# Freeriding - Backfooted Slarvy turns on Steep Terrain



## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

It looks like he's doing C-turns. Very tight, linked turns. You start out front-weighted as you initiate the turn, then shift your weight to the back leg through the turn. It engages the rear edge to keep you from washing out and keeps your center of gravity closer to the fall line you're following. Depending on how tight you want to make them, you may also be up-unweighting the board as you cross the fall line.


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## Snowdaddy (Feb 2, 2018)

Basically it's checking speed by stalling the board in the turn.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

Snowdaddy said:


> Basically it's checking speed by stalling the board in the turn.


How you shift your weight affects the result, though. If you do the weight shift like I mentioned, you'll have a pretty tight carve all the way through. If you keep your weight forward through the whole turn, you'll get more of a 'scarve' through the turn and bleed off more speed. I use the latter technique in mogul fields to keep my speed down. In chopped up but loose new snow, the former technique keeps you from feeling the bumps as much because you carve through them.


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## Snowdaddy (Feb 2, 2018)

Donutz said:


> How you shift your weight affects the result, though. If you do the weight shift like I mentioned, you'll have a pretty tight carve all the way through. If you keep your weight forward through the whole turn, you'll get more of a 'scarve' through the turn and bleed off more speed. I use the latter technique in mogul fields to keep my speed down. In chopped up but loose new snow, the former technique keeps you from feeling the bumps as much because you carve through them.


I don't disagree. It just looked like he was riding semi pow and he was pushing snow.


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## Ben.S (Feb 16, 2019)

keel_bright said:


> Are there any freeriders here who can comment on how to improve on this technique? My own steep riding looks nowhere near this smooth unfortunately.


Consider a lesson. Any AASI or CASI level 3 or 4 instructor should be able to teach you short radius sliding turns. After that it's just adding your style to them.

Skip to 1:38 into the video


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## keel_bright (Jan 13, 2013)

I'm definitely seeing more to the technique than simple dynamic cross-under turns. XDLR is driving each turn heavily through the back foot without sliding out despite being on extremely steep terrain. As Donutz mentioned there is some fore and aft weighting going on which I will try to work on; the rider in the CASI video is keeping his weight very centered.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

It just looks as if they're on back foot as they are low in that knee, but they aren't. Weight shift happens so quickly that one cannot see it. They can unweighting the back/pull up the tail to throw it around. That wouldn't be possible if they would have their weight on back foot. The weight just very shortly is on back foot through the turn to put pressure on tail to decrease speed, but immediately goes back to front to enable the rear to be free to do the next slash. 

You can exersise that on any steep groomer. To avoid that you get too perpendicular to the slope and get very tight turns instead, I imagine that I want to keep the nose downhill all the time. It isn't, but by trying to get it downhill asap, I get my concentration on the front foot, to get the weight quickly back on front foot, which is crucial, because without having weight quickly back on front, you cannot unweight the rear for the next slash.


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## DaveMcI (Aug 19, 2013)

In pow like that try and center flex the board. Get low, throw your legs out, center flex the deck into the pow. Its kind of mini quick pow slashes back and forth. On groomers it will be different technique. That being said, you can't teach style


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## LALUNE (Feb 23, 2017)

Ben.S said:


> Consider a lesson. Any AASI or CASI level 3 or 4 instructor should be able to teach you short radius sliding turns. After that it's just adding your style to them.
> 
> Skip to 1:38 into the video
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlWY1MFkHM4&t=98s


The technique OP looking for is different from short radius sliding turns.



neni said:


> It just looks as if they're on back foot as they are low in that knee, but they aren't. Weight shift happens so quickly that one cannot see it. They can unweighting the back/pull up the tail to throw it around. That wouldn't be possible if they would have their weight on back foot. The weight just very shortly is on back foot through the turn to put pressure on tail to decrease speed, but immediately goes back to front to enable the rear to be free to do the next slash.
> 
> You can exersise that on any steep groomer. To avoid that you get too perpendicular to the slope and get very tight turns instead, I imagine that I want to keep the nose downhill all the time. It isn't, but by trying to get it downhill asap, I get my concentration on the front foot, to get the weight quickly back on front foot, which is crucial, because without having weight quickly back on front, you cannot unweight the rear for the next slash.


This is pretty correct. Quick weight shift from front to back to front foot to kill speed and quickly steer turns. This is also widely used on mogul runs too.


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## keel_bright (Jan 13, 2013)

Mhmm. On steeps right now my turns look a little more like Nose Rolls which have a similar structure in terms of unweighting the back foot, turning, and then weighting the back foot again. But my nose roll turns look much more upright with less of the fore-and-aft movement. Often times though, I find the board shift a little drastic, not as precise with the re-weighting, and it can often feel like I'm jamming the board hard to regain control at the end. Less control and fluidity. Again one thing I noticed is how close the hips get to the ground. Again, I'm just looking for ways to get better at this.


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## t21 (Dec 29, 2010)

K,i'm not sure of what "slarving" turn your are asking but if you say that Xavier's turn are what you refer to as crisp and that is more of a short/narrow c-turns that you would do on narrow chutes to control your speed. My friend/riding buddy does a more of a really/quick short maneuvering turns in tree runs by slightly lifting his tail end and swish it around like a fishtail. This is very effective also on a very narrow gaps on chutes and tighter tree runs without turning your board 90 degrees(heelside/toeside)to scrub speed.


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