push-pull

[e_wi]

Hello,
I have been carving since a couple of years, but during ECS06 I didn't get extreme carving at all.

I've been working on my EC technique for 6 days and reached some progress:

Starting goin down at backside, legs almost straight, followed by a dynamic powerfull rotation of the shoulders and a sudden flexion of the knees with a pulling away-motion of the swoard towards behind myself, resulted in a huge carve-pressure on the slope and when the nose of the swoard was directed straight down, I straightend my whole body and felt the beginning of frontside layed down motion. My edge kept on goin, without slipping-spinning out....what a great feeling !!!...I wish it never stopped, but I was loosing speed and my body lifted up, although it shouldn't do that....from the frontside I rotated my shoulders powerfull to the direction in which I wanted to go and almost at the same time I tried to pull up my knees without lifting up the body and pas the swoard in front of myself, trying to feel my edge-pressure on the backside and then straightening my body; laying down was a lot more difficult ... apprehension maybe ??
Hope to get some more kicks this winter...thank's to the Swoard-team and internet.

[fivat]

Hope to get some more kicks this winter...thank's to the Swoard-team and internet.

You are welcome
And above all: thanks to the Swoard board

Patrice Fivat

[e_wi]

Yèp, thank's to the Swoard-board, I love it !!!!

[skywalker]

Hello e_wi.

So here a more detailled answer to a detailled question:

Starting goin down at backside, legs almost straight, followed by a dynamic powerfull rotation of the shoulders and a sudden flexion of the knees

Sudden flexion is rather a flexion turn than push pull. On push pull turns your legs are already flexed (due to the pulling at the end of the previous turn). The picture I used was the sine curve. This will give you more control during edge change.

[...]I wish it never stopped, but I was loosing speed and my body lifted up, although it shouldn't do that....

pulling (flexing your legs) at some higher speed will get you up with some speed left. If you lose too muich speed during the turn, maybe the slope is not steep enough. If the slope is steep, check your turn for skidding.

from the frontside I rotated my shoulders powerfull to the direction in which I wanted to go and almost at the same time I tried to pull up my knees without lifting up the body and pas the swoard in front of myself, trying to feel my edge-pressure on the backside and then straightening my body; laying down was a lot more difficult ...

First of all, to most carvers EC backside is more difficult.
There was a discussion about "preload" in this forum some months ago. I do not want to stress this word any more, but if you watch some of the vids carefully, you will recognize some very little additional frontside turn exactle before the starting of the bs. In this way you will receive additional momentum for your backside, bring your board to the edge earlier and avoid to skid into your turn.

now you only will have to train your mind to lay down the slope backwards...

Hope to get some more kicks this winter...thank's to the Swoard-team and internet.

Hope to meet you at the ECS (bring with you a lot of snow )

skywalker

[e_wi]

thank's for the feed-back, Tom, I will read this some more times to see if I understand everything and try to practise it at the end of the month....sorry I won't be at EC07 this time, hope you get lots of snow anyhow.
later, Eric

[e_wi]

When you start to go down a slope and you don't have no speed, is it possible to push-pull right away ?

[e_wi]

The picture I used was the sine curve.

What do you mean ??
thank's, eric

[e_wi]

I worked on cross-under technique and felt some new sensations again:

At the end of the curve, just before edge-change, I made some fast "sit-down on your heels"-motion and added the pull-motion, to really feel the board is drawn underneath myself. This was different from other carve-sensations where the board just followed the carve-motion without really pulling it, this was new and a great feeling.

I continued all this with dynamic shoulder rotation at the moment of edge-change and then pushing the board became real easy and the board had fantastic grip and didn't slip away at all.

In the beginning I tried this on easy slopes and later on a nice large red slope and tried to do this more and more dynamic and powerfull and suddenly I was laying down my turns; some time ago I layed down because I wanted to do this, but now it was a new feeling because the laying down motion just happened without insisting on it.
What a kick !!!
Hope y'all have the same adrenaline !!!

[e_wi]

I still have hard times laying down on the backside, but at Les Orres this week I made some backside turns against the upper part of a huge ramp and it felt like if my head was lower then the board...funny feeling...

Still progressing, but not satisfied yet, go on having fun before the snow is gone !!!