# My turns need a diet



## redlude97 (Jan 9, 2008)

turn earlier? If you aren't comfortable with speed and using the large turns to scrub speed, then go back to greens and practice small turns on mellow terrain.


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## Argo (Feb 25, 2010)

Go faster, take more chances. Really, practice narrow straight lining with swooping turns on greens, then blues, then blacks. You will get going fast. 

I mainly ride advanced open powder terrain like this.... you will be hauling ass. Make sure to stop to do gentle quick edging to burn off speed before putting the hammer down on the brakes. When on icey steeper stuff you will lose your edge if you try to stop from high speeds and in deep powder you are likely to grab a huge pile of snpw and end up in a tomahawk.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

DaftDeft said:


> When I try to do it myself I don't "feel" the board edge engage, I seem to still be going straight and by the time I feel the edge lock in, there I am making a giant (sometimes) carve across the hill.
> 
> describe the feel I should be experiencing that might help as well.
> 
> Thanks!


"The feel the board engage"...what you are feeling is the board being transverse of the fall line, i.e., fattness. It is the feel of the weight to the turn...locked in.

VS the leaner line will feel like more of a lighter, barely holding the edge...it won't feel like the heavy locked in...but like a "riding a razor's edge." In a sense it will feel much more like a finesse thing. And this is were "you really have to trust the board and ride the sidecut." It will feel like you are flowing the gravity or fall line...instead of holding or fighting it like the fat heavy carves. In a sense you are trying to go with the gravity/fall line and just doing the minimal turns or using the lightest touch in order to stay in control. 

A technique or concept to try...try to keep your leading shoulder pointed right down the fall line. At first you will tend to swish your tail back and forth. But get on a mellower run, so that you don't need to swish the tail...but instead try to ride the razor's edge and let the flow happen. So your turns will be shallow and will happen only maybe every 100 yards.

Also your turns will come more from your upper body instead of your knees, i.e., rotating your leading hip and shoulder into the turn...and just using your lower body to absorb/suck up the little imperfections. Also you will not be getting in the back seat nearly as much...more of riding the middle and slightly on the nose. Basically you will be flying over the little bumps/ruts and trusting you board to engage and flow the line...at a much greater speed :surprise:

Hope this makes sense.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

DaftDeft said:


> Looking for some advice, or even just descriptions on what the proper feel should be.
> 
> The problem: I have fat turns. They're giant and take up the whole run, it's like I'm 500 lbs trying to sit in economy. I see people, some no more experienced than I, smoothly going down the hill in a straight line going from one edge to another making a really thin run that stays in a "lane". You can see on my trace sessions the kinds of turns I've been making if I'm not being clear.
> 
> ...


Bend you knees. Your weight should be going down as you want to engage the board's edge. And up when you're changing rails. You need rhythm. Good turns happen when the board gets decambered and a whole bunch of edge engages the snow. Crappy turns use just a little bit of edge, typically right by your rear foot. Watch videos on "cross under turns" or "crossunder turns." I can't say that any one of them is excellent but if you watch a bunch of them you'll probably get the idea. A bunch of rhythmic cross under turns in between some bigger carved turns is good riding.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

In addition to all this, a narrower board may help. I ride both styles of turns depending on slope steepness and amount of crowding. Fat turns can be fun.... under the right circumstances.


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## DaftDeft (Mar 7, 2016)

Thanks for the advice guys. 

I've been looking up videos on the cross under technique and that seems like what I'm trying to do in my head, but they make much faster turns than I feel is possible when I do it. I'm going to attribute that to a much more active core work: it seems like they're moving quickly up and down to engage the edges as well as shifting their center of mass over the edges.

I should point out that I'm on greens almost exclusively as I'm terrible at riding. I've been trying to refine my turns and get some solid control using my edges instead of having to revert to the good ole' falling leaf when I feel sketched out by the terrain. One of the reasons for trying to address this particular issue is I noticed at lot of blues have areas that aren't as wide open my typical greens and I don't feel like I could go down a narrow "lane" using edge work exclusively as my turns are too wide. I'm sure I could plow down the iffy parts if all else failed but I'd rather not have to.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

The reason they do it faster is their weight is dynamic, going up and down, while yours is static, constantly flat on the snow. You at waiting for it to happen. They are making it happen. Become dynamic. Unweight the rail change by jumping up (or just bobbing up for now). Stick the correct rail on the way down. Then Weight the turning edge with a mighty squat. Feel it. Squeeze it off slowly, all the way around. Do the up down motion proportional to the diameter turn you want. Feel the board flex and engage on that down thrust. Fuck the shit out of it. Then trampoline up on the way out of the turn. Then back down again. Fast and then slow. Give it the old circular motion. Ask it who's your daddy.


