# was I "carving"?



## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

I'm not really sure what is meant by "carving." I went boarding today and this is the first time I can turn very well without fail. That is, I can switch from toe to heel to toe and make those S turns continuously. Very happy with my performance today. I think this resulted by me being a lot less tired. Before I could do turns I would only ride on my heel side, brake, go the opposite way, brake, go the opposite way, resulting in that letter Z trail, or the Christmas Tree trail or whatever people call it. All the braking really tax my thighs and eventually my whole body, so I get tired real fast. but now I can control my speed quite well with turning so I need to brake a LOT less, hence I am a lot less tired. 

in any case, is that what is meant by "carving"? or am i just doing some simple turns -_- ?

all in all, very happy with my ride today  i checked out a lot of tricks in this forum and they helped a lot. thanks!


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## jeri534 (Feb 19, 2008)

I think you are just doing simple turns, Im in the same boat as you, I was linking my turns the whole day last week, was very satisfying, soo much more fun than just doing those Zs down the trail....


A "carve" is a more aggressive turn where the sidecut of your board carves into the snow and initiates the turn...


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## tboooe (Mar 16, 2008)

I could be wrong, but if you are really carving, then you won't slow down (much) when you turn. I have found that when I carve, I feel as if I pick up speed going down the hill. Most of us average mortals tend to use turns to slow down which is fine but if you are really carving then you will be maintaining your speed down the mountain. I am far from this but that is my ultimate goal.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

hmmmm well i can't say that i was slowing down much when doing those turns. more like keeping my speed in control. cause usually i would just slide down and keep going faster and faster and faster until i throw myself down. but today i can keep my speed in check by doing these turns. 

im still not sure of the difference between carving and simple turning... how do i know which one is which? i looked up "carving" on wikipedia and came up with this:



> Skiing or snowboarding carving style, defined by a type of 'S-turn.'


im quite sure i was doing S-turns but does it qualify as "carving"? if this video defines carving: YouTube - Carving (Snowboard) 2 Michael Dreusicke then no i definitely was not carving. this is much more advanced than where i am right now.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

ok after browsing youtube a bit more i found this video: YouTube - CNN & Vail Snowboard Tips: First Turns

i think this is what i was doing, linking turns like jeri said. i guess i wasnt carving after all


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

im pretty sure carving is when you can do S-turns;
YouTube - How to Snowboard : How to Carve in Snowboarding


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## BRsnow (Jan 26, 2008)

When you are carving you will feel the board lock up like it is on a rail and your speed will increase quite a bit. Carving is not skidding, so you will not slow down and actually pick up speed if you are doing it correctly...but you can for sure feel the board hook up like it is on a rail....


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

If you are carving downhill, you will pick up speed until the friction inline with the engaged edge and the snow and the force of gravity equalize. This is your max on-edge speed possible and much faster than most people are comfortable to go. You have to be carving for a significant amount of time to attain this speed and it's very scary, unless you're in an ocean of downy soft pow. Keeping your speed in control means you are probably still skidding a bit, enough to keep your speed at some consistent level below your max. There's nothing wrong with that at all, in fact most of my turns are skids. I can carve, but only do it for very brief periods of time because I'm not comfortable going extremely fast on the icy hills out here.
But a simple way to think about it - if you're carving, you aren't pushing (aka snowplowing) any significant amount of snow downhill with the base of your board.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

hmm i wouldn't know what that feels like since i've never done it. that sounds kinda weird.. but thanks


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

> If you are carving downhill, you will pick up speed until the friction inline with the engaged edge and the snow and the force of gravity equalize. This is your max on-edge speed possible and much faster than most people are comfortable to go. You have to be carving for a significant amount of time to attain this speed and it's very scary, unless you're in an ocean of downy soft pow. Keeping your speed in control means you are probably still skidding a bit, enough to keep your speed at some consistent level below your max. There's nothing wrong with that at all, in fact most of my turns are skids. I can carve, but only do it for very brief periods of time because I'm not comfortable going extremely fast on the icy hills out here.
> But a simple way to think about it - if you're carving, you aren't pushing (aka snowplowing) any significant amount of snow downhill with the base of your board.



what....? your first sentence has so much physics in it hahaha


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## rustydomino (Jan 3, 2008)

babygodzilla said:


> ok after browsing youtube a bit more i found this video: YouTube - CNN & Vail Snowboard Tips: First Turns
> 
> i think this is what i was doing, linking turns like jeri said. i guess i wasnt carving after all


It takes some experience (and decent conditions) for getting your first carves dialed in. What you'll need:
(1) a freshly groomed, nice and wide blue run (or a decently steep green). I wouldn't recommend trying your first carves in crud or in slush, and obviously not on ice.
(2) a decent amount of speed.
(3) the cajones to go against everything you've learned as a beginning snowboarder and transition to your downhill edge while going fast. Seriously, if you've eaten shit hard when catching an edge as a n00b (like I did ), this can be a big mental block. The key is to have 100% *forward* movement when traversing the hill, no sideslipping at all. As you transition to your downhill edge, your board's sidecut will miraculously drive you into the turn.

It is a great feeling when you figure it out for the first time. For me, I was trying to do a skidded turn but screwed up, I tilted my board too fast, and there was this incredibly smooth and tight turn that just happened. If you have just started linking skidded turns, I would work on getting comfortable with a bit of speed on some slightly steeper runs with skidded turns before you try carving.


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## tboooe (Mar 16, 2008)

rustydomino said:


> For me, I was trying to do a skidded turn but screwed up, I tilted my board too fast, and there was this incredibly smooth and tight turn that just happened. If you have just started linking skidded turns, I would work on getting comfortable with a bit of speed on some slightly steeper runs with skidded turns before you try carving.


