# Critique on heel edge



## mikeyman (Apr 11, 2012)

Hey all, first time poster but I've been really impressed with the quality of the feedback you can get on here. 5wks boarding so far, I feel my toeside turns are decent but something's wrong with my body alignment on the heelside. I'd appreciate any feedback as to what I'm doing wrong! It was filmed on an icy bumpy wall leading to off-piste. I'm the one with the green trousers.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

Wow, it's gonna be hard with that bumpy vid!

The only thing I can say, and I'm not really positive, is it looked like you were either leaning away or turning your upper body away from the slope on your heelside turns. Either will screw up your turn, in different ways.


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## srdeo (Jan 29, 2012)

I thought it was really good for someone with 5 weeks of riding. 
I thought you were little too bent over on you heelside. On heelside turn/speed check, our shoulder seemed to be almost over (in front) of your toeside edge when it should be over (behind) your heelside edge. Your butt was stuck way behind with your upper body(shoulder) way in front. 

Also, like snowwolf said lack of board tilt was kind of strange. I thought with your body position where it was, you should have had more board tilt. I thought maybe it was loose boots or loose binding or lack of forward lean on your binding, but i am not really sure. Try more forward lean and make sure everything is tight. It should give you more responsiveness on your heelside.


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## SnowMotion (Oct 8, 2010)

Not looking bad at all for 5 weeks. I agree with the feedback so far. The tilt issue that might be condition based(ICE). Its harder to tilt up on edge when your not sure your edge will hold. Due to the position of the body your toe edge will be easier to hold therefore giving you the ability to tilt more. Snowolf is dead on with what you should start doing next to move into better riding. Get lower (at the knees not waist). Add some twist to the board to initiate the turn then just sit back on heels or lean over your edge (on toes) to really drive that edge through the turn. This will take less effort than what your doing now. Literally when you get the feel for this you are doing about 5% of the work and your board will do the rest.GL


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## mikeyman (Apr 11, 2012)

Guys - just wanted to say thanks so far for all the critique, I appreciate the time you spent watching/writing. It's also the first time I've seen myself on video which is always a shocker I imagine..!

From what I understand from you guys there's a few things that seem to be consensus:
- don't twist so much at the waist/turn at the shoulders, keep line of shoulders more in line with length of board
- up/down motion more with the knees
- more edge angle (possibly condition based - it was super icy!)
- twist the board (I don't do this enough I'm sure of it)

The last two are new to me and I'll definitely work on them. The first two were my suspicions - I've been told by the French instructors that on the heel edge I should look more back OVER my shoulder rather down the mountain and that will keep me more aligned. The last trip I also noticed my left quad (back leg) was getting sore, which I think comes from my heeledge turn where it feels like I am turning my torso towards the back leg and sticking my front hip out (at 0:24)? - straining my left quad. When I look at my body position in this frame it doesn't look smooth & symmetrical at all!

One thing I find difficult to get conceptually are the different ways to turn under different snow conditions. I've never got straight answers from instructors and I suspect that's because it's a difficult question to answer and cannot be distilled into a formula. Could anyone try to explain when you might want to use different types of turn - I was on an icy section where I had to pick a line, would I still want to use the same techniques Snowolf is describing? I appreciate it's a pretty shoddy video ;-). For example on reds/blues I think I can carve quite well for my experience, but I find that difficult to do on steeper sections where I tend to kick the back leg out more - I've seen advanced riders do this with a jump from edge to edge on icy steeps and narrow off pistes. It seems to bleed speed whilst sticking to a narrow line?

Cheers


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