October 2009 - Carving
If you missed last month's article on ski kit then the information about sidecuts could be useful click here to read more
Carving
So what is carving? First of all let’s think about how we make skis turn. Well, not all that long ago we relied on rotating our feet, and so our skis, to turn (lots of unweighting too, who remembers ‘up to start the turn and down to end the turn’?). This rotation meant that most turns were pretty skidded. We still make skis turn in the same way today, but with the introduction of carving skis we can now use the shape of the ski as well.
The easiest way to think about carving, as opposed to skidding, is to consider the direction the skis are pointing as you go around a turn. If the tips are pointing inside the turn, then you are skidding. If the tips are facing in the direction you are travelling, then you are carving. If the tips are facing outside the turn then you are in trouble.
Why would I want to carve? First of all, the feeling you get when you carve a turn is great fun. The smooth arcs and acceleration you feel through each turn make every run feel like a rollercoaster.
Secondly, it’s a very efficient way to go around corners. Imagine a slalom race between a speed boat and a hovercraft. Even if they have the same power and top speed, the speed boat will go much faster around the corners because it continues moving forward. The hovercraft travels sideways while changing direction and will be a lot slower around the bends. It’s exactly the same in a ski turn. This is why the racers try to carve as much of a race course as possible.
Do I have the right skis? It’s the sidecut of the ski that helps you carve, (if you are unsure on what a sidecut is then see last months article) this means that when the ski is laid in the snow at an angle (on it’s edge) we can slide it to create a curve. It will leave a clean line in the snow where the edge has tracked, and this is what we are looking to achieve when we carve. We are not rotating (twisting) the ski at all to create the turn here, but instead we are tipping our ski onto it’s edge to use the shape of the ski to carve the turn.
How do I know I am doing it?
The easiest way to know if you are carving or not is to look at your tracks. A carved turn will leave behind it two clear tracks in the snow, cut by the edges of the skis. Most parallel turns involve some rotation (turning of the feet and skis) and so don’t leave behind these two clean tracks. In a carved turn the ski is moving forwards along the path of the edge and not sideways at all, where as a rotated turn involves some sideways skid with the forwards slide (picture a hovercraft). The sideways skid in a rotated turn is a useful method of controlling our speed, so you can imagine that without this skid we will be going much faster.
Sounds like I’m going to be travelling fast if I am only carving? Not necessarily. Although a carved turn does not have the braking property of a skidded turn, we can change the line we choose to ski down a slope to control our speed. Going further around the corner (aiming further across or even up the slope) will reduce speed. Keep turning uphill and you will stop completely.
Where should I try this out? It is important to learn to carve on a gentle slope. As you get more confident carving you can move onto steeper terrain and enjoy the speed as the skis cut freely through the snow with hardly any resistance.
Can I carve everywhere? The theory says yes! However, steeper slopes, bumpy terrain, harder snow and narrower pistes all make carved turns more difficult. The finer points of carving in tricky conditions go beyond the space we have to write here. If you can carve on the well groomed blue runs but struggle on trickier slopes, you’ll need to book a lesson to find out how you can improve your carved turns in other conditions.
Learning to carve
It sounds easy right?…. Just tilt the skis over and ride on the edges and that’s it. Well, once you have a go you will quickly see that one of the biggest challenges is going to be learning how to balance on the ski edges without falling over. Your ski instructor will help show you how to keep the body in a strong but relaxed position that will allow you to tilt both skis onto their edges.
We know from our general parallel skiing how important it is to balance over the downhill ski, and this is just as important in carving, so we need to learn how to tilt the skis but still keep our body mass driving down through the downhill ski. If we just tilt our skis onto the uphill edge, and so our body tilts into the inside of the turn we will find our centre of mass is no longer over the downhill ski and we are suddenly out of balance and about to fall.
Okay, so we need to tilt our knees into the turn (to feel the edge grip) but still keep our body balanced over the downhill ski, A good way to practice this position is just in a traverse across the slope (make sure to look up and check no one is coming), and see if you can just balance comfortably on the edges. You may like to do this exercise without poles, so you can hold your hands out in front of you to help balance. Feel that the downhill ski is tilted towards the big toe and the uphill ski is tilted towards, but that your centre of mass is going down through your downhill ski.
Once you get more comfortable with balancing, it’s time to think about the shape of the turn. It will be difficult at first to let yourself do a turn as large as your edges want to do, you will need to resist the urge to rotate your skis to finish off the turn and be patient as the skis gently finish off the carve.
Okay…. Well that’s a short introduction on learning to carve. Ask our instructors, for more advice and tuition. Have fun and good luck. Our team is able to help you at whatever stage you are, whether it’s trying carving for the first time, moving onto steeper slopes, or even working on increasing your edge angle.
You can work on your carving in a private lesson or check out the higher level Summit groups (levels 4 and up), which will definitely be focusing on carving during the week.
