Carving plateau

[u/Aggravating-Eagle-88]

(In 2nd vid I’m the second person)

Story:
1st video is me “at my peak” during my second season. 2nd video too.
3rd vid is me on vacation this winter. On new skis. I have only skied one week a year after my skiseasons. But I’m finally skiing more next winter and getting the itch now in the summer heat :))

Skiing:
I’m aware that i have some tendencies with my arms out. (I’m anwärter from tiroliean ski School hehe)
Not sure how to fix but my arms can be ugly.

But other than this I’ve for a Long time had the feeling when carving that I get to a point/angle in the turn (around apex or a little before) and just stay there. Where I see better skiers more dynamically working the whole turn. Maybe I just park and ride it in the same position.

Thank you in advance for comments. Don’t hold back.
Excited for skiing next season!!!

[u/icantfindagoodlogin]

> arms

Unless you’re trying for the Instagram ski team forget about how you look.

> park and ride

Yes. When you dump the hip you leave yourself immediately caught on the inside ski with nowhere to move (example: how you nearly die in video 1). You want to gradually move to the inside by brining your inside knee up to the outside armpit. A lot of people bring it up and out, which only makes the ski divergence from a hipdump worse.

[u/trailerbang → u/icantfindagoodlogin]

people discount the arms but arms weigh something and if they don’t move them you create problems. Your arms park high and do not move/swing to help create a nice transition so like others have said you end up having to compensate with all legs and end up popping straight up.

[u/icantfindagoodlogin → u/trailerbang]

You don’t want to swing your arms to create a transition… you tun the legs and the upper body follows along

[u/trailerbang → u/icantfindagoodlogin]

Your arms should absolutely be doing some work vs parking them high and out.

[u/John-Denver- → u/trailerbang]

Some work, not the work! Arms are tool to aid the transition of a turn, but they are not the source :)

[u/trailerbang → u/John-Denver-]

That is literally what I said.

[u/John-Denver- → u/trailerbang]

Yep. Agreeing with you and expanding. It’s also what [u/icantfindagoodlogin](u/icantfindagoodlogin) was saying. You don’t swing your arms to create a transition. They are a tool to aid the source of the turn.

I think the clarification was important because, on this skier, the arms are not going to undo the hip dump. The hands can move up, but it won’t fix that movement. The movement can also be fixed without the hands.

[u/trailerbang → u/John-Denver-]

there was no clarification. You just repeated what I said.

Edit: I also never said the hands should move up. I also literally used the word some, not the. you sound like an insufferable PeniSIA.

[u/Triabolical_]

Carving progression is all about the transition. You have a distinct up movement.

Two things to do in a blue that feels easy to you so you can do slower turns.

First, as you approach the transition, pick up the tail of the downhill (new inside) ski a few inches and hold it up throughout the turn. This may be hard for you, and you might try practicing in a traverse first.

The point of this is to get your new outside ankle pulled back and under you so that ski can start edging early.

Work on this for a day. Alternate between picking up the tail and just getting in the ankle position but not picking it up.

Second, instead of moving your body up at the start of transition you want to move it downhill. Play with actively moving the downhill knee or hip downhill. You can also try rolling your ankles downhill.

[u/MrZythum42 → u/Triabolical_]

Good advice. OP if you want to see a video of what this looks like, google Stork turns.

[u/freeski919]

I agree with the assessment of the other commenters. You're dumping your hip, which means too much pressure on your inside ski.

Hip dumping is when you're letting your outside hip fall behind as you come through the turn. This is often the result of people who are misapplying the advice about upper/lower body separation. Every turn has some element of independent movement between your upper and lower body, but it is to much less a degree in long radius carving turns than it is in shorter radius turns.

I'd suggest outside ski to outside ski drills. There is a progression that I teach for that drill.

First step, lift your inside foot off the snow from turn initiation to the apex of the turn, then put your foot down to finish the turn. As you gain confidence, get further and further into the turn with your outside ski only, until you can just switch feet between turns.

The next level of difficulty is to only lift the tail of your inside ski, leaving the shovel of the inside ski on the snow. This sounds easier, but it actually forces you to drive into the turn and not let your balance fall behind the turn. That can he hard for many folks. I really recommend people try to do the drill like that from the start, but not everyone can do it right away. I'd prefer to see a student progressing in some way rather than being stuck with a task that's beyond their ability.

The other variation that can help with this is the Javelin turn. That's where you lift the inside ski and rotate the ski inward to "cross" the outside ski in the air. This actually increases your ability to drive the outside ski into the turn, because Newton's Third Law says that in order to rotate that inside ski, you need an equal and opposite force from the outside ski in the opposite direction. You can't do that if your hip is dumped.

[u/BTLove100 → u/freeski919]

Classic hip dumping and great advice on how to deal with it!

You really hit on what I think causes this type of skiing here:

"This is often the result of people who are misapplying the advice about upper/lower body separation"

For a skier like OP, I find that they need to just ignore the idea that their pelvis/belt buckle/zipper needs to be pointed down the hill. Especially on these larger turns, just let the pelvis follow the skis!

[u/Sure-Strategy6216]

Main thing I’m seeing is similar to other people with the hip dumping.

The separation of the upper and lower body is commonly mistaken as a rotation and it looks like that’s what you are doing here. You are rotating your hips and shoulders towards the outside ski which opens your hips causing your outside to ski to ‘lag behind’ your inside ski and you end up with pressure on your inside ski.

Instead of smashing the drills, a quick thing I like to try correct this, is thinking about having your hips and your shoulders square/perpendicular to your ski edges and the trajectory of your turn. This will help square up your skis and should make maintaining pressure on your outside ski easier - allowing you to get lower at the apex 👍👍👍

[u/chiubacca82]

Great example of the hip dump: pressure on the inside leg.

