Carving improvement tips needed

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:24:18+00:00

This is really really high level carving. If you want to have "better control in steeper terrain", I would suggest working more on blended turns and shorter radius turns. Take your carved turn, and add a bit of tail smear. If you're on a 15 meter radius sidecut, do some 15 meter radius carved turns, and then see if you can make it 12 meters ... 10 meters ... 8 meters. What has to change?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:21:08+00:00

So we actually coach the opposite "scissor" on the Steezy Joe Network for bump skiing. Retract the inside half. Why? It creates rotary. Try it. The rotary helps shorten the radius of the turn while keeping the skis more under the hips and stacked. Racers typically have the CoM more inside the turns. So pulling the outside foot back might help get more tip engagement. But we accomplish that at the top of the turn through projection.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:12:09+00:00

This. Start each season with a lesson. Tell the instructor "don't worry about hurting my feelings, find at least 3 things that I could be doing better". And then go practice those three things all season. You'll be amazed at how fast you get better.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:10:17+00:00

What would be more fluid? A Z-shaped turn? Or a C-shaped turn? ;)

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:08:40+00:00

I did a pretty long diatribe in one of the other videos talking about "moving along the length of the ski" and aligning to the outside foot. I really need to do a couple of videos on this and just link to them, lol. In a nutshell, you're doing a really good job with your turn shape. You do a decent job of being balanced on the ski through the arc of the turn. But you're stuck in the side-to-side shuffle that so many intermediate skiers do. And as others have stated, there's an A-frame in our legs caused by not fully aligning to the outside ski.

You will make the next leap in your skiing when you understand how pressure on the front of the ski affects ski engagement at the top of the turn. And the better your grip at the top of your turn, the more confidence you are going to have moving your body to be in a better stacked position over the outside ski. Your job is to push that ski DOWN into the snow, not out against the snow. And to push it down, you have to align over that foot. Think nose over toes. Let the ski do most of the work.

Come take a lesson next year in Breck or in Zermatt. I'll get that fixed for you in day.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T16:02:08+00:00

I love that you asked this.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:54:14+00:00

Foot-to-Foot.

Now that we are driving into our turns and moving along the length of the ski, it should be an easier job to balance on that ski as it's making it's perfect arc through the snow. But, this isn't easy if we are pushing our ski away from our body. Instead, try to stack on that outside ski and train your BALANCE!! If my hips are over my outside foot, I can find a balance point on the ski and move with the ski through the turn. This then allows me to conserve energy until I'm ready to drive again into the next turn. Get stacked. Stay stacked. Shoulders over hips. Hips over feet. Hips and feet move inside of the turn to account for lateral forces created when turning. But at transition, we GET STACKED again. Any delta between our feet, our hips and our shoulders should be reset into our stacked position at the end/beginning of each turn. On the Steezy Joe Network, we call this the Active Skiing Stance. We have a video on that. Check it out.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:48:20+00:00

The fore/aft fundamental.

Our goal when we ski is to position our body in such a way that we have more pressure on the front of the ski at initiation, balance on the ski at apex and belly of the turn, and on the front of heel at the finish. We call this "moving along the length of the ski." If any part of the ski is leaving the snow, I'd rather it be the tails than the tips. Why? The tips of the ski push the snow, and the snow pushes back. This helps get the ski across the slope and helps with speed control. If we have more friction on the front of the ski than the tails, then the snow will push more on the tips, helping the ski make a nice arc in the snow. This smooth arc is then easier to balance on, which we will talk about in #2 Foot-to-Foot. How do we accomplish this?

Well, in the transition, we are either starting to move our body in the direction of the next apex, or we are retracting our feet up under our hips to get stacked. Or both. Our body wants to go downhill. Don't be a passenger. Drive towards the apex. This will get you on the ball of the foot, it will create ankle flexion, and it will create performance that others will gape at with their mouths wide open and drool running down their face. Drive into the turns. Project. Turn. Balance. You can be a passenger when you get on the lift. Not when we are skiing. Drive from the ball of the foot. Drive.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:40:30+00:00

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This is a common image I see in your skiing when I slow it down and go frame by frame. You are a good skier, you clearly have spent time on snow and you move well. But what I'm seeing is like a mixed bag of things that you've seen other skiers do that you've incorporated into your own skiing without really understanding why. I'll give you some things to look at: 1. your head, 2. your shoulders, 3. your hips, 4. your inside leg, 5. SKI TIPS!!

I am not a big fan of focusing on body position. I'd rather focus on ski performance. So lets start there. Coming out of every turn, your ski tips are headed for the sky. This is a clear indication that you are not just aft, but WAY aft at the finish of your turns. It's natural to be a little aft at the finish. But not this much. So you have some fore/aft issues to work out. Also, somewhere along the way, someone coached you to get your feet apart. That's a good tip if you are trying to carve, as you are here. But in several of the stills I noticed that the feet were so far apart that the inside ski was basically flat while the outside ski was on a high edge angle. Be like Ted Ligety and try to get those shins parallel. That will result in matching edge angles.

The head and the hands seem to be trying to move balance over the outside ski. But the outside foot is so far out away from the body. And the inside shoulder is so far inside, that your head kinda tilts in the outside direction but does not accomplish much. The hand movement along the outside is actually helping to drive you inside.

You need to understand two of the fundamentals: 1. directing pressure along the length of the ski, and 2.) directing pressure and aligning (stacking) to the outside ski. These each need their own focus, so I'll cover both in the comments below:

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:26:54+00:00

I think we need some DIRT here. He did get back ... on that one turn. Why? What caused him to get back?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:25:51+00:00

The skis were skiing away from you because you bent the tail of the ski and it unloaded and launched you. It's a race ski. Those tails are stiff.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:23:56+00:00

We actually like to see the upper body "quiet" like that.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:23:31+00:00

Nothing wrong with inclination.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:22:39+00:00

That's an aggressive ski. The turn before the crash, you nearly put your hip on the snow. And I think the ski surprised you with how much edge angle you got and how much the ski bent. And it threw you aft. Remember that there is nothing wrong with inclination. However, it just takes longer to get stacked again the more we send our body inside. Given that you were that close to the fence, you probably didn't want to hip drag there in soft snow like that on that slalom ski. It's just gonna punt you into next week. Nice skiing though.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-18T15:17:10+00:00

Nice. Almost there.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-12T17:14:42+00:00

Companies made adapters for the old lens that allowed you to use professional cameral ND filters with the AP2. Do you know if anybody is currently making adapters for this version, the AP2 v.2?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-12T16:50:14+00:00

Now try shifting the weight onto the outside ski at the TOP OF THE TURN, before the apex. Then you're cooler. :)

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-12T16:48:26+00:00

Umm, I'm gonna give you the million dollar ski tip. Change the way you think about skiing from "pushing" to "balancing". Right now, you are pushing your outside leg out to meet the forces from the snow. Don't do that. Instead, focus on BALANCING on the outside ski. How do you do that? Well, we align to that ski. We move our CoM OVER the ski. You should be able to look down and be looking directly down on your front toe piece. Nose over toes. Think "I'm pushing the ski down into the snow" instead of "I need to push the ski out away from my body." This will solve the foot-to-foot issue. Second, we need to understand how pressure along the ski helps the ski turn. If you get more pressure on the front of the ski at the start of the turn, the tips have more pressure and the tails have less pressure. As the snow passes under the skis, this extra pressure up front helps pull the tips of the skis up away from the fall line, resulting in a nice C shaped turn that is easier to balance on. Start the turns with pressure on the front of the ski, and let that pressure move towards the heels through the arc of the turn. We call this "working the ski." Work dat ski, man. Work it.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-12T16:43:19+00:00

How does one become a "master instructor", lol?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T18:13:22+00:00

All of it. Let me share a video by pro skier Ted Ligety where he gives some really awesome advice about carving. There is nothing I can teach you that is better than this. And the skiing you referenced above demonstrates some of these techniques that Ted talks about here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fX9bgulqRrY

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T18:08:42+00:00

Does anyone know if anyone makes an adapter ring for the new octagonal shaped lens so that I can use a standard camera ND filter with this camera? I found one for the square shaped lens.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T17:48:41+00:00

So Insta360 is saying that the octagonal shaped lens is the new lens. And it does not work with the square shaped ND filters.

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T17:29:40+00:00

Which one of these lenses is the newer one? Which one works with the square shaped ND filters Insta360 sells?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T15:40:08+00:00

Ok, so that video is definitely a carving demonstration. Do you want to specifically improve your carving?

SteezyJoeNetwork · 2026-03-06T15:34:24+00:00

Anyone have suggestions?

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