LOL! The first time I carved was an accident as well! I was trying to go toe side on a pretty fast blue hill, but for some reason my ankles rolled forward causing my board to tilt at a pretty steep angle. All of sudden the edges caught hold, and I started to pick up serious speed, which was the opposite of what I was used to doing my normal skidded turns. It felt incredible! Of course this great feeling was only fleeting as I promptly panicked when I realized how fast I was going. I promptly bailed! To this day, even as I work on carving, I still only really do well when I do it by accident.


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## tboooe (Mar 16, 2008)

by the way, here is a great video of someone carving:

YouTube - Advanced Snowboarding Tips : How to Carve on a Snowboard


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## Bones (Feb 24, 2008)

Take a couple of turns on some packed snow, then stop and look back at your line.

If it is narrow, well defined line that curves this way and that, then yeah, you're carving.

If it looks "smeared" in the turns, then you're probably skidding.

Think of drawing a doodle with wedge tipped high-lighter or marker. The only way to make a thin line while moving to the right or left is to rock the marker up on one of the edges of the wedge tip. To make a thin "S" shape with a marker (without lifting it off the paper), you rock it up on edge, make a thin line curve around a corner, put it flat against the paper for a moment and then rock it up on the other edge to go around the next curve.

If you ride in East on ice, you'll also get some audio feedback. Skidding makes a loud scraping sound, carving gets pretty quiet.

And yeah, it feels great to carve....like you suddenly found railway tracks. All your speed stays with you through the turn, the board "pops" at the completion of the turn and throws itself forward into the next turn. The speed increase may scare you a bit at first, but once you know it's coming you anticipate it and use to rip the next turn even harder.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

Snowolf said:


> The difference between a skidded or standard turn and a carved turn is that in a carve, the tail of the board will travel in the same track as the nose. There is absolutely no skidding of the tail in a true carved turn. A carved turn is entered, maintained and controlled solely by the board`s sidecut. To enter a carve, the rider must have moderate speed and a good, centered stance. The rider will enter the turn by pressuring the board with the front foot to torsionally steer it (twist the board) as the turn initiates, the rider follows through with the rear foot to bring the board up onto a high edge angle thau allowing the sidecut to establish the turn. The rider must keep his weight centered over the top of the board to prevent the tail end from skidding. The rider will also make edge changes prior to the fall line (in otherwords, the rider switches to the downhill edge while the board is traversing) This can safely be done since in a carve there is no sideslip to cause an edge catch. True carving will actually accelerate the rider through the turns and speed is controlled by turning more up the hill at the end of each turn, not by skidding.


ah ok i understand that. i was skidding then. when i switch to one edge i would slide down for a bit first before actually going in the direction of wherever the nose of my board is pointing, hence the slow down. hmmm put pressure on the front foot... how do i do that..


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## KIRKRIDER (Mar 18, 2008)

My ( modest) experience:
Inistiate a turn leaning toward the nose of the board and lead the turn with yourh head, letting the body follow, keep speed by flexing the knees and allowing the board to follow the bumps on the snow.
But if you're riding slush like I was yesterday you will skid no matter what..the consistency of the snow itself does matter..
slush-pop-corn like conditions are the worst, but still ridable with a well waxed board.


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## Guest (Mar 24, 2008)

pawlo said:


> My ( modest) experience:
> Inistiate a turn leaning toward the nose of the board and lead the turn with yourh head, letting the body follow, keep speed by flexing the knees and allowing the board to follow the bumps on the snow.
> But if you're riding slush like I was yesterday you will skid no matter what..the consistency of the snow itself does matter..
> slush-pop-corn like conditions are the worst, but still ridable with a well waxed board.


i have to try this next time i go boarding. its snowing in tahoe next week! yea!! hopefully i can go again


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## PaoloSmythe (Aug 19, 2007)

what i find helpful is to look at the tracks you leave behind. find a bit of clean snow(either fresh of better still corduroy) within sight of a chair lift. 

do your carving run and then try to spot your track from the lift on the way back up. anything beyond a skinny sinusoidal line is not a carve; ie if it looks at all like a crescent moon, you fail.


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## tboooe (Mar 16, 2008)

I have to agree (as usual) with everything snowolf said. I know for a non-expert boarder like me, all of this info sounds very intimidating. There is a lot of to think about and try to get right. I think the best thing to do is concentrate one individual aspects of carving. By practiciing one skill at at time, you wont overload your mind and end up doing the entire carve wrong. Take it from me who crashed spectacularly this weekend and has a deeply bruised tailbone to show for it. I ended up thinking way too much, trying to remember all the things snowolf mentioned. What I should have done was work on each skill then once I felt comfortable with all of them, then try to combine then all. 

BTW, I really concur with the part about leaning back a bit once the turn is initiated. I have found by doing this, I can get a more consistent carve, probably because I am too aggressive with my front end and flexing the board too much. By leaning back I take some of the pressure off the front, allowing it to "catch" the snow. In time I need to work on my finesse.


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## Guest (Mar 25, 2008)

its quite simple actually...
get up on the edge.









hammer down on your toes and dig that edge in!!!'


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## junglecat1971 (Jan 14, 2008)

Here's a good exercise. Think about smiley faces.

When starting out, go sideways across the hill, perpendicular to the fall line. Get real low and bend those knees. Get that edge up really high. If you do it right, the sidecut of the board should "hookup" into the snow and cause a smiley face across the run. Switch to toeside or heelside and try the same thing. Do that awhile and you'll get the idea. 

Keep in mind this is only an exercise to help you get the idea. You'll get a feel and translate this into your reportoire of turns (of which you'll develop many).



[btw, if you ride in ice alot, carving is your friend!]


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