I received my Carvers (slalom model) in May. The first thing that I noticed was that they were more stable side-to-side than my inline skates. The bad thing was that I also noticed how poor my fore-aft balance was. In addition, I realized that I simply did not have basic skating skills. Because of this, I was very uneasy on the Carvers and could see that this unease would get in the way of taking full advantage of them.
Now, I had purchased some inlines year or so ago, with the intention of dryland training as shown on the Harb Ski Systems site. However, to my discredit, I never invested the effort required to develop the basic skating skills required for the dryland exercises.
So, given my unease on the Carvers, I decided to take some inline skating lessons in order to build basic skating skills. The idea was to gain enough skill to resume work with the Carvers. In this regard, I was fortunate. Because of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake City is home to quite a few world-class speedskaters. It turned out that Eric Kraan, a World Cup speedskater, lives and trains here and is hoping to skate for Mexico in the 2006 Winter Olympics. Eric and his wife Kim run a skate school (both inline and ice) (
http://home.att.net/%7Eskatenow) and are big supporters of skating. So, I hooked up with Eric and took eight inline skate lessons.
At first, I was very uneasy regarding the drills which were part of the curriculum, because they were overtly rotary in nature. Obviously, being a PMTSer, I was very concerned about rotary movements creeping into my skiing technique. However, I decided that it was worth the risk because I was seeing such improvement in my skating skills. I decided that I would drop the whole inline skating thing if I saw ANY rotary movements showing up in my Carver technique. As it turned out, these rotary-based drills were apparently only building blocks towards developing a speedskating stroke. As far as I can tell -- and I am certainly no expert -- the speedskating stroke does not employ rotary movements to create forward motion.
At any rate, I was hugely enjoying the inline lessons, but they are over until after I put in some time on my skates. So, it seemed like a good time to go back to the Carvers. That *was* the goal, after all.
So far, I've only been back out twice on the Carvers. The first I noticed was that my balance issues had disappeared. The second was how much easier it was to stroke uphill now that I had a clue how to do it.
I started out with the stepping garland exercises. By the end of the first hour, I was linking turns without stepping, albeit with a lack of dynamics. My second time out, I went directly into the linked turns. One thing I have noticed is how much more aware I am of tipping and "edges" -- even more so than on snow. So far, my boots are very close together -- at least as close as on skis. If I am having a problem at this stage, it is with excessive lightening of my free foot.
I am very happy that I have not seen any of the dreaded rotary movements from my inline skating drills creeping into my Carver technique.
So, there's a lot of work ahead of me on the Carvers, but they are *fun* now. If only it weren't so blasted HOT out there....
And, thanks to the Carvers, I have another activity (inline skating) which complements my skiing. Who knows, I may even get out on the Olympic Oval next winter. That will give me something to do when I can't be on skis.