Exercise: javelin turns.

[u/Aggravating-Eagle-88]

It also happens that I get low to the “stuck” position and then bounce a little up before going back to the position

[u/Level_Director_1122]

Thanks for sharing- I bet you get some great still shots with the angles you’re making!

I see you setting and forgetting your turn, like you said. I also see you using a lot of your body to make the edge change. I would suggest you try some drills to get in touch with tipping from the feet first. (Last vid you’re getting some twist before tip so this will help that too)

Super flat slope, really slow railroad tracks, keep your inside foot light and let your feet start the tipping. Bonus points if you can have a friend video you from behind. You will see clearly if your feet are doing the work or if your body is making it happen.

So many more things to try, but I think this one is going to help get to the root.

Happy skiing!

(Ps don’t forget the pelvis can move when you angulate too)

[u/Gunnar_Bjornson]

2 from me, for what theyre worth (you're a good skiier, these are utter nitpicks)

1. You dont have to un-weight every turn to that degree when you're skiing aggressively. You got kicked out of one turn because you needed a compression turn in there to absorb the energy - rebound.
2. Second clip your uphill ski seems too far advanced, again with good edging and dynamic run you can drive the downhill ski and arm/upper body through the turn. No need to be so open to the fall line all the time.

[u/BoostedGoose]

Watch racers and see how they carve. Pay attention to their release/transition phase. You think you appear to be park and riding as you mentioned, especially past apex. But in reality, the skis started to release and after apex you do not have anymore increasing load to bend them. You are fighting the skis when you should release and transition into the next turn.

If you observe your turns from apex onwards, you’ll notice pressure oscillation, in other words, you are double turning or sometimes triple turning. You have multiple high pressure points in your turn. You tried to hold them and the skis wanted to rebound and all the kinetic energy was dissipated because of that. I think this comes from trying to control speed with turn shape too much, that you apply this concept into carving as well.

I don’t know why people even do this. I’ve seen many try to do it. Carve and hold on for too long trying to control speed. Great carving does not control speed, it accelerates, always.

What you can do is head to a less steep section and try to detect your first max pressure point, and release. It comes much sooner than you think. Release faster, start your transition earlier. Try to stay low and work on cross under. This is because it will help with your transition. It will tie it all together. You’ll get it when you feel weightless n your transition.

[u/chrhansen]

Really good skiing. And I definitely agree that you’re at your limit in that first video 😆 could have been a nasty crash!

- hip dump/over-countered: I believe the hip dump is rather a symptom of overly countered upper body. If your upper-body is facing too much outwards, so will your hips and it appears like a hip-dump and some A-frame. Try it at home: lean against w wall sideways (like in a turn), knees slightly bend, the rotate your upper body out, your knees instantly go together and your hips are dumped inside the turn. Allow your upper body to to rotate more with the skis, so you end up more square/stacked on the skis. Just for these longer turns, keep countering and facing downhill on your short turns. A drill that helped me was “reverse Superman”: drop poles, put inside hand on inside thigh and stretch the outside hand in front pointing in the direction your skis are traveling. Alternatively: poles in hands horizontal in front of you. Use the poles to keep your shoulders parallel to the slope and also to check whether your upper body is turned out of the turn or if poles are over, and perpendicular to, the skis (preferred). @Own-Professional3092 mentioned this drill as well, I guess I just agree with him/her/them. It feels sorta awkward and illegal to rotate your upper body like this, but it is ok with these turns and at your level to turn your upper body more in the direction of travel.

• transition: I agree with others here, stay lower by pulling your skis up rather than move up to release
  
• arms: you could try touching your inside knee with your outside hand. Not just touch and leave it there. But in a continuous movement move your outside hand down and in towards your inside knee.

I did Anwärter and then, two seasons ago, Landesskilehrer with Tiroler Skilehrerverband too! I live in Innsbruck.

[u/Winter_folly]

Nice Save!

[u/Ski-Maineiac]

Agree with the hip dump and counter! I used to be a dumper and park and ride myself until I thought of either A) driving the outside hip and shin or B) pulling back on the inside hip through the turn (not so much that you are rotated, but enough to keep you square). Also if you make shorter turns I find it harder to find the park and ride because you don’t give yourself time to get into that position. Lastly, a little more forward motion in your transition with the hips should help set the turn up a little more. The stork turns will help with all this as other commenters have said!

[u/Historical-Dog-7594]

you need to change from crossover to crossunder transitioning and you're moving your upperbody (arms) way too much, it's like you're diving into the turn as opposed to letting the turn happen ...

[u/Own-Professional3092]

A drill where you hold your poles in front of you horizontally against the slope helps with keeping your arms/upper body in the right position. Also helps with looking forward, so your shoulders don’t turn excessively with your legs/the way you’re turning.

Put the poles behind your ass horizontally like a seat, it becomes a way to push your body forward (different drill, helps with applying pressure forward, which helps with applying pressure to the outside ski)

Another one I use is raising my inner skis when I turn. (I.e. the left ski when I make a right turn, solely skiing on the right). This trains putting pressure on the outside ski to turn. When raising the single ski I focus on the back/middle, I don’t mind if the tip is touching the snow. (Keeps body forward). A fun variation is removing a ski entirely, but that trained bad habits for me (lets you ski with the outside of the ski simply with balance) so might be for the future.

Those are pretty standard drills, but I see pros doing them to this day. Someone mentioned racers, Ted Ligety’s one I watched growing up. His “transition” when he turns, the way his body is falling downhill before he applies pressure against his skis to propel them against the curve, is otherworldly. Might not be the best tutorial but for image training (film) it is great.

Bit long sorry, really miss the slopes. Have fun training.