Just a little carving video... with many many mistakes!!!

[RicHard]

Hi everybody!
I would like to have some suggestions about this attempt to "extreme carve" in Tignes, two weeks ago.
I know there are so many technique mistakes in this movie so I would like to correct them with your help and with the precious help of the "gurus" of this site (eh, eh... they know who they are!).
Please, don't throw your tomatoes to me!!!


https://www.extremecarving.com/attachme ... es2002.wmv

P.S.: I find enough easy to carving without taking to the extreme the inclination and angulation (other video seems to be really "clean") but while trying to "extreme-carve" forces are strong and you should be perfect... I'm not!!!


Ciao!!!!

_RicHard.

[nils]

Thnx for sharing the movie, has an hassle to watch it cos wmv isn't seeingable on mac OSX, but managed to borrow a crappy PC for it ...

It seems from the clip you got strong legs, but i'd say you make the common mistakes ( i made them) that are a the last barrier to efficient extremecarving..

legs= they should be bend on turn entry: straight in the middle of the turn and bent again ( pull - push- pull sequence).

rotations: it seems you got the rotations turn, but could do better without moving the arms

last but not least: there is no way to achieve EC turns without doing the following too:
turns are divided into 3 sequences: entry, midturn, exit
1- board is parallel almost to horizontal level ( not into the slope), rider then targets the center of turn with hand ( board still unturned)/ legs flexed still...this part is until the board is totally vertical.
2- pushing the legs and the board away very quick, the edge grips and makes the board achieve 90° of the turn, while the body is now fully extended.. board shall now be vertical into the slope, facing downhill
3- recovery: after 150° are achieve, the rest 30° are used to pull the legs and get up..

the turn is almost half made before the board has even turned, that is how the pressure on the edge is balanced on 180° rather than only the last 90° (like on your film)> main reason that prevents you to lay down flat, is that you're fighting the pressure and G's with your legs, and thus cannot really do more that bend legs, and carve normally. The pressure felt during a Ecarve is really less than what you feel in the turns here...

Hope this helps.. its when i understood that that i began enjoying crawling on the belly

Nils

[RicHard]

Thank you very much for your detailed description!
Sorry for .wmv format...
You're right: if we can call it "Error", I'm riding with the "cross-over" technique, the one that meny instructors have teached to me (extension on changing edge, flexion in the middle of the turn).
Yes, it could be a trouble to EC... I know, and I want to master both techniques.
You're right: I don't like where my arms are and what my arms do. It's another issue to work on.
I agree with you even when you say that
"The pressure felt during a Ecarve is really less than what you feel in the turns here...":
I was trying, while carving other slopes, your technique and it was like if the body fight less against the centrifugal and gravity forces; it is something like if you leave the board goes from one side to the other without giving it the responsability to support all of your body's weight.
Specially in the phase where you push it away, it seems that it wants to go far from you, not that you have to strongly push it away from you!
I think this is the different sensations you have to feel.

I've got another question: I saw that while trying your technique on the icy snow, it was easier to put the board with a high angle on the snow early in the turn, but it was very difficult to pressure the edge in the most difficult part of the carve, when the centrifugal force sums to the gravity one and the game becomes harder!...
Any idea or suggestion about common mistakes during this phase?

Thank you once more for your messages!
So sorry for having to wait for next december to carve again and have some more test!...

_RicHard

[rilliet]

Hi Richard,

Sorry for the time left, but I hadn’t seen I wasn’t logged, so the forum didn’t show me there was new messages…

Thank you for your modesty, that allows me to compare your style to ours.

I would like to precise that your style is THE standard alpine style used by most of the riders. So the comparison will be valuable for a lot of people.
I would like to precise too that this style is not wrong, but does not fit to the extreme carving you can see on our movies.

I have also been riding the same way (or worse) years ago, and had to discover and try what does or doesn’t work.
Riding with Patrice was the key of such an evolution :
- Looking at each other, gave us a lot of ideas to try.
- Having a (totaly pacific) male rivality gave us a fantastic motivation to go further and further every riding day.
- Filming each other helped us a lot to understand our errors (Nils made the long movie you all know with our « correction rushes »).


Comparison

Normal riding :

1. You don’t make any counter-rotation ! Congratulation, this is very very good, because it is the most important.
But you should start them earlier (before the board turns). The board will begin the turn at the moment you stop the rotation.

2. In back side, don’t lean foward with you upper body. You should have the feeling to fall back when turning backside.

3. Nils is right, you have to use the cross under technique, even during normal riding. It gives a much better control of the board (but needs more leg strength…).

Extreme carving :

1. Nils’s explanation is right, except the recovery phase : pulling the legs at 150° is too late on hard snow. It should begin as soon as the board is facing the slope (at 90°). In fact, the worse the snow is (ice for instance), the sooner you should pull your legs. 150° is possible on good snow with a very good board.

2. Advice : when starting the turn and having the board perpendiculary to the slope, you could even point the board a little bit toward the top of the slope.

3. These two points are answering to your question : it allows to separate the gravity and the centrifugal forces. They can’t sum together, because when the gravity force begins to appear (at 90°), pulling the legs cancels the centrifugal one.


Don’t hesitate to ask any question if something is not clear to you.

Jacques

[RicHard]

As first, thank you for your description too.
As second, I have to admit that you are so clear: what you say about centrifugal force and pulling the legs is totally correct. In my riding, when the centrifugal force become stronger (because the gravity is doing the same and il making your board faster) I push the board far from me (the common "Extension" phase): this results in a sum of forces much more hard then the one in the technique you explained.
So, what I experienced during some other test was correct: the sensation (that I described even on my previous message) was that the board don't fight against your legs but go far from them and close to them by itself!...

