# Need help with backside carves



## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

Hi Guys,

I've been riding since 1990 but only average about 8 days/season. I basically learned to ride on race boards with a hard boot setup and angles in the high 40's (I even rode a season or two on the asymmetrical boards). I've spent the past 12 or so seasons on a freeride setup and switched to a duck stance last year and loving it.

Back then I was taught to press my back knee into the front one, and use my hips to initiate and complete turns (some upper body as well). The race setup works really well for armpits-to-the-ground carving but those days are long gone.

Anyway, my frontside turns come easily to me with the freestyle/freeride setup. I can't really explain what I do, but my upper body is relaxed and in line with the board at all times; i just dig the edge into the snow and it seems to turn all on its own. I can even apply enough pressure and keep my balance to carve a complete 360 if I have enough speed.

I've had problems adjusting my backside turns to the new way of riding though. My turns are much wider, and I can barely get the board parallel with the mountain before I've exhausted myself and turn frontside, which is the only side I can use to speed-check without interrupting a carve (by essentially riding up the hill). My riding basically devolves into short frontside carves and long, exhaustive backside ones. 

I've read some things about torsion and using the flex of your board to carve, but I can't really figure out what this means. Do I basically think about lifting my toes and digging my heels into the snow? Does it involve doing so to my front foot before my back one? It seems to me that the inherent problem is that I can angle my board a lot farther into the hill on my toe edge (because I have knees!) so turns are faster and more controlled.

Any help is appreciated!

doron


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## baldylox (Dec 27, 2007)

Frontside = Toeside / Backside = Heelside ???


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## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

cifex said:


> Frontside = Toeside / Backside = Heelside ???


Yes, my bad!


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## ev13wt (Nov 22, 2010)

More highback angle / lean? Sounds to be as if you are not putting enugh angle on it.

Go faster.


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## baconzoo (Nov 12, 2010)

I second that: Try maxing out the forward lean on your highbacks. The nature of going duck is the issue, as now you cannot project that lead hip as easily as before.


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## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

Thanks guys, I'll definitely give that a shot.

I just read a piece on sidecut radius that talks about flexing the board to shorten a turn radius, but I still can't figure out which kind of "flex" they're talking about.


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## baldylox (Dec 27, 2007)

doron said:


> Thanks guys, I'll definitely give that a shot.
> 
> I just read a piece on sidecut radius that talks about flexing the board to shorten a turn radius, but I still can't figure out which kind of "flex" they're talking about.


They mean squeezing your knees toward each other. I personally have never been able to consciously make use of the technique, but many far more accomplished riders find it useful. If your not already on there, alpinecarving.com and bomberonline.com have lots of great articles on these topics. Some are written with a hardbooter in mind and some with softboots and more normal stance, so you need to be mindful of that.


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## arsenic0 (Nov 11, 2008)

As others said, more aggressive highback...you didnt mention what binding you were using, if its a burton it likely doesnt need much forward as they typically are pretty aggressive by default.

As for technique, you can always just try the sitting down technique. By squatting down like your sitting down on a chair you will instinctively push down with your heels and your toes come up.


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## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

Yeah, most carving articles actually seem to suggest against keeping your body parallel with the board. I'll keep looking out for soft boot guides, thanks!

I just bought myself a Never Summer SL since I'm moving more towards all around freestyle riding but my boots and bindings are from my old setup. I have Salomon SPX90 bindings and a pretty stiff Salomon boot. I cut back on the forward lean thinking it would help me land tricks but I guess I can play with it depending on what part of the mountain I'm at. I remember my feet falling asleep once when I had too much lean but will experiment next time I'm on a hill.


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## arsenic0 (Nov 11, 2008)

I wouldnt think it would put your foot to sleep, usually thats from overtightening of your boots/bindings. 
Forward lean really burns your legs and knee's though the more aggressive you go...


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## oneshot (Oct 8, 2010)

u can do it, put your *ss into it..

use your back foot rudder more aggressively, meaning push it faster to follow your hips if you need to bring it around faster. if you have big feet and a wide board that will always translate to loonger edge to edge tminign and more work..