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Fielding said:


> The reason they do it faster is their weight is dynamic, going up and down, while yours is static, constantly flat on the snow. You at waiting for it to happen. They are making it happen. Become dynamic. Unweight the rail change by jumping up (or just bobbing up for now). Stick the correct rail on the way down. Then Weight the turning edge with a mighty squat. Feel it. Squeeze it off slowly, all the way around. Do the up down motion proportional to the diameter turn you want. Feel the board flex and engage on that down thrust. Fuck the shit out of it. Then trampoline up on the way out of the turn. Then back down again. Fast and then slow. Give it the old circular motion. Ask it who's your daddy.


. 

I would be remiss if I did not say something here about the importance of weighting the nose at the initiation of the bigger turns and then trimming pressure off the nose very subtly.


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## deagol (Mar 26, 2014)

I would urge you to avoid falling back into the "falling leaf" if at all possible. I wish they did not teach that technique.. leads to bad habits.


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## dave785 (Jan 21, 2016)

i'm surprised nobody has mentioned the sidecut radius on the board...

dude what kind of board are you riding? Your board has a built in "turning radius" ... that's what the sidecut is...

also it sounds to me like you're trying to actually carve, whereas other people are skid turning?


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

DaftDeft said:


> Thanks for the advice guys.
> ....
> 
> I should point out that I'm on greens almost exclusively as I'm terrible at riding. I've been trying to refine my turns and get some solid control using my edges instead of having to revert to the good ole' falling leaf when I feel sketched out by the terrain. One of the reasons for trying to address this particular issue is I noticed at lot of blues have areas that aren't as wide open my typical greens and I don't feel like I could go down a narrow "lane" using edge work exclusively as my turns are too wide. I'm sure I could plow down the iffy parts if all else failed but I'd rather not have to.


Daft...ur not at the cross-under level yet...forget about it, for now. And forget about what I posted earlier...cause ur not there yet and forget about sidecut talk. Based on the above, ur needing to learn how to rock your edges...which is involves basically having a generally static body, that is stacked and aligned in the cereal box BUT RELAXED...and then ur rocking back and forth on the edges by using your feet, ankles and somewhat the knees. So go to your mellow green wide run, straight line it but wiggle your board from edge to edge just using your feet and ankles.

The central thing is to focus on is the body that is stacked and aligned in the cereal box AND RELAXED. Lots of folks have trouble at this stage to learn how to become jiggly and loose...often because that sketched feeling results in being too STIFF and often rotated open (get closed).


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

Short turns need quicker action than long "fat" ones. Many quick movements of core n toes n ancles come together. Youre body proly doesn't have the muscle memory yet to "help" you to increase the quickness of movements, so you do transitions still very consciously and thus slow. 

Don't worry. It'll come with time. The more movements become second skin to your limbs, the faster will you be able to do transitions.

You can try the front knee rotation trick; this helped me a ton to increase transition speed; I'm exactly in your skill level when riding switch... my feet simply don't "know" to do all the fine tuned mini adjustments for quick transitions. Using knee rotation helped to put the weight shifts on edges w/o me having actually consciously giving the correct orders to toes/ancles. Rotate your front knee outward for a heelside turn, and halfway through the turn - before you get to the point when the board edge is perpendicular to the slope - rotate it inward to initiate a frontsideturn. Rinse repeat. 

ATM, you're too slow (too late) with initiation of the next turn. Try to look at the boards nose and initiate a next turn by knee rotation AND slightly turning your shoulders (smoothe and calm, don't force the board) as soon as the nose does not point into the fall line anymore. There's a lag time between your reaction and till the board reacts. Try to be "ahead", i.e. do the next initiation sooner than you have so far, bit by bit. You'll see that with exercise, you'll slowly be able to do transitions quicker as your muscle memory builds up and you don't have to "think" of all the movements anymore.


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## neni (Dec 24, 2012)

BTW: green runs proly ain't the right slopes to exercise. You loose too much speed with each turn. And if you're too slow, the board won't turn easily (too slow only increases chances of you doing odd movements to "force" the board to turn instead of feeling and following its natural turn radius). Try on a run with a little bit more pitch so you keep the momentum and enable the edge n sidecut to do its natural turn.

Also try to imagine confines on your wide slope and try to stay within this imaginary boundaries. Imagine it's a cat track with wall on one side and a cliff drom on the other and you have to stay in the middle.


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## ekb18c (Mar 11, 2013)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Daft...ur not at the cross-under level yet...forget about it, for now. And forget about what I posted earlier...cause ur not there yet and forget about sidecut talk. Based on the above, ur needing to learn how to rock your edges...which is involves basically having a generally static body, that is stacked and aligned in the cereal box BUT RELAXED...and then ur rocking back and forth on the edges by using your feet, ankles and somewhat the knees. So go to your mellow green wide run, straight line it but wiggle your board from edge to edge just using your feet and ankles.
> 
> The central thing is to focus on is the body that is stacked and aligned in the cereal box AND RELAXED. Lots of folks have trouble at this stage to learn how to become jiggly and loose...often because that sketched feeling results in being too STIFF and often rotated open (get closed).


