"High C" part of the turn

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"High C" part of the turn

Postby h.harb » Thu Nov 13, 2003 12:17 pm

I had this question today from the site:

Harold, I spent the summer reading "Anyone 1" and watching the video. I also purchased the Instructor Manual and video. I just started my third year of skiing today and hope you can give me some direction....
I'm able to carve on the green and blue with pretty good results.
On the steeper runs, I am a bit cautious and tend to do a combination carve and hockey skid turn to keep my speed down!
I notice that my stance is a bit wide and think this is an area I can work on.
6'2" 205lbs. age - 50, athletic, ski is Atomic Beta 9,12 170cm.
Can you suggest some of the exercises for me to practice? Thanks, Steve


This is such a good question I had to post it. I hope Steve doesn't mind!
The question addresses the essence of carving and high level skiing. Part of the answer already exists in the aticle I wrote on "What is a Expert Skier" on this site.

I sent Steve the following answer:

Dear Steve,

I frequently have skiers in your situation ask exactly the same question. There are a number of reasons skiers of all kind have difficulty transferring their carving skills from Blue, Green to Black and all mountain conditions. There are two specific reasons you can carve on moderate slopes and not on steeper more difficult ones. The first is that on steeper slope even shaped skis require more pressure on the front or fore body of the ski. The other is the commitment to higher edge, foot, ankle and ski tipping angle, high in the turn, must be increased. We have introduced a number of very interesting, new, specific drills and movements to bring higher awareness to the tipping and forward pressuring abilities.

First, the part of the turn where higher edge tipping and fore body pressure are required is the upper part. The part of the turn where these two abilities are most required and needed is in the "High C" part of the turn. I am at the moment in the middle of coaching a Masters Training Camp, this week at Copper Mt.. We are working on exactly the same abilities and the same part of the turn you are struggling with.

Here is what you have to look for if you are trying to develop edge angle changes for the "High C" part of the turn. Have someone stand on the slope above you as you make turns. They must see the bases of your skis before you start turning into the next turn. Let me explain, if you are traversing change edges without changing direction. You will find at first, that you will have the tendency to fall downhill, unless you are skiing with enough speed and creating the right amount of momentum. But, you have to start somewhere, so the place we start is with a static exercise. Stand across the slope and place both ski poles downhill. Support you body with your ski poles. Now tip both the downhill ski and the uphill ski to the other (downhill side) set of edges. You will find that leaning on the poles is necessary at first. You will also find that your downhill ski and boot do not want to co-operate. The downhill ski will want to slip downhill. You must move your downhill ski not only to a flat, on the snow position, but continue that movement of tipping and tilting beyond flat to the new edge, on the downhill side of the ski. This may sound very difficult, but I have most of my students able to perform this movement. This exercise requires, what I call, counter balancing movements. This is not to be confused with countering movements, as they are not the same. This exercise may be hard to picture, so I will post one of my early season skiing tips on the Real Skiers site using this photo sequence. I also recommend you review the counter balancing exercise and demonstration in my Expert skier 2 Video/DVD. Also read the parts of the Expert 2 book where I discuss pulling the free foot back. The "Free Foot" pulling back movement helps to get the body over the skis to pressure the ski fore body.

First visit the article I wrote on the web site (http://www.realskiers.com) about Expert Skiers, there you will find more about the "High C" part of the turn.

Hope this helps, regards,

Harald
h.harb
 

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