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## anti-bling (Apr 21, 2010)

Well, its a couple things i suspect.

Natural stance dictates that when you are just going straight, your belly button should be pointing in the direction of your toes. In an alpine stance, this means you are usually facing down the board at all times.

In a duck stance, it means that your belly button is pointing out from the board at about a 90 degree angle. So ideally when you do a heelside (frontside) turn, you just open your shoulders up a bit.

But a lot of people stay cocked forward, even when they turn onto their toes (backside). This cause you to get all twisted up, what instructors call 'counter-rotation', your rotated in the opposite way that you are turning. 

Its not a horrible way to turn, most people do it to some extent, but its not very efficient. Your knees get all bent in weird ways, and you aren't able to use all your leg strength.

So just try focusing on using your belly button and knees more when you turn onto your toes. Turn your bellybutton into the turn, and when carving, try driving your knees down directly over your toes more.

As for the Craig Kelly knees-together thing, that was popular back in the day, especially with freestylers. Its because the boots have zero support, so we had to make the 'power triangle'. Current boots and bindings have great support, so this is not an issue anymore.

And i have to disagree witht the above post about pressuring the back foot.

If you are standing naturally on the board, you shouldn't have to use a rudder, especially nor your back foot. If anything, keep your weight centered (or even a touch front-foot heavy) if you are wanting to carve hard (on a regular cambered board that is. If you are riding reverse camber, its a bit different)


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## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

Sorry, I was being unclear before. I thought frontside turns were toe-side.
So just to clarify, I have problems on my heelside turns, but hopefully a shorter board and some more aggressive forward lean will help me out.


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## jlm1976 (Feb 26, 2009)

It’s all about the entry

Heelside carves can be considerably more fussy than toeside carves, especially on soft boot set ups. On hardboots, you can just drop your hips into the turn and the edge locks and goes. Soft boot technique is a bit different. In softboots, if you enter your heelside carve with your hips high off the snow, it’s very difficult to drop them lower. 
On softboots, you have to enter a heelside carve with your hips low and lowerbody compressed then extend your legs through the turn while keeping your hips low. Your lowerbody should be almost fully collapsed as you change edges(if I am really railing turns, my knees are almost hitting my stomach and chest because I’m keeping my hips so low and collapsing my legs so aggressively).
Once you have set your edge and your legs are almost fully collapsed start extending them but as you extend them focus on keeping your hips LOWER to the snow than your hips. It’s kind of the opposite of a toeside turn where your knees will generally scrape the snow before your hips. 
Also, keep your weight more forward through the turn than on toeside. On toeside you can get away with drifting back on the board sooner and really pressuring the tail through the turn. This is generally death on heelside. You have to keep your weight forward throughout most of the turn then when your heelside carve is almost done, pressure the tail at the end to get some pop out of the turn.
In the world of instructor jargon, the above is called angulation. 
Doing the above in decent carving conditions I can consistently drag my butt and front hand on heelside carves on my softboot set up which is a twin with my bindings set at 15, -12. 
I wouldn’t worry too much about torsionally twisting the board. It’s useful for learning first turns, but for carving I don’t find it that useful(NOTE : I’m not trying to pick a fight snowolf, we already pretty much agreed to disagree on this issue last season).


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

jlm1976 said:


> Also, keep your weight more forward through the turn than on toeside. On toeside you can get away with drifting back on the board sooner and really pressuring the tail through the turn. This is generally death on heelside. You have to keep your weight forward throughout most of the turn then when your heelside carve is almost done, pressure the tail at the end to get some pop out of the turn.


^This. I have an on-and-off problem with heelside turns where the board starts to slip out from under me and chatter. Whenever that starts to happen I just concentrate on not shifting my weight to my back foot and the problem goes away. Effectively what you're doing if you shift your weight back is going into a full-bore skid-stop. Not really what you want to do in the middle of a carve.


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