Technical advices, please

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Swayne
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Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Monday 2 December 2013, 22:40

Heyhey,

I have been absent "some" time from Extremecarving due to health issues (knee, back)...

After Zinal 2011 I opened a thread where I asked for advices for my technique:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=8735

In this thread I was asked to delete the soundtrack for the video where I display my riding - I did that now:


Additionally, I was told to film me doing push-pull to see how I handle the basics. I also have a video for push-pull now:


I appreciate any comments and hints. For those who gave me advices in the original thread: Thank you! You don`t need to repeat your comments but maybe you have some thoughts about the push-pull video.

Greets and thanks in advance!
Sven

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Wednesday 11 December 2013, 11:30

:cry:

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fivat
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by fivat » Wednesday 11 December 2013, 17:35

Please, could a good extremecarver help him? ;-)
Thank you!
We are too busy these days at work with the new boards and the Christmas rush.

Patrice Fivat

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tali
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by tali » Wednesday 11 December 2013, 19:24

Well, it seems only I am left from the best ones 8)
First of all, Sven it's so great to see you are back on the slopes! :clap3:

I looked at your latest video and the previous topic and I would say that you could still use and re-use some of the great pieces of advice you got there.
What I would suggest:
(1) try not to bend your back in the effort to rich the slope asap. Your arms also want to reach the slope. Try to practice with the arms "glued" to your body, or put them on your hips, or even cross them on your chest.
(2) I cannot understand it from the video, but try to make sure that you do not go down but bring your knees/board up. If you relax your legs and try to continue the previous turn "to the extreme" (keeping rotation and everything) you should feel a point at which your board has nearly no pressure. At this point you should "lift' your board, swing, and change the edge. If you feel that you "fight"/force your board to change the edge, the timing needs improvement.
(3) I still see some counter-rotation in your turns.

Hope it helps.

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Steel Rod Drill

Post by rcrobar » Wednesday 11 December 2013, 23:13

Hi There

First of all there are a lot of great things happening with your technique.

Secondly, I am not an expert but I do enjoy trying to understand what movements are correct and what needs to be worked on ... so I will try to help out a bit. Maybe this too will help to get the ball rolling.

When transitioning from your back side (heel edge) to your front side (toe edge), it seems that you are bending at the waist creating a ')' body position. My guess is you are using the momentum of your head/upper body moving into the turn, towards the snow, to help initiate your turn.

When transitioning from your front side (toe edge) to your back side (heel edge) you are doing a similar bending movement that is also putting you into a ')' position. Look at the angle of your chest, in relation to the board, at the beginning and middle of your turn. At the beginning of the turn your chest is quite upright, as you go through your turn your chest moves towards your board.

DRILL - Here is a drill/tip/suggestion to try on an easy slope:

Imagine you have a steel rod that runs down your entire spine, head, neck and all the way to your board.

The only way you can move your body vertically is via bending your knees and ankles. At the same time your upper body is able to rotate around the steel rod. Finally your upper body and lower body can not bend into a ')' position as the steel rod will not permit this movement.

If you want you can add another part to the drill, put your arms/hands tight to your body while riding. Hopefully this might give you a mental image one aspect of your turn that could be examined further.

Cheers from one apprentice to another.
Rob

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Abrax » Wednesday 18 December 2013, 22:05

:-) First of all I have few questions to you. Your legs seem to work in a very inproper way which is in my opinion caused by the way your bindings and boots are set up.

Do you use a lift on your rear foot or any canting?

You don't work with your knees, which leads you to bent position when you try to touch the snow. We don't do this - snow comes to us instead :-)

Seems that your rear knee is not separated enough from your front knee -> this is probably caused by lifted, canted or lifted and canted rear foot heel.

So basically you will be much closer to the snow in between the turns if you will start bending your ankles, flexing your knees. Separating your knees will give you more stable position and will allow a little higher speed.

How about your boots? Do they alow flexing in ankle? Do you have a spring system or you go with standard system? What are your boots?

