Snowperformance Style

Snowperformance.com, Sun Peaks, B.C., March 27 - April 1, 2004

Approach

Snowperformance carve camps teach a carving style that maximizes stability and speed. For GS turns, the emphasis is on keeping the torso facing in the direction of the bindings for both toe side and heel side, with little upper body rotation. The style stacks the bones in an angulated C shape, and is appropriate for:

This style stresses several characteristics:

The style does not emphasize:

GS style

Angulation

Keep angulated at all times by keeping your shoulders parallel to the slope, otherwise you will fall to the inside of the turn. Be careful to avoid losing angulation near the end of each turn. Angulation should not be a static move - you should progressively stretch the side of your body facing the inside of the turn, and compress the side of your body facing the outside of the turn. As a drill, hold a pole in both hands, and make sure that the pole remains parallel to the slope as you carve.

Hips + Torso

For most of the turn, keep your hips and torso aligned with the bindings for both heel side and toe side, with minimal rotation. A small amount of rotation can be used at the beginning of the heel side turn.

Keep your torso upright:

Lead the turn with your hips. The rest of your body, including the torso, comes along for the ride. Especially on toe edge, your hips must lead the board by moving forward before your torso moves. One drill for this is the butt grab: place your hands on your butt while you carve. A good upper body drill is to visualize pulling your toes up to your kneecaps. This move will cause your knees to bend more, giving you more flexion. It will also force your torso to stand more upright, and it will get your hips to be more balanced over the board. Plus, it gets your board higher on edge, especially on heel side. Other tips:

Toe side

You can get the board to track better by pressuring your rear shin forward and to the inside of the turn, beyond your toes and against the cuff of the boot - think of the space between your knees increasing. Exert this force down into your right shin from your right hip. But also make sure you flex your front knee at the same time - your legs should flex evenly. If you flex your back knee more than your front knee, your weight will shift to the rear, and you will fall to the inside of the turn. On toe side, keep your torso aligned with the binding angles.

Heel Side

You can get the board to track better by pressuring your front calf backward and to the inside of the turn, against the cuff of the boot and slightly away from your rear foot - think of the space between your knees increasing. When starting the heel side turn, you can rotate your torso about 10º toward the nose of the board. You will need to twist your head around to look where you are going.

On both toe side and heel side, you should be able to get the board to track without spraying snow.

Where to look

At the beginning of the heel side, you can crane your neck and look over you shoulder to see where you are going. But as you end a turn, do not look uphill past the direction of the bindings before starting the next turn, otherwise:

To get your board higher on edge:

Drill for GS butler turns:

Now carve GS turns. This drill separates your upper and lower body, and requires you to balance them independently. You need to maintain your center of mass in a balance zone, and if you leave the zone, you tip over. As a result, it also forces you not to break at the waist. It is a great drill for balancing out any type of carving style. Other tips:

Slalom Style

In slalom carving, the front foot does much of the work to lead each turn:

Slalom requires an aggressive style to both maximize the amount of time spent on edge, and to make transitions fast. You need to concentrate on driving a lot of energy into extending and retracting your legs:

Other tips:

Gate Training techniques for GS and Slalom

All the action happen just before and just after you pass each gate:

You can use pressure to gain speed or bleed off speed:

Other tips:

Steeps

Carving on steeps requires fast yet nimble moves: avoid jamming the edge on the snow. Keep your torso aligned with your bindings - you have more leverage to quickly hop from one edge to another. Change edges quickly on the steeps by use an unweighting move - retract your legs slightly and think about doing a subtle cross-under movement. Your board will stay in contact with the snow, but it will transition to the new edge faster. Other tips:

Bumps and Rollers

Use bumps and rollers to assist with the quick unweighting move to change edges - time your turns so that when you retract at the edge change, you are going over the downhill part of the roller.

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