I've got so many things to check and practice...that I can't wait for dicember. Any chance to have snow in Rome in August?!??!?!


So, thank you once more... you can be sure I'm here reading the posts in the whole forum!
Bye bye, have a nice weekend!

_RicHard.

[rilliet]

Hi Richard,

You have now experienced the EC feeling by yourself: separation of centrifugal and the gravitiy forces during the turn.
You have also probably noticed that in these conditions, the board makes the turn easily, by itself.

I think that you are now ready to make huge and rapid progress in EC.

Have a nice next winter!

Jacques

[audacium]

Hi Richard, Jacques and Nils,


Richard, thanks for having shared the video with us, my style is quite similar and so this discussion is very helpful for me. On friday I went to Hintertux to train a little bit. I mainly concentrated on doing a proper rotation turn and keeping balance in the middle of the board with flexed knees all the time.

This alone makes snowboarding feeling much better, more control also on uneven pistes!

When I tried a few times to initiate a more laid (frontside) turn I encountered the following problem: When going on the edge the turn became much too sharp, that is, I almost got hit in the face with the nose of the board. Is this a common beginner's mistake? Or do I probably have a wrong feet position on my board (I wanted to increase the feet distance, that's why I changed my settings)? The edges are not too sharp, I think. Or do I simply have to concentrate on putting more weight on the back feet? Then I risk losing the balance...

I am riding a Virus Dragster, 164 cm, feet distance 510 mm and angles at 55 and 50 degrees (less does not work because the board width is too little and my feet to big...).

Thanks in advance for your help!


Greetings, Eduard.


P.S.: By the way, if someone is around Munich: In about two weeks I will probably go to Stubaital for another summer carving session, so if you want to join me write me!

[nils]

How wide is the Virus?? it seems it is way too narrow to me (usually virus boards are very narrow)...

The problem you're facing is that the feet having big angles ( above 60°??) its very hard to apply equivalent pressure on both legs when you initiate the turn. The back leg has less power than the front that really acts as a bumper in your situation...Using a wider board allows both legs to work together, and its way easier to push the back leg (push board out of turn feel) when doing first part of turn.. I succeeded in the front turns on a narrow boar this winter, but i felt the need for the same board as Jacques and Patrice....21-23cm width seems optimal...

Munchen i love that city you're a lucky guy !
Lets hope we can organise a big week end in between all cities this winter for extreme carvers (seems its gonna be switzerland, in the middle)..

TschuB
Nils

[rilliet]

Hi Eduard,

To me, your settings seem to be OK. Your Virus is quite wide for a Virus.

I see two possible problems:
1. If you have any canting under your feet. This kills EC turns...
2. Virus boards have traditionnally very short radius (less than 8 meters).
Having the board vertically with such a radius puts all the pressure on the nose and tail, forcing the nose to bite the snow like a shark. That's why your tails wants to hit your face, especialy in frontside EC turns...

So, your problem is not a common beginner mystake, but a common current alpine boards behaviour.

But don't worry, we are organizing an EC board production, he he!


Jacques

[RicHard]

Well, I don't know how tall are you, but 51cm seems to be a very large stance. I don't know how you can have 55/50 on a virus board (they all seems to be very narrow! How large is its waist?)...
My 2 cents opinion:
1) is the board too weak for your weight?
2) was the snow too wet?

It could be very helpful to know if you have the same problem on very hard packed (icy) snow... please, tell us!

Someone says that your weight should be a little more toward the tip at the beginning of the carve and a little bit toward the tail at the end of it... this could help in avoiding nose fold (I think this is the name of what happens to you); but it's important to know if you experience the same trouble even on softer snow.

Virus snowboards, anyway, are built to dig the ice in very cold conditions... so, if you use them on a soft snow, that's what you get!!!
))

Ciao!
_RicHard

[audacium]

Hi,


first thanks to you all for your answers.

A little bit more data:
I am 184 cm and have 79 kilos. The Virus Dragster is one of the wider Virus boards: length 164, waist 19,5 cm, effective edge 145 cm. True, my angles are at the limit with 55 for the front foot and 50 for the rear foot. Especially the latter one is a little bit over the edge with its tip. But because the board is not extremely narrow I can have quite comfortable angles, compared to other models like Nightmare (15 cm waist!). I have a heel lifting under the rear foot (about 0,8 cm) and a very weak toe lift under the front foot (about 0,2 cm) (the classic race board gear). No canting.

I did not know about the radius because Virus does not publish the radius of its models. If it is at 8 m, compared to your boards at 13 m I think this would be a very simple explanation for my "nose fold". And I would probably be a future customer of EC boards!! (But I will keep my Virus!)
Also, I had very soft conditions in Hintertux - it is July. So this may have added to the problems.

I cannot really judge whether the board is too weak for my weight, I think I miss experience here. How can I see this? In general I cannot complain at all about grip. When I rode the board the first time it was rather that I had to get accustomed to the "aggressive" behaviour in turns.

So the board seems to be for me somewhat too short, too narrow and the radius too small for ideal EC conditions. But I will keep on (until I get a real EC board)!


Eduard.

P.S.: I would be a participant in an EC meeting in winter!

[binaural]

hey all!
Wow, this was an extremely usefull thread. Richard, I have the same style as you have, almost identical... Funny!
A racing trainer at the school I got my instructor diploma told me this is the slalom style. So the way to get around the gates ASAP. We should compete once...
Can´t wait to pratice!

Jasper