http://www.edgechange.com/pros/dan-humphries/ en wwweems@gmail.com Copyright 2010 2010-07-09T03:10:13+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/track-your-progress-and-spray-some-snow/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/track-your-progress-and-spray-some-snow/ Today we rode the chair up at 8.30am to foot or so of new snow. We threw buckets of spray on five quick runs. It is extremely rewarding to have a morning like the one we had today. No drills, no skills, no thinking, only riding. On an otherwise overcast and snowy day, the sun peeked briefly through the clouds for one empty run that we had totally to ourselves. Days like these happen spontaneously, and yet there has been a great deal of learning that has occurred to prepare the way. One aspect of that learning has involved consideration of the tracks we leave in the snow as we ride down... Every moment that you are skiing or riding thousands of snowflakes and crystals of ice are being displaced by your equipment (unless you are mid-air or sliding a rail.) This re-positioning of the snow that happens when we turn tells a great deal about what the ski or board has done and can give valuable, instant feedback on what the equipment is doing. On days when the grooming is fresh or the coverage is thin, notice the tracks that you are leaving in the snow. (stop first, then look back!) Are you carving a platform through the snow, or smearing and spreading the snow with a skidded turn? How symmetrical are the turns? Are they evenly rounded or rough and uneven? Is your intention for each turn showing up in the tracks you are leaving in the snow? I get a lot of clues about subtle movements that my students are making by looking at their tracks, and at the way that the snow is being dispersed by their edges as they come down.  So take a look at your tracks and see what you see, but know that you are not going to learn all that you can while standing still looking back at what you just did. On that note, here is something you can practice that is a lot of fun and very useful to prepare you for the double blacks. Spray the snow downhill in front of you at the end of each turn. To do this well requires a precise blending of several skills. This is appropriate for high intermediate snowboarders who are comfortable and aggressive on blue terrain. 1. Rotation (pivot) Turn your board to finish the turn pointed across the hill (perpendicular to the fall line.) 2. Edging. Increase pressure on the edge quickly and evenly to push the snow ahead of you. 3. Body Position and Movements. Your lower body needs to be doing the turning, while your upper body stays steady with your lead shoulder pointing mostly down the hill. Looking down the hill so you can see the spray with you peripheral vision. 4. Weight distribution. Shift you weight to the back foot so that the spray is coming from under the back foot.  TROUBLESHOOTING? The turn will be S shaped and relatively short. Many people have a tendency to elongate the S when they do shorter turns. If you are spraying snow off to the sides, you are not finishing the turn across the hill and need to hold onto each turn a bit longer. If your weight is mostly over the front foot, it will be very difficult to generate any spary at all, work on shifting your weight to the back foot at the end of the turn. If the board skids out from under you and you fall down, you are leaning up the hill too much, and need to stay more upright over the board as you finish the turn. 2010-02-20T04:56:22+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/a-bad-day-skiing/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/a-bad-day-skiing/ "If we were playing golf today I'd be a 108" This is what I heard one skier shout to his buddy on the final stretch down to the bottom of Aspen Mountain. Evidently this guy had a bad day skiing. So bad he was compelled to shout it out on his last run down. "Hey, I sucked today!"  Maybe he has a coffee mug or t-shirt that says "A bad day golfing is better than a good day at the office." I don't know and no big deal if he does. That stuff can be fun. But he wasn't laughing. Nor did he sound angry or disappointed. His tone was very matter-of-fact. I wonder what lead to this comment. Was it a series of stubborn choices? A refusal to acknowledge the reality of the condtions, energy level and physical conditioning? A lack of accoutability? Not paying attention? Usually all of the above conspire to turn a good day bad. Was he playing the "just a bad day" card for the first time or hundredth or more? Did he learn something of substance and how to play another next time things were shaping up poorly? I don't really know about him and I'm making up a lot of stuff based on one throw-away comment. What I do know is that I used to be terribly inconsistent from one surf to the next so I speak from experience when I say that the Sports Diamond is a pathway out of that pattern. Here are two practical tips to help you avoid getting into that "bad day mode." 1. Forget better and worse. Embrace different. No part of the mountain will be better or worse today, only different. Lose the baggage associated with better and worse and go forward from different with an open mind. 2. Don't put the cart before the horse. Generate confidence and activate your muscles with higher intensity/faster tempo turns on easier terrain first, then challenge yourself with more difficult terrain. 2010-02-16T14:52:13+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/recovering-from-injury/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/recovering-from-injury/ In 2004 surfing world champ Mick Fanning did the splits while landing a floater and tore the hamstring clean off his pelvic bone. A surgeon attached a metal hook to his pelvis and sewed the hamstring around it. This is what Mick's trainer had to say about his recovery, from his biography "Surf for you Life" Jan says teaching Mick's body that the hamstring muscle was reattached, and helping him let go of the injury emotionally were major challenges. 'There's a lot that has to happen on the emotional side with injury,' she says. 'Most people that have had something significant don't realise that they are still looking for it. What happens if my hamstring goes again? They don't realise they do it, and you have to emotionally make them aware of letting go of it too. And I think he got halfway through the year and that same thing came up. He said,"I realised what I'm doing. I'm surfing safe. I'm surfing in case I hurt my hamstring." I said, "Mick I will guarantee you that hamstring is there to stay. From my point of view and the area I work in, you don't have an issue with your hamstring." Even in the early days, after testing it and it was all okay, we said, "Mick, we're not going to talk about the hamstring. It's as good as the other one." We consider the injury, make sure we do all the right steps, but we don't baby the injury.'  2010-02-10T01:04:43+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/habit.-solution-or-symptom/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/habit.-solution-or-symptom/ "If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" Ever experienced an undesirable movement pattern that just would not seem to go away. For the girl I was riding with yesterday it is the tendency to be in the backseat at the start of the toeside turn. For me right now it is the tendency to pre-spin too much and too early on frontside 360s. We know that it is not how we want to be moving. Why do we do it? Weems posted an earlier blog about habits. All habits are solutions. There is some benefit to her in starting the toeside turn with 60% or more of her weight on the back foot. There is a benefit to me in pre-spinning the 360. She can do the turn and I can do the 360. Neither of us is very efficient with the movements we are choosing, but we are making it happen regardless. So where do these solutions come from that at some point may turn into habits that we eventually decide we don't like anymore? Is it because of equipment we are using now or once used? Is it our physical makeup, our biomechanical idiosyncrasies? Is it a past or current injury? Could it be that we just happened to move that way once and it stuck? Could it be coincidence? Did we get it by watching someone who had the same habit? Or is it rooted in emotion? And if it is rooted in emotion, might we be best served by thinking of the movement as a symptom of that emotion, rather than as a solution? A symptom of fear may be going to the backseat. A symptom of excitement (got young kids?) might be not turning at all. A symptom of embarrassment may be an unwillingness to try something new. A symptom of anger may be forcing the skis/board. Though "symptom" has a negative connotation it does not have to be all bad in this context. A symptom of satisfaction might be some nice progressive edging. A symptom of being relaxed/contentment could be rhythm and flow in the bumps. I get it that this is a real can of worms I am opening with this last paragraph. It is a bit of a chicken egg situation? Which came first, the emotion or the symptomatic movement? Or do we leave emotion out of it entirely? After all, it might just be the result of a wrinkle in a sock. 2010-02-08T15:06:48+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/large-terrain-park/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/large-terrain-park/ Are the jumps getting bigger, or is my appetite for big jumps getting smaller, or both? Sounds like a legitimate question, right? Well it isn't, not really. Asking this is a step down the path to agony. Not the kind of agony your back knee might feel after knucking the landing on a 45 foot step-down, but the agony of mental suffering that goes something like this... Should I hit this? That is a big jump, but it's not that big. If s/he can hit it, I could as well. I would if the light were right and if the snow were a little bit softer. And so on. I notice myself doing variations of this stuff all the time and it just steals the fun away. I am getting good at tuning out this kind of noise. Riding with Karl the past few days has been super fun. He is a straight talker. He says "I don't want to hit it." And that is that. Then he eyes a jump he does want to hit and throws a front seven or a switch back five off it! He makes no bones about it.  