full carves

Hi... I love skiing.

I want to work on carving, since I have completely neglected this part of my skiing. Specifically, I can make very quick turns without skidding, and it is easy to feel the ski "turning itself." But when I want to make larger, longer carving turns, towards the middle of the turn I start to lose my carve, I dont feel like I'm applying pressure on the edge or felxing the ski very much anymore. Know any good technique pointers to keep in mind, or drills to try?\

And... since I don't want to start another post I thought you might like some of the "mental tricks" I like to use when skiing.
Sometimes I try to pretend that my ski is just a really big foot. My toes are up by the tips, my heels are at the back. Keep your balance nice over my pretend feet same as you would feel comfortable on your real feet. This helps you use your ankles and feet to flex the whole ski.

Sometimes I pretend that I'm not riding on skis at all, but instead on a small board, maybe a little smaller than a cafeteria tray. A rather precarious position, but it helps really keep you in control, by limiting yourself like this mentally you actually enable yourself. Especially good for powder

I think of my center of gravity. If you've taken physics, you know that for a body of mass, there is one single one dimensional point that is the center of gravity. Do you know where yours is? If you're like me, then well, pretty much, but as I am skiing I try to zone in on EXACTLY where it is. I think of trying to find it. I have a point, where I imagine my center to be, and I try to match it to where it actually is, constantly trying to pinpoint it the whole way down the slope, but getting knocked off by inexperience.

Other times I think about my head. I try to keep my eyes looking straight, like an owl. Then focus your vision and head on a certain spot and direction and feel how the rest of your body follows... as if by magic!

Or in the steeps imagine bounding down the fill from foot to foot. Good for steep and narrow.

Anyways hope that doesn't bore you.

http://www.j2ski.com/ski-chat-forum/posts/list/4328.page

Have a read of that I found it very informative.

There are 2 real options if you want to learn how to 'carve'.

Option 1: Get opinions, watch videos and read online.

Option 2: Get some lessons.

The most quick, painless and effective method is arguably to get lessons. This would be my advice.

Reinhard wrote:
I want to work on carving, since I have completely neglected this part of my skiing. Specifically, I can make very quick turns without skidding, and it is easy to feel the ski "turning itself." But when I want to make larger, longer carving turns, towards the middle of the turn I start to lose my carve, I dont feel like I'm applying pressure on the edge or felxing the ski very much anymore. Know any good technique pointers to keep in mind, or drills to try?\

Welcome to the forum Reinhard.

Not a lot of info in your post to help figure this out. Assuming you have the right skis to learn to carve on, there are a couple of common problems people encounter.

When you say you are carving quick turns, I assume you are just edging the skis, riding them momentarily and then rolling onto the other edges befor the ski start to skid. That's a great excercise for initiating carves without skidding.

The first issue is getting the skis inclined enough. This requires some confidence that the edges will hold as you move that c of m that you mentioned, inside the turn.

The other problem that many people encounter is especially common if they have been skiing a while. Generally when carving, the side cut of the skis does the turning, not steering movements of the skier. The skier controls the turn with inclination and various pressures applied to the ski. So don't try to steer the skis. At first this will mean making very large turns, but in time you will learn to reduce the radius of the turns.

Trencher

Just getting them further on edge is a big one. For me, getting my knees lower is really important as the speed increases. Also, make sure you have clean, sharp edges. :)

Thing I work on most of all, which I find maintains pressure on skis and enables a carve is to keep shoulder line at horizontal as possible, whilst legs are push out at an angle.

Take a look at trenchers avatar, and his shoulder line, as he's sussed it.

OK Thank you, I think that is a great place to start. I've never thought about pushing my knees towards the slope and really "trusting" my edges like that... it will be on my mind when I go up in a week.

As Ross points out Trencher's advice has helped me a great deal to understand the "how". Watch his positions and notice the knee positions. Like what dshenberger says the high inside knee helping with the inclination. I have been pressuring the downhill ski to force a curvature of the ski to help whip me across the run. But trying to build some technique into the carving I'm also trying to get to the equal pressure application on both inside and outside ski. To learn this, I've been trying to start with 100% on uphill ski by lifting the outside ski off the snow and get across on the uphill ski until time to transverse back on the "new" uphill ski only.

If nothing else it helps to have as much room for sweeping carves as we really don't want to run into or be run into by someone while we are trying something new. Don't need that distraction!

I have managed enough inclination a time or two to just about touch the snow. :D

Like anything new ... practice ... practice and more practice...

Mike :wink: