If you press and extend too early, you lose your athletic stance,
which means you lose your ability to balance well against the outside ski. I’m
Tom Gellie from Big Picture Skiing and you’re turned in to Carv’s technique teardown. So here
we have Charlie skiing a run in beautiful Zermatt Switzerland, now you can see,
Charlie is obviously an advanced level skier, he is already able to create some high edge angles,
there is no skidding going on. But there are a few things that I will point out now, that
are where he is getting caught, and stopping him get into the next level. So we come back here,
and a few things that happen through the end of the turn, see Charlie’s legs get quite split
apart, so there is a lot of white light you can see between his legs here. You can also see that
his inside foot is advanced further forward than the outside foot. This is a pretty good telltale
that Charlie has lost his balance as he’s tried to increase his edge angle here and he’s ended
up actually not balancing on his outside foot, but more on this inside one, it’s kind of caught him.
And it’s not happening just on one turn, a lot of the turns Charlie makes, like here
the same thing happens. So that’s the first thing, so like I said, at this advanced level,
as you start to increase that edge angle further, past about 45 degrees it gets quite tricky to stay
with your outside ski. The next thing I want o to point out is just a little further on in the turn,
it’s what he’s doing with his outside arm. So see that there is this kind of reaching look to it, so
reaching towards the outside foot, and also, almost like a look of like he’s pressing or,
or stretching his outside leg out, almost to the point where he is losing an athletic position
and stance in his skiing. So two things that stand out, and that I want to focus on today,
is falling inside at the end of the turn, losing balance, and then this pushing and reaching that’s
going on at the top of the turn, because, with any skier, there could be a multitude of things going
on, but today lets just focus on these two because they are both going to help Charlie and you take
your skiing and make it a lot more fluid. Let’s look at a compassion with my skiing on the left,
and Charlie’s on the right. And I want to point out something at the top of the turn,
and then something more in the middle of the turn. So first at the top of the turn. If you have a
look at my legs as I start the turn, in comparison with Charlie’s outside leg in particular,
this is where you start to see a look of bracing already occurring. SO Charlie’s leg
looks straighter, and even the way he’s got his outside arm held out to the side looks like he’s
already lost his balance a little bit too far to the inside, away from balancing on that outside
ski. Contrast that, at this moment, where I am able to keep my arms in closer to my body,
more compact, keeping my center of mass more together, so that’s the first little
indication that there is something perhaps going wrong, and if you have a look at my outside leg,
there is still some flex in it and it doesn’t look like there is an attempt for me to push
against it, okay, it looks like Charlie is pushing to try and maybe bend the ski more,
or get pressure on it, I don’t know what it is he’s trying to do, but that’s the look that’s
there, and I often see a lot of advanced skiers think that this is what they’re trying to do
to get more out of the turn. SO top of the turn, already I’d suggest that Charlie doesn’t need
to go for such a rapid extension, you can even see if we come look on, it’s not just one turn.
This side, you see there is already a stretching out of his outside leg,
lets compare it too, this moment in the turn with myself, it doesn’t look like I am trying
to stretch it, you can see it looks a little bit awkward on Charlie’s body,
and he’s also having to use his inside ski for support because he has pushed his center
of mass a little bit away from the outside ski. SO first thing, perhaps be a little more patient
and ride with the edges, and then this next tip that I’m going to work on,
is probably the one that’s really going to help, and it’s a sensation. So come back a little bit,
there is a feeling that I have around this sort of middle part of the turn,
okay, so around here, the feeling is that I allow my pelvis to drop more down,
okay, so it’s not inside the turn, this is what I think Charlie is almost thinking about doing.
So we come back, you can even look here, it looks like he is stretching inwards,
I’m thinking more down through my pelvis and that actually pushes my legs over
and stops me from being braced, but keeps me moving inside the turn, so the skis can
bend and turn around further. So I’m going to use a lego skier to help show this. So if we
look right here, we come over to about that angle that Charlie’s at at this moment.
