside turn with the base of the board flat on the snow. You should turn into the backside turn, then hop between the turns and do your backside turn .... the hop is just a bit of a drill.

Cheers from one apprentice to another
Rob

[joemzl]

Thomas, compare your second picture with Rob´s pictures and especially his avatar.
You can make a direct line from his legs to his upper body.
Your line is bended.
If your upper body would be in line of your legs and board, it could have been a nice turn.
(I did that mistake for a long time )

[skywalker]

Thomas, compare your second picture with Rob´s pictures and especially his avatar.
You can make a direct line from his legs to his upper body.
Your line is bended.
If your upper body would be in line of your legs and board, it could have been a nice turn.
(I did that mistake for a long time )

ahhmmm - no.

Fixed hips will only lead to poor turn control due to missing vraiability in angulation.

[nils]

theorically yes...but in reality in "pure EC" such as what patrice and especially Jacques on the backide do, the torso, hips and legs are "straight" without bending at the waist.
There is very few people that master that straight backside where it looks like the rider is laying down( which I find purest visually)...Rob is one of them. ( Patrice tends to twist at the waist because he likes to sniff the snow even backside!)
N

[skywalker]

I do not see any fully laid down turn in any of the pictures shown above.
Anyways turn control (and, of course flexibility in hips and knees) will help in any case during initiation and opening of a turn (which is the opposite of the suggestion above).
Personally it took me quite a while to pick the truth out of all those legends:
Fully extended knees on backside laydowns are the most common reason for loss of edge hold.
Fixed hips are the most common reason for failure on backside turn initiation (especially in the steeps)

[piorek]

Hi Everyone,

thanks for all the good hints!
Very much appreciated.

Good to hear that is possible to lay down a backside turn without getting really low,
at least on steep and fast slopes.
Makes a lot of sense.

I will keep at it.

thanks again
Thomas

[piorek]

Hi,

This post
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6176
contains a sequence of snapshots of Patrice from the video "Lifted".
I find these very instructive, it isolates the different phases nicely.
It shows very well how he swings the upper body around as he changes from one edge to the other.

take care
Thomas