# Carving drills



## aiidoneus (Apr 7, 2011)

Practice is definitely a big part, she rides with me almost every day. We have been working on trying to improve her carving for a couple weeks now, and she feels like she hasn't improved much. She can usually do a decent enough cross over turn, but she tends to skid instead of carve. I am going to clean up a recent video and post it.


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## PanHandler (Dec 23, 2010)

does she have a bevel on her edges? This in itself can cause her to slip out in stead of holding the carve.


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## aiidoneus (Apr 7, 2011)

PanHandler said:


> does she have a bevel on her edges? This in itself can cause her to slip out in stead of holding the carve.


Her current board is Ride Rapture. Last year she started with a Rome Jett, which had traditional camber. She struggled a lot last season with catching her edges, so this season we thought we would try a lower end rocker (or in the case of the ride flat) board to see how she liked it.

So, not the greatest board in the world. But it does have a sharp edge.


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## aiidoneus (Apr 7, 2011)

So here is quick video of her riding. A few things:

1) Video is about a week old, she is a bit more dynamic now. But not a huge amount.
2) Not her best run of the day, but oh well.
3) She also tends to be a bit more rigid when she knows I am filming.
4) Over the last week her shoulder and back hand position has improved.


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## AAA (Feb 2, 2008)

Hey, she'd doing well. She might just have the muscle memory thing locked in, and finding it difficult to break away from what she knows to do anything else. The top part of that run is too steep to start her on carving. Move her down where it flattens out to start, or even find a flatter run. To start, have her skid a turn along the edge of the run, then ride it out dead across the fall line on her edge (which essentially puts her "in" a carve). That will set her up to initiate a new carve. Half-way across the run, have her simply lean and roll onto her downhill edge. That's it. Ignore everything else. When she does that, the board will begin to carve downhill. Undoubtedly, she'll be timid and have set the board at a very low edge angle. So, the board will carve a huge radius. That's fine. Have her ride out the carve until it comes around dead across the fall line again. Lean downhill / repeat. Simple practice like that on a very gentle run should give her the basic feel for the most fundemental sensations of a carve; initiation / perhaps slight senation of weightlessness, accleration down the fall line, deceleration / G-force at the bottom of the carve.

Give her a goal to change edges exactly half-way across the slope. That gives her something to focus on and perhaps lean a little harder to tighten up the carve to bring her across the fall line comfortably to intiate the next turn without picking up too much speed. It also sets a safety check, so she doesn't find herself still rocketing down the fall line and running out of trail. Tell her to try to fight her intial fear of quick acceleration and to try to hold the carve as she picks up speed, but if she feels out of control, to hit the reset button and stop. Remember, another goal is not to get hurt.


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## aiidoneus (Apr 7, 2011)

As for the terrain, this isn't where we usually practice. It just happens to be the only recent video. Definitely some good info here to read over. Thanks AAA an snowolf.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

Thanks snowolf,...the terrain thing makes lots of sense...we have groomers that do shitty grooming on relatively narrow runs and few perfect snow condition days. So I'll keep trying.


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