Yesterday I took the day off work along with friends Mikey and Jeremy and headed over to Sunapee. This was a case of following deals and conditions. We got an early enough start to see the lifts start spinning, and rode nearly every open trail. (Full disclosure, I have no financial relationship with Sunapee, or any other ski area.)
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| Fooling around on the beginner area's terrain park |
Both of my co-conspirators were on snowboards, and Jeremy was early intermediate. Since Jeremy needed some advice getting down steeper sections in control and without chatter, the conversation turned to technique. Unsurprisingly, nearly all of it was relevant to teleboarding.
Lessons of the day:
- One-footed hop turn: I've written before about the utility of hop turns on steeps and how any kind of jumping is good practice, but there is an even easier way to quickly pivot your board. Hop with your back foot but leave your front foot on the snow. As you are getting ready to transition into a right turn, get your weight onto your front foot. Quickly pull up your back toe and set it back down to the left of where it was. Your foot need not leave the ground for very long, nor go very high. This will help you make very quick and solid turns. You can also use more subtle version of this to turn on top of moguls.
- Round scraping turns: (Thanks to Mikey for articulating this and to Jeremy for learning it in front of my eyes) Scraping the snow is the simplest and most common way to control speed on the snow, but it doesn't have to lead to slashing zig sags, unbalanced J-shaped turns, or poor form. I think the key is to not rush, even if you are on a steep slope where you could accrue speed to quickly. Let each turn develop gradually, and do it with steady rythym. If you apply this thinking to your scraping turns, your turns will come out round and you will go at a constant comfortable speed. I like to think of this as half carved turn, half hockey stop.
- Blending techniques: I tend to write about techniques in pure form, but they can be adjusted and combined to your liking. If you know how to do sinuous, purely carved turns, and you also know how to do a hockey stop, you can make the round scraping turns I just mentioned. A hop turn can be toned down to make a light-footed turn where you stay on the ground, but still rotate more easily. The examples go on and on. Learn pure forms, and improve by trying extremes. But when trying for the best or most appropriate turn, ask yourself how you can mix and match techniques for the best outcome.
- Even application of pressure: You can overcome chattering edges by pressuring your board hard, but smoothly and confidently. If you've ever learned to drive a car with a manual transmission, this is like getting the engine to stop lugging at low speed by just hitting the gas.
- Get lower, lower than you think. Your whole body, especially your knees, is your suspension. You need to be in the middle of that range so that you can either extend or compress at any given moment to respond to shape of the slope and the turn you are making. Nice theory--In practice, people tend to ride to high, especially when they are tired or nervous. Also, you can get incredibly low on the teleboard, so the middle of the range is probably lower than you think. So adjust your stance to be lower, then lower still. Everything will start working better.
- Goof around: At the end of the day you get tired. You probably know that this is when most injuries happen, so you should just call it a day, right? Maybe not. Why not go ride a part of the mountain that's way below your ability level? Yesterday Mikey and I found a beginner level terrain park, and it made the day complete somehow.
