megladan

got to change your name to sno-yoda man, you explain everything great!

Snowolf

"Trust the Force and ride well, you will....."

Yeah, that will do it for sure...back off on the leaning so agressively and I think you will find you have better overall control. The only time you should ever have that amount of lean is at the apex of a REALLY fast carve on a VERY steep pitch.

Not really, my main point is that in the normal skidded turn, you go from a traverse into the next turn by allowing the nose of the board to drift down the fall line. During this drifting phase, if the rider attempts to tilt the board onto what is still the downhill edge, it will likely catch. Additionally, when the nose of the board is pointed straight down the fall line, all sideslip has stopped and the board is travelling tip to tail. You can tilt the board on either edge at this point, but it is difficult to maintain balance on an edged board going straight down the hill because you have no centrifugal force to counteract the gravity that makes you fall.

If you steer the board up the hill away from the fall line with your front foot, you are initiating a turn and centrifugal force is increasing. At about that 45 degree point, it will have enough pull that you can tilt the board onto it`s edge fairly agressively and no fall toward the inside of the turn(uphill). If you delay too long, the tail of the board will then slip down hill and you will end up doing an unplanned 360. In reality you could do the follow through with the rear foot much earlier in the turn so long as the nose of the board is`nt pointed straight down the fall line.

Later on, as you get more of a keen feel for edging, you will be able to point the board staright down the hill and rock back and forth from heel to toe using both feet simultaneously making very shallow turns. Then going into dynamic carved turns, you will agressively switch to the downhill edge with both feet almost simultaneously. This can be safely done becaus in the high speed carve, there is no element of sideslip going on and the board is travelling tip to tail throught the entire turn. When you get to where you can do this, you will feel the exhileration of accelerating like mad through the turn because now you will have momentum and gravity acting together to propel you down the hill while turning.

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tboooe

snowolf, I apologize for being dense but now i am totally confused. You make mention of using both feet to turn. I thought this was bad? I thought you are supposed to initiate turns with only the front foot then ease the rear foot into the turn. Am I missing something?

Gustov

you can use both feet simultaneously when you're not skidding at all. if you don't skid you won't catch an edge. i first started doing this on the flat parts of runs for practice, because when you don't skid at all, like snowolf said, you accelerate really quickly.

Snowolf

No, you`re not being dense; there are a lot of different techniques used in more advanced riding styles ans some of them conflict with what you learn when starting out. Imagine you are riding on your board and traversing across the fall line. It is very easy for the board to slip sideways down the hill. In this case, you would not want to use both feet to tilt the board onto it`s downhill edge. No imagine that you are riding your board and you are going down a fairly gentle cat track and you have the board pointed straight down the fall line to maintain your speed. In this situation, there is no force acting upon the board to casue it to slip sideways. Here you could tilt the board up on it`s edge with both feet at the same time since niether edge is downhill. By rocking back and forth, you could tilt it onto it`s toe edge to make a shallow toe side turn and then to go back heel side, you could flatten it out then tilt it onto it`s heel edge. What is happening here, is you are making very gentle, shallow heel/toe turn using only the sidecut of the board and the whole time the nost is pointed down the cat track and never points more than a few degrees either side of the fall line in these shallow turns.

That is the situation where you want to start experimenting with thes edge changes using both feet. Once you get the feel for it, you can take that skill into carving. In a high speed carve, you will be agressivel riding on edge so even in a traverse that is totally perpendicular to the fall line, the board will not sideslip down hill because of the edge hold. This is just like the cat trach situation and you can change to the downhill edge confidently because, just as in the cat track situation, your board is travelling straight (tip to tail) and not sideslipping. When you tilt the board onto it`s downhill edge in a carve, the amount of power you get in the turn is startling at first and amazingly fun once you get used to it. What is difficult to get is how you don`t just fall face first or backwards depending on which turn it is, This where good body stance comes in. You use your ankles and knees to tilt the board and your waist adjusts to keep you upper body over the top of your board; even slightly uphill of it. The toesdie turn here is the trickiest and what you need to do is to push you hips forward (downhill) over the toe edge and arch you back to shift your shoulders and upper body back up the hill over your board.

The turn happens quickly and your entire body will never be static in carving; you are always moving, shifting and adjusting your stance to the changing position on the hill.

For now, concentrate on doing really good dynamic skidded turns where you initiate with the front foot to get the board pointed down the hill, then complete the turn by using your back foot to follow through and copy what the front foot is doing, but about a second or two after.

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tboooe

Got it! Thank you Snowolf. I am headed up for my last session on Sunday and will keep all your great pointers in mind. Thank you for always being helpful!

baldy

i have this same problem when i try and transition from heel to toe back and forth quickly. i kinda know how though cuz my toe edge in the rear is the one that will catch. i think it's cuz im doing it lazily. also, sometimes when im going straight downhill, snow will catch my back toes and once i ALMOST ate it hard, but i quickly regained balance.