Drive the bases...

[gaijin]

This is long-winded as I suck at articulating myself, but it's been requested for me to elaborate. In fact, I kinda feel like an idiot for trying to write it.

I really don't know how to explain it other than just lay out my history and my current thinking. A lot of people don't jive with reverse camber. Hopefully this inspires you to give it a try for long enough for the floss to clean your brain. For those of you who do, please elaborate on your own evolution. You can probably explain it better than myself. Especially you bump and speed skiers.

Shane tried to change people's thinking with Mental Floss, the article he wrote (2001) to explain to people how to ski his Spatula. RIP, homie. You were way ahead of your time.

Fucking waterskis in AK had me confused. "Shane can do anything." was my excuse for not trying it. Fakie-to-fakie backflips. Dude was bonkers, and he hated PSIA carver dorks like me. "If you have to perfectly carve every turn, you're a loser." Touché. But that's exactly who I was, a railroad-track-every-turn-down-the-face guy. Railroad, air, stomp, railroad.

I grew up racing SL in MN. Ventured into GS a bit as well. When I moved to Tahoe in the 90's and became an instructor, I lived with other ski dorks. Some were FIS racers chasing points in the SG and DH universe. There were also PSIA career guys. Both of these people spoke different languages in regards to going fast. Mogul skiers spoke like speed skiers, I always got confused by that. But they're doing the same thing. "Ski the bases, not the edges." Huh? What does that even mean?

Just yesterday I was watching the women's SG in Bormio. The announcer woman was talking about how a skier was too much on her edges and not letting her tips and tails swim on the surface enough to keep her speed. "Swim. Ha... interesting language." She's trying to simplify it for the average spectator. Good choice of words.

The tech universe of PSIA, SL, and GS drive a ski from the edges.
Speed and mogul people drive a ski from the base.
Shane understood both. And the tech guys actually saw him as sloppy. Then Hoji said: "Hold my beer."

In 2013 the HALS Owl Ren got on my feet and changed everything. That was my first legit experience with reverse camber. (the OG Bluehouse Maven doesn't count... wet pasta.)

I wish I had tried the Spatula more than a decade prior. Oh well. There was also FlipCore, the Sickle, Katana, etcetera that caught my attention over the years and convinced me to give reverse a go. Amazing it took me more than a decade of stubbornness, and that was more than a decade ago. If only I knew then what I know now when I was racing. I bet I would have made the tour. "I bet I can throw a football over them mountains."

PSIA was wrong. I now don't think about pressuring my shin to engage the tip of the ski and then ride the edge through the turn to then put the pressure to my tails to catapult me into the next turn. Then begin that whole forward/backward mechanical nonsense process all over again. My HS SL coach tried: "Don't tell anybody I said this to you, because you're a tailgunner, but the tails of your skis are actually faster if you can control it. The problem with being a tailgunner is we lose control too easily. But if you can actually harness that, you'll keep winning." I was a win or fall kinda guy. Problem was I fell half my runs. I wish he would have said middle.

There is no tip or tail. I push the soles of my feet wherever I wanna go as if I were standing in the middle of a saucer sled. And it works wonderfully on full camber or reverse. In fact, my camber carving skills would crush my carving skills of 25 years ago. Go straight, drop the hip, just focus all energy on the soles of my feet. The edges will be there. No need to call them.

Anyway, probably doesn't make any more sense to you after reading that. Hopefully it just inspires you to go reverse for long enough for your skiing to go "Why in the world was I so stubborn?"

Don't get me wrong, I still love traditional camber on firm snow. But I ski it way differently now and I legit believe I was missing this key piece of information that people were trying to get me to understand for decades.

"Drive the bases."

[bw_wp_hedonism]

Is one way of saying it as follows?

When initiating a turn, don’t think about driving forward through the shins. Think about driving down through the soles of your feet. Driving forward or leaning on tails are perhaps adjustments to a turn after engaged.


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[gaijin]

Is one way of saying it as follows?

When initiating a turn, don’t think about driving forward through the shins. Think about driving down through the soles of your feet. Driving forward or leaning on tails are perhaps adjustments to a turn after engaged.

That is way more concise and accurate. Thank you for that one, perfect sentence. A carver would appreciate that.

And you can engage a carve from the tail. That was mind-blowing-- feathering into a carve from the tail.

If you grew up in the 80's/90's you were taught wrong. Sorry. You should have been given a cafeteria tray coated in bacon grease and asked to stand on it.

That would be the best articulation as to what reverse camber teaches.

"Turn this fucking thing."

But once you learn how to, that skill then transfers to other shapes. This is what DH racers talk about... arcing cafeteria trays.

[iriponsnow]

Skiing w/ SoVTJoey (former legit SG skier) taught me exactly this. What you speak is truth.

What I learner from Joey is that the Corvus can rail, you just have to adjust from the PSIA mindset.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I’m a beater but I loved the Corvus and other reverse skis. I like to think of it like being on hockey skates, that’s what it feels like to me.


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[AlecO]

This is why racers talked about being “stacked” instead of forward, no? I used to ski to forward—flailing over my tips with my upper body. Some youtube lessons corrected that, and my times in my beer league races went down almost 10%.

The corollary of this is my extremely spicy take that skiers who say they ski with a “centered” stance are often just trying to justify skiing in the back seat. Mikaela Shiffrin skis in a “centered” stance (eg stacked), but no one would accuse her of being a “playful” skier. Of course different skis behave differently and there is a difference between a traditionally mounted charger and a center mounted playful ski, but they should all be skied “stacked”—straight through your feet with good ankle flexion.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

A small quibble, good ankle flexion is pointless without good knee and hip flexion. It’s the basic athletic stance, you’re not leaning forward or backward, you can’t do that without flexing ankles, knees and hips and engaging your core.