Seems that you are determined to touch the snow -> good but I will show you a better way to achieve this :-)

Your movements are not fluent enough -> please try to squat at home, but not as usual, try differing the speed of the squat during the movements. Try to start gently, speed up and slow down during all the way down, then try to vary the speed constantly during the up / down movements. This will help us master the push-pull later :-)

Video analysis:
Swayne Push-Pull display: It's almost good but:
0:13 - board is flat, your legs are perpendicular to the board, your upper body is bent in half... wrong, should bend your knees, go down low and be in position which your head is on a line which is also perpendicular to the board.
0:15 - you crouch, twist and then you change the edge, then rapidly push. try not to to crouch, but be in crouched position, start the turn by changing the edge while twisting and pushing at the same time and then at the end of the turn pull to be back in the same position to be ready for the frontside turn,
1:00 - now this looks better but you still bend in half and don't flex your knees enough, good carved edge but not good body position
Extremecarving Session Zinal 2011 :
0:08 - you have forced this turn by counter rotation of your upper body -> wrong, please keep in mind that this is your front knee which should twist your board to start the turn, so rotating the body in the direction of the turn will cause the turn, not the opposite! rotation will finally move your knee into the direction of the turn and this is what should initiate a turn and not as in this case, throwing your mass in the opposite direction to have enough spin to be able to force your board turned under your feet.
0:11 - you should go down and what you do is that you go forward and bend in half to reach the snow...
0:13 - in this moment you should be pushing and you are in a crouched position
0:15 - you have bent in half, which has allowed you to touch the snow, you are high and you should be low right above the board, touching the snow should be due to leaning your whole body into the turn and not by bending in half to be able to reach the snow...
0:25 - the left arm goes high, and back which is caused by the fact that counter - rotation is still present in your turn (do not counter rotate, use your front knee to start the turn and to guide your board)
0:45 - look how bent you are... your head should be in the line which is set by your legs and is perpendicular to the board...

More to come but let's go step by step and let's check your setup first:
stance, flexing boots and then we go :-)
PS: you drive your cut edge in a nice way!
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by tali » Wednesday 18 December 2013, 23:49

Wow, Rafal, this was a thorough analysis! :bravo:
Do you believe that the exercises I proposed will help cure the illnesses you've diagnosed?

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Abrax » Thursday 19 December 2013, 6:41

Tali - you were right with all the points, and this is going to help a lot!

The more coaching the better! :-) It's always good to hear tips from different perspectives...

I try to do my best but in this case I am a bit concerned. After I have slept a night I come to the conclusion that Swayne is a bit simillar to the style I was few years ago :-) So keep your head up and train train train!!!!

Swayne - next time please record a movie which is taken from a constant position from down the slope and then maybe once a 3 times from top of the slope. Don't let your friend go with you - this kind of video will be better for further analysis :-)
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Sunday 22 December 2013, 23:15

rcrobar, tali and Abrax, thank you very much for your advices and analysis'! :pray2:

I will try the drills and watch the videos again to understand your differenciated hints. There are some days left to do some theoretical and mental training before I go on the slope for one week (29th of Dec). Unfortunately I don`t have internet there so I can`t check back every evening. This means I`ve got to get most things straight before my holidays by asking people, collecting texts and videos on my laptop.

One thing I realised now is that I do some wrong movements in general and have some wrong movement timing. For example, I hadn`t realised yet, that I have to pull the board more to me instead of going down to my board (although it`s called push and PULL). I think that leads to too much pressure in the end of a turn.

I see that I don`t flex my knees enough and go down with my body instead. This may be a technical problem but besides that it`s possibly a problem of my equipment. Until know I used: very old unmodified Burton boots with most probably not enough forward flex and a cheap proflex Binding which is made of plastic and relatively soft (Abrax, no cant or lift at all).

I bought a pair of Deeluxe Suzuka + ACSS (still to be mounted) and a F2 Race Titanium now. I don`t expect any wonders but some better possibilities from the new equipment.

