sensation of gravity/pressure when fully laid out?

[nils]

At this moment you are indeed not absorbing much, but cutting through anything that comes under the edge. A good part of the bump is sliced, the other shakes the rider but usually won't make you loose the edge.. On the first movie you can see a few times where bumps don't do anything... especially on one of Patrice backside which I put in slow motion, showing how the board slices and absorbs a good part of the bump in the nose without problem. Patrice absorbs the rest of the energy (he is our hero)

So it means you are shaked in bumps at this precise moment of full extension, but its not really a problem because the board and the rider will absorb most. The problem with bumps is with the ones that are above the edge, near the chest area for example> you do take those ususally directly in the chest and it can be pretty painful and can eject you... This is why you prefer morning groomed slopes rather than late afternoon moguls for EC!
nils

[harald]

Hi Ken, Jason_Watkins, and Chris,
It has been an interesting discussion on gravity forces and edge pressure. It also seem to be some confusion on the topic between basic carving technique, push-pull, and EC. My hope is to help sorting things out. Basic carving technique is to make the board turning in a clean arc where the tip and end of the board pass through the same line. This is made possible by edging the board. The sidecut and how much the board is bent will then then decide the radius of the arc. The important thing is then to start the turn by edging and then steering the board through the turn without skidding. In push-pull, as I have understood it, the turn is started with a slight upper body rotation in the direction of the turn and then immediately the board is edged by using the knees and body inclination (leaning). The instruction movies under the Technique section and the very last part of Stoked illustrate this well. The EC is the rotational technique applied in extreme carving turns, while push-pull is applied in order to steering the board and keep it in contact with the snow and carving throughout the turn. Racers have to make the turns without loosing speed, change direction quickly and avoid the gates. Therefore, a lot of movements are done from the hips and down, but I have seen from my own clubracers that they train and practice a variation of the rotational technique. Therefore, as long as the carve is done in some upright position, there are more similarities than dissimilarities between the various techniques. It is a matter of what works best under different snow and terrain conditions.
Ken wrote:
-"In bomber carves you have a compressed body all throughout, and you have very little pressure on the edge during the first half of the turn and then massive pressure that builds up quickly during the second half of the turn.
In EC turns, you push during the first half of the turn, which gives you some pressure on the edge, and then pull back in during the second half, which lessens the pressure."

If bomber carves mean ordinary carving in an upright position, it sounds for me as bad technique. After having studied good carvers and practiced myself, the body is extended during the turn (push) and then retracted at the end (pull) in order to keep an even pressure on the board and absorb the forces at the end. How much depends on the length of the turn. Applying little pressure in the beginning and applying more in the end runs the risk of not initiating the turn properly and a lot of pressure in the end may cause skidding and loss of balance.

jason_watkins wrote:
-"With push-pull, how can I soften switching onto the edge, so that I don't overpower the soft snow here in fall/spring? The bomber/race style lets you build edge pressure gradually through the entire first half of the turn, whereas push pull seems to require a more violent edge switch. Is there a way to build the edge pressure more gradually?"

As explained with the push-pull technique it seems like you have misunderstood it. You initiate the turn with a slight upper body rotation and then you edge. The dosing of your edging depend on how you use your knees and can be done as gentle as you want. In fact the rotational style and push-pull make it even more easy to turn in soft and bad snow conditions. How much edge pressure to apply is a matter of developing balance and feeling for the snow.

Chris wrote:
-"I have taught myself to keep the same pressure on my edge at all times. When I first started making some good carves my board threw me around a lot because the pressure that went through the edge to my legs would change so drastically. I found that if you just let you're knees take all of the pressure then you will come to realize how much pressure you have to apply to the board to keep the feeling the same the whole way through."

This sounds like a very good basic technique, allowing for immediate adjustments to changes in terrain and snow conditions.
The essence of a good carving technique for me is to be able to initiate the turn properly, keep a good carve with even pressure throughout the turn and adjust the amount of edging to the snow conditions and terrain.

[Pux]

Hi,
I am quite new in carving technique because I switched to hard boots just last season after finding this site.
Both, EC and Bomber sites me helped a lot to manage the board with hard boots.
I tried Cross-over, Cross under and Cross thought technique (described by Jack Michaud) and as well followed to recommendations from EC site (the first site I opening daily).
Actually, I did not find big difference from basic EC and cross under technique except difference in angulations and prerotation.
EC site have better explanation how to eliminate counter rotation. As well description of the feelings during the push - pull turn was helpful.

