When ever i switch from toeside back onto heelside, unless im slide carving (scarving) it's fine... however when i try to carve sometimes my edge doesn't dig in, and the board starts to slide out from under me and just turns into a mess. I can dig in my heelside no problem, but heelside is my anti christ!
Harpack and ice is tricky to hold an edge at the bottom of the turn when carving. All forces come together here to want to throw the board to the outside of the turn...gravity, momentum and centrifugal force. A few things you can do to help increase your edge hold here:
More angulation, less inclination: The more you incline (lean) your body toward the inside of the turn, the more force is directed to the outside of the turn horizontally. This adds more stress to your edge hold. By using more angulation of the ankles, knees and hips. you can maintain the high edge angles needed for good carving, yet keep you body over the top of the board exerting all force vertically down onto your edge thus providing superior edge hold.
Aft shift of your weight through the turn: It is always the tail that starts to skid first when a carve begins to fail and turn into a skid. At the critical point in the bottom of the turn, shifting your weight slightly aft of your centered stance, weights the tail and increases the edge hold.
Flexion and extension: Start into each carved turn low by using good down unweighting movements to make your edge changes. As the turn progresses, slowly extend through each turn. This rising through the turn applies additional downward force locking your edge into the snow better.
Work the top of the turn: Complete each turn to manage speed and make the edge change earlier so you get your new edge set before the board enters into the fall line. By working the top of the turn, you can get the edge engaged early and even use the top of the turn to do a little braking early so you don not enter the bottom of the turn with so much force.
Stay loose: The reason we have more difficulty maintaining a good quality carve heelside is a result of our ankles for the most part. When toeside, we have great range of movement and can use our toes to "soften" of "dampen" the ride a bit. On heelside, our ankles simply don`t work that way. The trick is to loosen up the knees more to get the same level of shock absorption. This is where more angulation also helps us out. When you carve heelside, allow a bit more looseness in the knees to absorb any vibrations or chatter so you keep the board in positive contact with the snow.
Play around with these concepts and you should see that when you get the timing down, things will click for you...:thumbsup:
do you have any forward lean on your bindings? that will help a lot.. I ride with no forward lean and have this problem.. but two notches of forward lean and I hold them much easier.... but giving lessons with forward lean is a big no no for me.
...Well hell, look at it like this... you are using your equipment against you instead of for you.. I say instead of practicing you just change the settings to give you some forward lean... take a few runs and see if it doesn't help tremendously the way I believe it will... and if I'm wrong then you can come back and say hey kink you were wrong... then I will find where you live, because I'm never wrong
Sorry to hijack the thread, but quick question for carving with duck stance. Where should my back knee be? As normal in duck stance or semi-aimed towards the front of the board?
You'll want to have your shoulders and hips rotated to the inside of the turn which will re orient your back knee a little more forward. But I wouldn't actively turn the back knee towards the front of the board or tuck it towards your front knee. This will take pressure off the back half of the board and be more likely to generate skid. If you feel like you need more pressure forward, it probably means that you aren't moving your weight forward far enough at the start of the turn or that you are moving your weight back too soon in your turn. For really aggressive heelsides in duck stance I find that I need to leave my weight forward longer in my turn than when on toeside.
Having it rotated forward could cause you to put too much weight on it at an unnatural angle... resulting in a knee injury... meniscus I believe.. no for carving if you are -15/15 or regular 15/-15 concentrate on not twisting that back knee too much.
I did it for a while and have a bad left knee.. and after a day of riding like that I could barely walk the next day.
I will second Kink's advice here. Always take advantage of your equipment options to assist your riding. Forward lean is huge in maintaining good, responsive heelside turns. Ironically it also helps your toeside too. The main reason for this is it allows you to maintain higher edge angle heelside without inclination (leaning back) thus keeps the edge locked in with your weight stacked over the board. It helps toeside because it tends to force you to ride with the knees bent and in a better athletic stance.
Forward lean for freeride and none for park; especially jibbing where unwanted edging is super bad.
Interesting. What do you recommend for forward lean? I've always had it straight back. Medium? Max? I mostly freeride getting good at it, not many jumps ... yet.
-.- I need a prestige so people ask my advice, I'll give it time... I would say adjust it slowly towards the max taking a run in between each adjustment... depending on your bindings this should be relatively quick... and just keep doing it until you find a good setting for you or when you notice the skid is lessening from the heelside carves. :thumbsup:
Great thread I thought I'd resurrect as I'm early intermediate skill level and working on heelside carving.
My understanding is that we have an anatomical deficit with heel flexion and stacking our weight over the heelside edge. I've heard people say for heelside 'Sit in the Chair'.
On toeside I feel like I can carve even uphill toward the end of the turn, but for heelside - no love. I'm trying to get as much angle as possible, stacking my weight but end up either washing out or falling. I'm also unsure as to when I should initiate the heelside carve as sometimes if I've gone toeside to be practically perpendicular to the fall line, it feels like not enough pressure to stay on edge. (maybe need to keep more speed?) I like to carve upwards on the hill (to about perpendicular to fall line) near end of my turns to manage my speed as I'm trying to avoid skidding.
Any other tips to get my heelside carving to approximate my toeside? (I've already adjusted forward lean significantly and it really helps as well as trying to keep my knees 'soft' and bent)
Maybe this is the part I'm having trouble with:
"Work the top of the turn: Complete each turn to manage speed and make the edge change earlier so you get your new edge set before the board enters into the fall line. By working the top of the turn, you can get the edge engaged early and even use the top of the turn to do a little braking early so you don not enter the bottom of the turn with so much force."
Am I understanding it right that when initiating the turn I have to get on edge early and start with much more weight forward on my board, and increasingly toward the back of the board as the turn progresses? Hard to wrap my head around all this.
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