Keep your hints coming, they`re well appreciated! I`ll provide some new videos when I`m back from my holidays. :D

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Abrax » Sunday 22 December 2013, 23:42

Swayne wrote:I bought a pair of Deeluxe Suzuka + ACSS (still to be mounted) and a F2 Race Titanium now. I don`t expect any wonders but some better possibilities from the new equipment.
You are wrong... Things are going to be seriously better :-) IMO half of the position mistakes may have been wrong due to way too stiff boots and a big need to follow the right style :-) Show us a movie in new boots as soon as possible!

One more thing - if you didn't have any lift on your back foot - please keep in mind that you want your knees separated as much as possible in a turn and not as old style burton riders in 90's knee to knee :naughty:
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Monday 23 December 2013, 14:50

Hehe, I`m really looking forward to trying out the new equipment!

Can you explain the "knees separated"-aspect a bit more detailed, please? Do you mean the distance between the knees or do you mean separated movements?
How do I achieve the separation?

Btw: My binding is set up with 55° and 50°.

Right now I`m also collecting videos for my holidays to watch them in the evening. I found good ones by BEN

and this serie of tutorials which I find really hepful


One more thing: Are there general advices to avoid/reduce knee pain in the front knee? I have big knee problems and need to take some care (patellar tendonitis) to not need too much painkillers. :roll:

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Abrax » Monday 23 December 2013, 15:07

Saparated means not glued together so the oposite to what I can see on your video... The only wrong movement which we discuss now is the body banding forward. Keep your position natural and please keep your weight 50%/50% on both feet to avoid knee problems.



55/50 is just perfect :-)
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Thursday 9 January 2014, 23:10

I`m back from my week of boarding in Schnalstal/Val Senales (IT) now. All in all we were lucky with the weather.

I made some videos to get your opinion again. Unfortunately I had problems with the cams (two which didn`t properly work) leading to very few usable videos without zoom or anything.

The first two days I only practiced rotation (drift turns and carved ones) and push/pull before I went on to try some laydowns. I also did the "steelrod"-drill, which rcrobar recommended. Though, I wasn`t fully satisfied with my results.
I started the laydowns with single ones without getting up (like described in the youtube videos by the russian EC-school).

I have my thoughts on my progresses and non-progresses but want to ask for your opinion first.

1. Roation:
2. Push/pull #1:
3. Push/pull #2:
4. Laydown tries backside:
5. Laydown tries frontside:

Due to the camera-problems I have only these two videos from trying laydowns. The conditions were absolutely subpar: bad sight, a lot of fresh, soft snow on a blue piste and I wasn`t really ready but I was under time pressure (had just 1 try each)... don`t wanna say I can do it MUCH better, but it`s a pity that I have only those two vids from 1 week of boarding.

So, your thoughts are appreciated again! :hello:

Sidenote:
I had huge problem with my new boots (Deeluxe Suzuka) on the right foot (goofy).They are too wide at the instep (top of the foot) and I modified the two straps of the second buckle (counted from below) with repair tape to get the second buckle tighter (liners are MP 27, my foot MP 26,5). The modification worked but I had almost unbearable pain at the bone of my instep. The problem is that the shoe seems to squeeze my tendon and the nerve of the big toe, resulting in a deaf feeling in the big toe (not a problem of lacking blood). It`s still a little deaf and I still get kind of little electric shocks in the toe when squeezing my instep. On the last day I had the idea of inserting the liner from my Blax boots which seemed to be a tad better but my instep was already so swollen that probably nothing could help.
Any recommendations concerning this problem?

Thx in advance!

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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Abrax » Friday 10 January 2014, 7:28

Sure,

If the problem is with the height of your feet: A felt pad inside your liner, just below the footpad solves the problem for me. A better option is a PVC foam pad put below the liner.

If it's wideness: use a foam (same as used in the mountains for sleeping) glued to the outside of your liners on sides.

Or... As suggested before, invest in new liners made with thermoflex foam... But if there is a height problem, you will need to increase the inside of the boot's height first.

I will analyze your videos on Monday, we just start our 3 days snowboard meeting today...
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Re: Technical advices, please

Post by Swayne » Friday 10 January 2014, 9:20

Thanx, Abrax, I`ll see what I can do.

Have fun! :mrgreen:

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