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[SnowMachine]

One of the best skiers I know skis the 191 Hoji every day of the year.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I’ve been skiing my R one tens almost every ski day this season. So versatile. I have been out on my MX eighty threes a few times though


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[pfluffenmeister]

All your bases are belong to us!

[EWG]

I’ve been pretty mesmerized by this over the last decade or so. I agree with everything you said, though I didn’t grow up as a race kid so I can’t speak to that. It does seem, however, that everyone focuses on teaching you a movement (push your shins into your boots and engage the ski edge in front of your binding) that they say is supposed to be replicated each time. That’s so far from actual mastery that it’s mindboggling. I like the term stacked for carved turns, with weight directly into the footbed. That’s exactly right, and that’s why pretty much any ski can be carved. But I’m now thinking of the ski as a continuum of different areas that do different things. It’s an edged platform and you can put pressure and angles on all the parts of that platform to accomplish what you want to accomplish. Some examples (and obviously each of these can be used for many things):

Stomp the inside of the ball and heel of your foot = carve
Pressure the inside edge in front of your binding = slight carved accel or decel depending on the ski and snow
Drive the inside tip edge in moguls = control and speed check
Sit on inside tail edge = accelerate, particularly out of a turn
Pivot on base under foot = control, maybe bleed some speed
Pivot on base under foot while deweighting = speed and setup for next move
Spin on tail bases = dyno move to setup for next thing (I’m not great at this one)
Pressure on bases a bit in front of bindings = super useful speedy smear turn
Pressure on bases at tips = lots of things but for me mostly speed control and setup in tech terrain
A million more

And then different parts of the above can be useful for different applications. In very very steep tight bumps I think about pressuring my shins and driving my tip edges because it forces me into the turns quickly and allows more speed with my hips forward.

But if you think about each ski having at least 12 different areas to use (tail, binding, in front of binding, tip, the each with an inside edge, base and outside edge) and different ways to pressure each, and then with the continuum between all those parts, you start to see how rich the movement patterns can get. The add the complexity of the second ski and it gets fun.

I’ve found I really like skis like the Woodman, Optic Blade, Deathwish etc that are sort’ve tweeners – they can be skied centered and surfy and they can be skied with forward pressure – slarve, carve and surf. But I still own Jeffrey’s, and I still appreciate that style, and I can certainly carve the bejeezus out of them by pressuring through the foot.

Great post and conversation. I will also say that the truly world class skiers out there, one or two of which I have the pleasure of skiing with at times, don't really think about this stuff. They just do it. Chris Paul once said about basketball moves - he's never done a move. He just dribbles where he wants to go and the balls does stuff to get there. I think of that with some of these people we have the pleasure of watching on film, like Hoji - or Candide as a most extreme example.

[Judo Chop!]

I like this.

I never grew up ski racing, or even skiing. Instead I started snowboarding young, even in the 80's when we were on sorels and straps. Then spent a couple decades full-time watersports at a high level. Lots of kitesurfing and some surfing.

when I came back to snow/skiing, I immediately clicked with full-rocker skis. It just made more sense to me. It's only more recently that I've been able to get along with cambered skis and a "proper" carving technique.

I've had/have Ravens, Hojis, Devastators, rockered Cochise, Praxis Pow and many pairs of Renegades. I've tried some Volks and a few other randoms here and there. Everything you said it what goes through my mind, even without the comparison of a solid racing/technique background (though, I do wish I had that also).

I spend a lot of time riding hydrofoils on water. Love it. There is some noticeable crossover with the full-rocker thing. Give it a shot if you need a summer sport fix.

[North]

Drive the bases makes sense describing recent revelations I've had skiing moguls. Less (no?) focus on edge pressure.

[Mustonen]

Interesting discussion. If reverse camber on hardpack - or just anything not fully submerged - teaches you anything…it’s balance through the turn and steering control. I.e. what you need to ski inside a saucer sled.

I’ve been playing with Carv these last few days. What’s standing out to me is I’m frequently scoring near perfect in things like mid-turn balance and parallel skis, but do just ok in a lot of the other metrics, especially “early forward movement.”

I used to really struggle transitioning between cambered and reverse cambered skis, often losing a few runs to awkwardness until I adjusted. I think what fixed that for me was beginning to visualize where the turn was happening and being able to adjust that… sometimes I’d say that as where I put my weight but I think that’s wrong… it’s really just a focal point. With a cambered ski it moves forward toward the tips, full reverse it’s under the ball of my foot. I don’t ever feel right with it under my heel, though.

[strange meadow lark]

Not much to add on the main topic, fully agree and it was one of the best days on skis when Hojis (and soon after Rens) first clicked. Once you unlock that way of thinking about the turn, it helps lead into other ways to pay attention to what your ski is doing and how to manipulate it.

Hopefully only a minor drift here:

It does seem, however, that everyone focuses on teaching you a movement (push your shins into your boots and engage the ski edge in front of your binding) that they say is supposed to be replicated each time. That’s so far from actual mastery that it’s mindboggling.

Spot on--this advice seems so widespread (and even how we define "directional" skiers), but is so bad for achieving being forward on skis. Taking this advice literally and trying to initiate everything with shin pressure often leads to very inefficient or ineffective movements (i.e. focusing on shins only and trying to angle the body forward from the ankles = massive amount of weight/leverage to move from the ankles, moving upper body forward can just get you unstacked). A stacked athletic stance with proper flexion in all leg joints is going to drive shin pressure as a result, and in an efficient way through gravity/inertia. Racers talk about moving feet back at the start of the turn, not the body forward, as its much easier to move the weight of your legs with your core/hips than the above. Find that helps if I get unbalanced in quick turns.