The jumps are what they are, my appetite for air is what it is. Want to go bigger, then go faster over a bigger jump. Don't want to go big, then don't. Not today? OK, come back tomorrow. Whatever you do, don't agonize over it. Once a high level of skill is reached, riding the park is largely a game of confidence. Stick with "want to" and "don't want to" to keep your head in the right space for the big park. Always "Smart Style" it and know the code. Go to http://www.terrainparksafety.org 2010-02-07T01:57:22+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/three-days-of-learning-to-snowboard/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/three-days-of-learning-to-snowboard/ Whatever you have you heard about learning to snowboard, no doubt all of it is true.There are as many different experiences of learning to snowboard as there are people who have tried it. It is different for everyone. Generally, it is not a walk in the park or a piece of cake. Generally, it is not as terrifying as you might imagine. Is it challenging, even difficult? Yes. Frustrating? It can be. Will your patience and perseverance be tested? Maybe. Will you go beyond what you thought you could acheive and have fun doing it? Most likely. Will you achieve less than what you expected to and be humbled and gracious? Possibly. All of these things and many others might come up for as you are learning to snowboard. Many of these things will be happening at the same time. Learning to snowboard is generally not "sitting on a beach sipping a cocktail" type of fun, not laugh out loud knee-slapping fun, but it can be like that. I think of it as exhilirating, edge-of-your-seat, unpretentious, open-minded, authentic fun. To Mike, Lindsey, Whitney, Jessi and My. Major props! You were inspirational in the past 3 days. Thanks for riding with me! 2010-02-02T05:49:58+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/heelside-carve/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/heelside-carve/ Carving. Every point along the edge of the snowboard passing throught the same point in the snow. Used down race courses and through halfpipes, on catwalks and the instant before spinning off a jump. If you are snowboarding you are either carving or skidding. Carving leaves a narrow line in the snow. Skidding leaves a wide track in the snow, it is used most of the time by the majority of snowboarders.  The pinnacle of carving performance a snowboard is being able to do it down steep terrain. It is a mighty challenge to carve consistent turns on a snowboard down a steep blue or groomed black run ( I am talking about carving on conventinal equipment, not hard boots and alpine board.) Of those who can carve down steep terrain on a snowboard most are doing toeside turns that have a much tighter radius than the heelside. Picture a kayaker paddling with one end of the paddle bigger than the other and you get an idea of the inefficiency at play. There is more effort being put into the heelside turn for less speed control.  The key to shortening up the heelside carve is to get extremely low, something approaching a "cannonball" body position very early in the turn. By lowering the center of mass you help to create stability. To understand how this is a more stable position picture two sunflowers, both are leaning at the same angle to the ground and they are identical except that one is twice as tall as the other. Which one is more stable when the wind blows? To put it simply, get low over the heelside early in the turn, shift your weight to the back foot, and turn a bit so that your upper body is facing the nose of the board, and skim the snow with the palm of your front hand. I think I have reached my quota of contrived analogies for a while, thank you.  A NOTE ON SAFETY: The potential for collisions is high on this maneuver. Do this on an uncrowded run and always maintain awareness of the people around you. 2010-01-28T17:40:48+00:00 http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/the-enormity-of-snowmass-etc/ http://www.edgechange.com/pros/blog/dan-humphries/the-enormity-of-snowmass-etc/ This is one part of what inspires and excites me everyday. Snowmass is huge! Last week I was passing through the turnstile at the bottom on the Village Express and happened to glace at the monitor that shows who is coming through, and how many days they have skied. A lift op commented "oh 57 days, that's one of the highest I've seen" I don't say that to brag, the point is that I spend a lot of time on the mountain and I am still discovering "new" and wonderful stuff to ride. Be careful with the energy that you put into this! Over emphasize the search for the perfect conditions and you will detract from your ability to execute the perfect turn. When you operate with consistency with the diamond philosophy there are no "bad" conditions. Surrender to that aspect of the conditions that are not ideal for you, and see how your resistance to moving efficiently and effectively dissolves. Recently for me this has been about toning it down and enjoying each moment, connecting with the sensation of turning on hard packed snow for example and being committed to where the next turn will take me and how it might take me there, rather than just being in compliance with the circumstances. Committment is about responsibility, potential and creation. Compliance is submissive, reactive and limiting. The upshot of all this is that something amazing has happened with my heelside carve....more on this another day 2010-01-26T15:58:17+00:00