Please advise if there are other significant differences in these two methods (push-pull and cross-under).

Season never ends,
Normunds

[fivat]

Wow! This thread is really very good!
Harald, your last post is excellent... You understand the EC technique probably better than me. I'm only an empirical rider.

I did not find big difference from basic EC and cross under technique except difference in angulations and prerotation.

Indeed I think that what is done with the legs is very similar! The rest of the technique is really different.

Patrice Fivat

[Mphdemon]

I have been watching the vids for a while and one thing that I've come to notice is that when you push it looks like you're pushing with your back foot more. Which causes you to lean foward slightly, am I percieving this right, or am I just crazy. Also you gave an example before that the turn is similar to sitting on your bed. You just kinda lean back and let yourself fall, but on a board you add a rotation. Do you mean that during the turn you lean towards the back of the board, at least at the beginning.

There was one time when I think I made one of you're turns on accident, I hadn't yet learned about your technique, and now that I think about what I had done to get that turn I seem to recal that I was leaning back slightly. But maybe I was just not as far foward as I usually was. If you have any advice for me or anything, that would be great.

[kjl]

If bomber carves mean ordinary carving in an upright position, it sounds for me as bad technique.

I'm not sure whare you mean by "ordinary carving in an upright position". The main difference you can see is in the body position in the "most laid out" section of the carve.

In EC carves, at the most laid out position, the legs and body are both extended, which seems good (if I understand Jacques correctly), in that you have room to collapse (pull your board) if the edge pressure becomes too much in the later part of the carve.

In contrast, Bomber turns aim to maximize the body angulation as much as possible, so the knees are very bent and your body is heavily inclined at the waist. See this image:
http://www.bomberonline.com/Photo_Galle ... arve46.jpg
You can see his hips/butt are touching the snow, so he has about the same edge inclination as Jacques and Patrice, but he has much higher angulation here than J&P in the EC turns. So he is in a more stable position for absorbing edge pressure.

Therefore it seems to me bomber turns aim to maximize stability throughout the entire turn, despite the fact that the edge pressure is only high during one half of the turn, whereas the EC turns aim to distribute pressure more evenly throughout the turn, and only maximize stability (high body angulation) towards the end of the carve, when the pressure begins to build up.

After having studied good carvers and practiced myself, the body is extended during the turn (push) and then retracted at the end (pull) in order to keep an even pressure on the board and absorb the forces at the end. How much depends on the length of the turn. Applying little pressure in the beginning and applying more in the end runs the risk of not initiating the turn properly and a lot of pressure in the end may cause skidding and loss of balance.

Do you think it would be fair to say the following?
* In general riding technique, it is good to keep the knees bent, but not too much, because there are 2 general cases for which you need to prepare:
Case 1) in the case of a bump and increased edge pressure, you can collapse your knees (pull the board towards you) to absorb the extra pressure.
Case 2) in the case of a dip and decreased edge pressure, you can extend your knees (push the board away from you), to maintain edge pressure.

* However, in a carve, you know for a fact that edge pressure will be much higher towards the second half of the turn, as you fight centrifugal force + gravity. Therefore it is not necessary to prepare for Case 2 in the second half of the turn, and you can enter the second half of the turn completely extended.

Do I have it right?

[audacium]

Chillaxin: Bumps are not the problem as in EC the force coming from a bump is nearly perpendicular to the body and the extended legs (one only needs some flexibility in the hips when the legs move sidewards ). You need to bend your knees to absorb bumps when the board is not (or not very much) inclined --> then the forces from a bump are parallel to the body and the legs. As Nils noted: Bumps are painful when one hits them with the body or gets his fingers / hands / arms caught.

Regarding "bomber-carves" and "rotational motion": In my opinion they simply originate from the race sport , i.e., a typical bomber carve is designed to bring one as fast and safe as possible through a race track. There you want to make as short turns as possible (with every turn one loses speed) (so you do "banana turns" rather than closed turns as Patrice called it) and one wants to go as near as possible around the gates.
Bomber carves (with this typical hanging off) do exactly this. Quite clearly it would not be a good idea to go through a race course with laid turns

And whether one initiates turns by rotational motion or counter rotation depends in my opinion on the situation. Turns via rotational motion are more proper as they give more flexibility and maneuvrability. However their "disadvantage" is that they are slower compared to turns via counter-rotation. Remember, e.g., if one has to stop immediately one uses a hard turn with counter rotation. So I understand for myself why one can see e.g. counter rotation of pro-riders in a race course.
EC carves are thus somewhat slower and demand more space, of course. So bomber carves are not "bad" or "wrong", but they have their place rather in the race courses, I would say.