Wrath is right, you are not ready yet grasshopper! My advice to you is to get to know your edges and develop those good habits and keep riding. Soon you will just blast through those greens by straight lining it all the way through. It takes time.


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## WasabiCanuck (Apr 29, 2015)

Why are you turning? All the cool kids are straight lining now. Just point it and go. You should be able to get up to 70 or 80km/h easy. Come on, take off the brakes bro and feel that wind. There, problem solved. >


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## Fielding (Feb 15, 2015)

Just fuckin side-slip that bitch. Top to bottom. Like you mean it.


WasabiCanuck said:


> Why are you turning? All the cool kids are straight lining now. Just point it and go. You should be able to get up to 70 or 80km/h easy. Come on, take off the brakes bro and feel that wind. There, problem solved.


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## Argo (Feb 25, 2010)

WasabiCanuck said:


> Why are you turning? All the cool kids are straight lining now. Just point it and go. You should be able to get up to 70 or 80km/h easy. Come on, take off the brakes bro and feel that wind. There, problem solved. >


More like MPH... you're not going fast enough.


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## LALUNE (Feb 23, 2017)

neni said:


> You can try the front knee rotation trick; this helped me a ton to increase transition speed; I'm exactly in your skill level when riding switch... my feet simply don't "know" to do all the fine tuned mini adjustments for quick transitions. Using knee rotation helped to put the weight shifts on edges w/o me having actually consciously giving the correct orders to toes/ancles. Rotate your front knee outward for a heelside turn, and halfway through the turn - before you get to the point when the board edge is perpendicular to the slope - rotate it inward to initiate a frontsideturn. Rinse repeat.
> 
> ATM, you're too slow (too late) with initiation of the next turn. Try to look at the boards nose and initiate a next turn by knee rotation AND slightly turning your shoulders (smoothe and calm, don't force the board) as soon as the nose does not point into the fall line anymore. There's a lag time between your reaction and till the board reacts. Try to be "ahead", i.e. do the next initiation sooner than you have so far, bit by bit. You'll see that with exercise, you'll slowly be able to do transitions quicker as your muscle memory builds up and you don't have to "think" of all the movements anymore.


Hey Neni, what you said makes a lot of sense to me and it's actually how I improved my turns. I got a follow-up question: while applying the front knee rotation trick, what should the rear foot do at the same time? I found sometimes when I initialize the turn using the front knee, my rear foot is on the wrong edge (staying on previous edge to spray snow) so the board is torsional twisted. It feels so unstable. Is it because my weight is not centered?


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

LALUNE said:


> Hey Neni, what you said makes a lot of sense to me and it's actually how I improved my turns. I got a follow-up question: while applying the front knee rotation trick, what should the rear foot do at the same time? I found sometimes when I initialize the turn using the front knee, my rear foot is on the wrong edge (staying on previous edge to spray snow) so the board is torsional twisted. It feels so unstable. Is it because my weight is not centered?


transitioning edges...some/slight weight on the nose (generzlly keep the weight on the nose...no need to get in the backseat...only move middle to nose-nose to middle)...and trailing/rear knee...trails/follows the front leads...rear follows...its not bad to have the board momentarily torsionally twisted...i.e. so that the tail of the board is latched to the turn then released a split second after the nose edge is engaged.


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## LALUNE (Feb 23, 2017)

wrathfuldeity said:


> transitioning edges...some/slight weight on the nose (generzlly keep the weight on the nose...no need to get in the backseat...only move middle to nose-nose to middle)...and trailing/rear knee...trails/follows the front leads...rear follows...its not bad to have the board momentarily torsionally twisted...i.e. so that the tail of the board is latched to the turn then released a split second after the nose edge is engaged.


Hmmm, I just image the steps and every piece connects with each other. 
To sum up, keep weight on the nose, the rear foot follows what the front does and the board stays torsionally twisted before rear foot finish edge transition. I will practice it this weekend. Thanks a lot!!


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

wrathfuldeity said:


> transitioning edges...some/slight weight on the nose (generzlly keep the weight on the nose...no need to get in the backseat...only move middle to nose-nose to middle)...and trailing/rear knee...trails/follows the front leads...rear follows...its not bad to have the board momentarily torsionally twisted...i.e. so that the tail of the board is latched to the turn then released a split second after the nose edge is engaged.


Actually torsional rotation is important in carving for quick edge switching other wise the rider would have to washed out initial turns.


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