# Confused about "Lifting toes" to Heelside carve. Ankle flex, Boot Tongue Stiffness, and Knee bent questions.



## XzoltronX (Nov 28, 2019)

This probably won’t be helpful but here goes… my thoughts are: stop watching videos and don’t try so hard. Forget about all these different movements: lifting toes, bending knees, dropping hips… it’s not a series of discrete steps. It’s on fluid motion. First, toe side is always easier. It’s more natural to weight our toes due to the shape of our legs and feet. So don’t be discouraged by that.

Imagine you’re making a toeside turn, and then you want to turn the other direction. You simply shift your weight towards your heels, which rocks the board off the toe edge, into flat base for a moment, and then over to the heel edge at which point the sidecut starts to take you in the opposite direction. It should be as simple as shifting your weight.

So a few questions, and sorry to sound condescending if you’ve already done all this. 1. are you going fast enough? You can’t really carve if you’re not going fast enough. Momentum is necessary to carry out the movements and maintain balance. It sounds like you might be going pretty slow if you have time to think about lifting toes and bending knees and dropping hips. 2. Are your boots snug enough that your heel and lower leg aren’t moving around, lifting up, rocking back and forth? 3. Is your binding high-back leaning forward enough? you really shouldn’t need much but a little can help. 4. Put your boot in your binding and looks at how much the heel vs. the toe hangs over either edge. If your foot is biased towards the toe edge and hanging farther over the toe, you need to look a centering the binding better laterally. 5. What is your stance setup like? If your bindings are set up weird, it can make the movement tough. Try measuring from your kneecap to the ground. Place your bindings that distance apart, measuring from the center of the binding base. Try plus 12 or 15 degrees on the front binding and around -3 to -6 on the back so you have a bit of a duck stance. Stance is personal but this is a pretty basic setup that works well for a lot of riders. 

maybe something in there will help? Main thing is keep practicing. hopefully you can make some friends on the hill because it is hard to explain this stuff via text! Hit us up with any follow up questions.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

I'd imagine that you are not squatting, with back straight. As for stopping and not sliding while on heelside is a different issue than heel side carves. Also hazard to note you are probably not carving with only 30 days of riding. For RK carving or any style of carving...it takes years. Also don't worry about lifting your toes...you are not at that level yet...and in fact at some point in the carving progression, you can actually do the opposite of lifting your toes to lock in a heel edge.

Concur, stop watching vids...and go ride...but pay attention to the feel of the carve and learn how to manipulate that feel by doing different body movements...then feel the carve...it will feel great, speed, locked in, popping or shooting you to the next edge...etc.


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## jxs1984 (Jan 20, 2015)

iMachi said:


> I never able to feel the same "grip" on heelside. I wonder if my ankle could flex just a bit when lifting toes would it make heelside carving easier? Also, I noticed I am NOT able to make a complete stop on heelside with board perpendicular to the slope. Face down hill, bend knee, lift toes, and lower hip toward heel. And the board would still slid/skid down the slope slowly, and not able to make a complete stop.


some tips that may help...
1. ensure your boots are centered in the middle of the board
2. add forward lean on your highbacks
3. optional: rotate highbacks 
4. practice torsional turning... ie: look over your front shoulder when engaging heelside turns
5. try not to think about lifting your toes... instead try adding weight on the heel of your feet as if you are balancing on it


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