Ran James' 9 elements video through AI and with a lot of prompting tried to come up with something I hope will be useful. If anything feels 'off' or inaccurate (esp. @wild-cherry your input would be amazing), I'm happy to go revise them toward a 'perfect version'
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Google Doc if that's easier: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RCi40yDpOm6Xik6NBmt88wAHLFVi4AJW20dK6iyiJOg/edit?usp=sharing
On the toeside, I’m not sure about the torso matching the front binding angle. If you’re not at a steep binding angle, it’s not going to be enough. Moreover, people don’t generally rotate as much as they think they are (I certainly remember James telling me to open my hips more the first time I rode with him). In the part 3 reflections video, James talks about bowing forward, over the nose, which doesn’t really jive with the binding angle (or chest over knees). Perhaps @wild-cherry can clarify?
My perspective/experience (of a progressing carver): I had terrible angulation on my toeside and I was getting my chest too far to the inside of the turn. To fix my bowing motion on the toeside, I started bringing my rear arm forward at initiation (actually a counter rotation of my torso). This helps to point my ‘belt buckle’ towards the nose of the board so I can get my chest over the nose. This does two things 1) it gets my weight forward at initiation to engage the front contact. 2) opens the hips which allows me to drop my hip in, moving my centre of mass in quickly and keeping it low, and also allows me to crunch the lateral oblique for angulation. This greatly improved my weight stacking over the edge, left a cleaner pencil line, and really tightened up my toeside radius to match my heelside. I think the rotation isn’t as relevant as controlling the placement of your centre of mass. YMMV.
James discusses the hip shift in the reflections video as well.
Big White, BC, Canada
... This helps to point my ‘belt buckle’ towards the nose of the board so I can get my chest over the nose. This does two things 1) it gets my weight forward at initiation to engage the front contact. 2) opens the hips which allows me to drop my hip in, moving my centre of mass in quickly and keeping it low, and also allows me to crunch the lateral oblique for angulation.
Great video I just saw on toeside carves (Lars also talks about it in one of his vids) is that we actually want to counter-rotate the torso that it faces more in the direction of the nose of the board. This totally contradicts the way I was taught in duck but totally makes sense for carving in posi-posi.
This guy's cues around NOT using the ankle muscles and leaning into the chins of boots makes sense to me, also in bending the back leg to get the angulation. I think this guy may be riding duck but sounds like the principle is the same.
On the toeside, I’m not sure about the torso matching the front binding angle.
@board-doctor Good point. In the 9 elements video James talks about a 60 degree range in torso rotation with the limit on toe side being the line formed by the front binding (if I understood correctly). But obviously this angle will be variable across riders based on how they set up their bindings.... maybe the key point is to 'slightly' counter-rotate in such a way that just facilitates the toe-side angulation and stacking our weight over the edge.
Lars touched on it here:
And Korean style (subtitles work):
Big White, BC, Canada
Jeremy Jones also says to initiate a toe turn with the back hand and chest…
And James obviously does it as well:
But I do think this is a bit more ‘expert’ than introductory carving.
Big White, BC, Canada
@carveaddict75 that “locking in” video does have some great pointers. Not the cleanest carving, but it is a duck stance.
Big White, BC, Canada
But I do think this is a bit more ‘expert’ than introductory carving.
@board-doctor Something to aspire to, for sure! For me it helps to remind myself what's proper technique...everything else is bad habits I have to overcome.
Newbies will use separation and a counter rotation to pivot the board, and you obviously want to avoid that. I think this is the main reason that CASI teaches beginner & novice riders to keep their body inline.
Similarly, aspiring carvers will reach for the snow (folding at the waist and loosing their edge angle), so that needs to be avoided as well.
The newer tips video is great, but there is the dichotomy of James saying don’t reach for the snow, all the while his back hand is often on the snow. I realize that it’s his inclination that’s bringing him closer to the snow, but I’m not sure if aspiring carvers always understand that. Hence, “don’t reach for the snow”…
Big White, BC, Canada
Ran James' 9 elements video through AI and with a lot of prompting tried to come up with something I hope will be useful.
Thanks for doing that!
If anything feels 'off' or inaccurate (esp. @wild-cherry your input would be amazing), I'm happy to go revise them toward a 'perfect version'
This seems more like an off-season job... I've got videos to produce and board to mount this week.
I've been working on training my own Carving Bot actually. Fed it transcripts from all my instructional videos, posts from this forum and a bunch of my snowboarding-related emails. It needs work, it's still pretty dumb.
I had hoped to get it active on the forum here for the comedy, and maybe have it chatting with people too, helping them with gear and technique. But mostly I wanted the help with draft emails because I'm often answering the same questions and making the same gear recommendations for multiple clients in the same week, and it can be very time consuming.
The Carving Bot is still in progress. @clunk will be here soon, he's the Carvers' Connection IT department, so maybe we'll have something ready to release in a month or two. But he also has some work to do on the website (maybe you've noticed?) and he's also the Trenched Forever Mitten urethane coating department and I have 300 sets to coat arriving tomorrow. @clunk will also be the shipper and on-call videographer this season so we'll have to see how much time is available for bots. (I also want another bot to create a Crazyhouse Chess opening theory library for me... Love to play Crazyhouse but my openings are weak and I can't get past 2000 ELO on chess.com)
I'm just slaying...