If you are pushing or pressing towards that outside ski perhaps a little too much, it would be
like me pressing through the head of the skier and so what happens here, the skier gets, you know,
secured in this position, but they are not developing any further edge angles,
so this way, this way, into the skier, secures him into the edge, but they are not going to
develop further edge angles unless they try and push something, you know, push their knees in
which I don’t recommend. Contrast this to what I’m doing on this side where I am saying I’m
feeling a dropping sensation around my pelvis and hips to tip my legs, so I come to this point and
I think about actually adding some downward movement, see the downward sensation is what
rotates you around an axis. Okay here, I push this way on my fingers, all they’re going to do is bend
in this direction, If I can apply this direction on my fingers, I can actually keep developing
edge angles, and you can see on this particular one, it helps me to create some angulation
and keep me balance as I do this. Now the result is through the end because I’m not braced,
I’m more balanced against the forces, I don’t need to stand up as much as Charlie,
you’ll see I’m able to flex and move out of the next turn from some of the pressure, I’m able
to topple in with a lot more ease, let's have a look at the top of the turn again here, notice we
contrast the stretching out leg of Charlie looking for pressure, I’m just using my body weight,
all I’m feeling the pressure on my outside foot is my bodyweight stains with my outside ski as I
slowly tip in to develop edge angles. And then at this point, we go back and forth,
you should be able to see the dropping sensation, this one I get even more edge angle, but it’s
more of a dropping down, is what I feel, and the downward drop actually helps me apply pressure,
just like the lego skier, downward, here helps actually press the edges in further,
pushing outward not so much. Let’s go do an indoor exercise, so the next time you go out skiing,
Charlie the next time you go out skiing, you’re going to be able to know this sensation and apply
it to some turns. So let’s jump over here and try that. So if you have started the turn well, Like
I said, stay in that athletic position not push, just balance as you go to move inside the turn,
you should be able to get to about this point. Now it’s at this point where I really feel this
idea or sensation of my pelvis driving the the edge angles further, to help bend the ski.
This is opposed to, so here’s the pelvis drop position, what I see with Charlie, there is more
of a push or extension of his leg to push the pelvis in, so If I draw with my hand,
I would say that makes the pelvis move like this, okay and I end up if I sort of do that I feel
like I actually can’t develop greater edge angles unless I put this leg here to help me move further
inside. Contrast this, try this yourself, lean against the wall, get to this point, feel most of
the pressure against your outside foot, now think about your pelvis weighting your legs
and just dropping down with gravity, so it doesn’t bend your knees, you stay strong in the legs,
stay strong on this outside leg, you don’t extend it but you let the pelvis push it down.
Now to help with this idea, I’m going to show with my ski pole. So this is my outside leg,
in a turn, the ski pole, the what I feel a lot of people doing and what Charlie is doing,
is they are making and effort to push in this way, okay, down the pole like this.
Look what happens If I just keep a little bit more pressure to maintain say the edge in the
snow, but apply pressure with gravity this way, okay, I’m able to stay with the pole gripping,
if I have got a little bit of pressure here with my balance, but to help increase edge angle,
dropping down. So I change that with my pelvis here get this position I actually have to relax
my hip muscles and allow my body weight to push my legs down. So in summary for this Carv technique
teardown, I think there are two things for advanced skiers to try in their carving,
one is this idea of, gradually increasing pressure throughout the turn, by never really stretching
and pressing against your outside foot. And you can see in his pressure data, that the pressure
came on, and then it dropped, and then it came on and it then it finished quite early, and that is
in contrast with to my turn which consistently, the pressure came on evenly, and was held and
build throughout the turn, and that’s a sign that I am staying balanced against the outside ski and
using the ski to help deflect me across the hill, a little further on through the turn, again, if
you are pushing to try and increase the edge angle you’re going to end up on your
inside ski and not maintain the pressure building, notice I talked about this feeling of letting the
pelvis drop, let gravity have your pelvis, let some of the muscles around your hips relax,
that allows the pelvis to create leverage on the legs, that what tips you over, and the feeling
I get is is that as it happens I maintain an athletic position as gravity drops me there.
I would suggest even using because I know Charlie has Carv, the outside pressure monitor mode,
which reads the distribution of how much pressure on the outside vs the inside.
So as he experiments with these two tips, I’d like him to use this monitor mode to get
real-time feedback on how that’s affecting this outside ski pressure score. So,
there we go, I hope everyone enjoyed this episode of Carv’s technique teardown,
I’m Tom Gellie from Big Picture skiing, I hope to see you on the next episode. Thanks