Because:

Apart from all that I would dare to say now that bomber carves are simply not as nice as EC carves and by far not so "stylish". (it has too much of a "sitting" position) I would even say that it is not that difficult to simply bend the body to a high degree and just reach out to the snow. EC carves with the whole body on the snow demand a lot of practice but the result is impressive, isn't it?
If you are a racer: You need bomber carves, that's fine.
If you are not: Learn EC-carves: They have more style and give much better feelings (at least that was my experience after I changed my riding style)

[pokkis]

audacium:
"Remember, e.g., if one has to stop immediately one uses a hard turn with counter rotation."

Sorry but i dont get this ? If i need to stop quickly, i really do rotational hard turn cause that is safest and quickest way to turn quickly.
Racers do occasionally what ever needed to do to survive on track, one should never look just one shot or one turn there, rather general way of riding during whole race.

[audacium]

Hi Pokkis,


with rotational motion: one initiates the turn with a body rotation. When the body rotation stops the board begins to follow. But only then. So this takes some time.
With a counter rotation every counter rotation of the body is immediately transmitted to the board. So if I need to bring the board to a stop immediately I will do a counter rotation to get an immediate "edge-reaction" from the board, as I cannot wait for the body rotation to stop and the board to follow..
Maybe it is a little misunderstanding, I talked about hard stopping and not about hard turning. For the latter I would agree to you.
It was only my intention to show that counter rotation has its place. Not in EC, but sometimes on the race track or for a fast stop. So counter rotation is not wrong per se, it has to be applied in the right situation.

[rilliet]

Do you think it would be fair to say the following?
* In general riding technique, it is good to keep the knees bent, but not too much, because there are 2 general cases for which you need to prepare:
Case 1) in the case of a bump and increased edge pressure, you can collapse your knees (pull the board towards you) to absorb the extra pressure.
Case 2) in the case of a dip and decreased edge pressure, you can extend your knees (push the board away from you), to maintain edge pressure.

In my opinion, I would bent my knies the most I can because:
- (case 1) the bump will push your feet up, helping you to pull your board.
- The stiffness of hardboots prevents us to bend the knees enough.
- case 2
- The lower the rider is, the lower his gravity center is and the best balance he gets.

You can make a test on your next riding day:
On a piste with a lot of uneveness, try to ride with your knees more or less bent and test by yourself the position that makes you feel the piste more flat.
For myself, the lower I am, the smoother the piste seems to me.

However, in a carve, you know for a fact that edge pressure will be much higher towards the second half of the turn, as you fight centrifugal force + gravity. Therefore it is not necessary to prepare for Case 2 in the second half of the turn, and you can enter the second half of the turn completely extended.

Yes, most of the time. But there are situations where you can't fully extend your legs: on very hard and icy snow when the piste surface is quite uneven and the edge tends to skid.

Jacques

[kjl]

You can make a test on your next riding day:
On a piste with a lot of uneveness, try to ride with your knees more or less bent and test by yourself the position that makes you feel the piste more flat.
For myself, the lower I am, the smoother the piste seems to me.

Yes, I keep my knees bent for this reason as well. I was originally an all-mountain tree/off-piste rider, so I am very used to bumps, chop, and things like that, and of course you need the knees bend or you will ge thrown around like a rag doll.

It seems to me the push-pull turn has some analogies to this situation: you are riding fast, quickly approaching a small dip (sharp downhill, then sharp uphill). The worst way possible to ride it is to keep your legs locked in the same position and fall into the dip (feeling weightless for a moment) and then getting getting crushed on the uphill (feeling very heavy). Most good snowboarders will crouch very low, then rapidly extend the legs on the downhill, so as to keep the head at the same altitude and feeling the same pressure on the board, and then suck the board back into the body on the uphill. Carving a full C turn is the same: very low pressure at the start of the carve and then very high pressure at the end, so it makes no sense to keep the legs in the same position - but to push during the low pressure part and pull on the high pressure part...

Regarding "bomber-carves" and "rotational motion": In my opinion they simply originate from the race sport , i.e., a typical bomber carve is designed to bring one as fast and safe as possible through a race track. There you want to make as short turns as possible (with every turn one loses speed) (so you do "banana turns" rather than closed turns as Patrice called it) and one wants to go as near as possible around the gates.
Bomber carves (with this typical hanging off) do exactly this. Quite clearly it would not be a good idea to go through a race course with laid turns.

I don't think bomber style turns have counterrotation, necessarily. In that image I posted earlier: http://www.bomberonline.com/Photo_Galle ... arve46.jpg you can see the shoulders are rotated towards the nose of the board. The real difference is that he is bending his upperbody upright to provide more angulation. I would argue that his body position is more stable (less likely to skip or skid) than the fully-laid EC position at the same amount of G's, but the EC carve is probably better because you are only in the fully-laid out EC position when the G's are not at the maximum, and after pulling the board in towards the end of the turn, the body positions begins to look more like the bomber stance, while at the same time reducing the maximum amount of G's (by spreading it out through the turn via push-pull).

[rilliet]

It seems to me the push-pull turn has some analogies to this situation: you are riding fast, quickly approaching a small dip (sharp downhill, then sharp uphill). The worst way possible to ride it is to keep your legs locked in the same position and fall into the dip (feeling weightless for a moment) and then getting getting crushed on the uphill (feeling very heavy). Most good snowboarders will crouch very low, then rapidly extend the legs on the downhill, so as to keep the head at the same altitude and feeling the same pressure on the board, and then suck the board back into the body on the uphill. Carving a full C turn is the same: very low pressure at the start of the carve and then very high pressure at the end, so it makes no sense to keep the legs in the same position - but to push during the low pressure part and pull on the high pressure part...

That's an excellent example! But there is a difference: In your situation, the rider tries to keep his body in a vertical position (the same during the whole dip). In EC, when you are turning horizontally, your body makes a 180° rotation in the longitudinal plan, because your feet are making a much longer path than your head.

I don't think bomber style turns have counterrotation, necessarily. In that image I posted earlier: http://www.bomberonline.com/Photo_Galle ... arve46.jpg you can see the shoulders are rotated towards the nose of the board.

I agree, this is a rotation position.

I would argue that his body position is more stable (less likely to skip or skid) than the fully-laid EC position at the same amount of G's

In my opinion, a bent upperbody is less stable than an extended one on unevenesses. But if the board skips, I think the bomberstyle position allows easier edge recovery because the rider is sliding sitting instead of lying. And of course, in race situation, the EC rider can't avoid the slalom sticks...

[yyzcanuck]

I haven't followed through this entire thread, and maybe I should before writing this. I often don't know what I'm talking about, but that's never stopped me from shooting my mouth off!

I take exception to having turns that are not "EC" in nature, referred to as "Bomber" turns. And especially if you want to call those turns 'banana' turns.

I have ridden with many of the riders that post on BomberOnline, and can assure you that "EC" turns are not the only type that are 'closed'. I would say that most riders, capable of riding steep (you be the judge of what steep is!) trails finds the necessity to close their turns, and infact ride back up the fall line. I like to call these turns "figure 8's". Wait at the top of the trail when one of these FIGURE 8 riders is ahead of you. Pretty impressive to see the P-tex of their board as they initiate their next turn.

I think there's room for many riding styles, and EC is just another 'style'.

[rilliet]

I think there's room for many riding styles, and EC is just another 'style'.

YES! Snowboarding is a very rich sport that is able to show many faces.
Everyone has the right to say what he thinks and to defend his opinions.

Snowboarding is just a sport that gives us a huge pleasure.

Jacques

[kjl]

I take exception to having turns that are not "EC" in nature, referred to as "Bomber" turns. And especially if you want to call those turns 'banana' turns.

I have ridden with many of the riders that post on BomberOnline, and can assure you that "EC" turns are not the only type that are 'closed'.

I agree! I like to think that I make complete C-turns, and I currently ride the bomberonline style, and I have certainly seen much better carvers than myself riding bomber style making those figure 8 turns riding uphill on the transition. I think racing/counterrotation turns are different from both EC turns and bomber turns. However, racing turns probably need to provide a lot of angulation to their body position as well, which is why they look vaguely like bomber turns (aside from the upperbody rotation).