My 2 cents (I hope 95% correct or more) and a question:
As Hobbit and others have pointed out: to slow down carved turns the skis must be bent more.
The way to do that is to pull the skis back with hamstrings and keep them pulled back in the upper part of ?C?.
This bends the ski and (unfortunately) puts more pressure on the front of the ski and unweights ski tails. As a result the top of the ?C? turn has tendency to be smeared and not carved (the tails are smearing it).
I believe the way to resolve this issue it to establish solid edge before smear happens. This is what "showing the bases to the mountain? is about.
Unfortunately, putting this all together is not that easy to accomplish, but we all know some skiers who can do that in front of our eyes, don?t we.
I think the trick is to achieve very fine balance, if you pull skis back hard and the egde is not firmly set, you will smear (I do most of the time), if you pull the skis only lightly you will not achieve speed control.
I am guilty of smearing the C tops to control the speed, for now I decided that I will smear if I want to control the speed. I would appreciate more comments on drills, which lead to "showing the bases to the mountain?
and avoiding the "smear" of the upper C.
Piggyslayer.