The Basics

This would be great especially the part about grabs. Rather than making 20 different threads on grabs if you could cover the basics of various grabs then we could take it from there then come back for fine tuning.

I understand this would potentially be a pain in the ass but it is definitely a good idea. I'm trying to explain the concept of simply spinning to my little brother and he's not buying it from me, even though Ive been fine with flat spins for years now. I guess maybe different wording might help him or simply the fact that it's coach turpin...

give me a day or two and Ill have something figured out. I was planning on just helping tune your skills to take the pain away, but lets take this to the next level and see if I cant teach you or help a little more. I got to talk my people and see if there's some insurance issue here or not. If not, im game. Maybe step it up to a sunday night ski show on ns and ill have my GI JOE ready for demos

sick

your GI Joe?? shouldn't you be using a McConkey Huck doll

Thanks Chris. Completely understand the insurance thing. Hope to hear something soon.

the McConkey doll sits on the mantel its not a toy .

hahah good call.

P-face asked just what I was thinking. here's mine

This is an awesome thread, I'm in pretty much the same position, trying to rebuild from a really basic level. I figured out I was a complete mess after I went to ramp camp and couldn't even 3 lol. If there are no liability issues Turpin, any help on this subject would be much appreciated. Maybe make a thread about the basics and sticky it? That would be helpful to anyone who comes in here.

i'll give you guys a bit of a run through on a basic jump

first know what you want to throw before you get there, pretty simple, but too often kids rush themselves and are figuring out what they want to throw right before they take off.

as you're riding into the lip, you're on the balls of your feet, nice athletic stance, hands up nice and ready

keep yourself focused on keeping your body solid, as you get to the lip, lift up from the stance in your pop-- when throwing a spin keep your head up so that you see the knuckle of the landing before you start spinning .

bringing a rotation around is done so with your hips -- not your arms, if you use your arms you'll have a tenancy to get 2/3 the way around and then your arms stop and cross up on your body making it hard to finish your rotation. (have your buddies watch for this, if you are doing a 3, and when you're coming around to finish the spin, your leading arm should not be across your chest.)

some good things to practice -- keeping your head up during your spin-- practice this by spotting 180 up the hill, then see your landing at 3

when going for grabs, bring your skis up to you,don't bend down to your skis, simple safety grabs can help you get the hang of this

The key to every jump is a solid start-- if you're landing back seat, you're probably taking off back seat -- back seat leads to shin bang quick, so watch out. 

bump

This also has to do with patience. A lot of the time, you have the trick and the concept from set to stomp easily visualized in your heads, but right when you get on that lip, everything drops and you go back to you old habits.  It happens to me all the time, and even though I'm a mogul skier and don't really need to wait very long to send a nice 3 or a backflip off of a mogul booter, the same still applies, its just a matter of waiting longer seeing as park jumps are wayyyyyyy longer than mogul jumps. When I'm in the park heres what helps me pull around my shitty grabbed 3's and 5's:

1) As you wait to drop, visualize everything you think you need to do in order to succesfully stomp the trick.
2) Drop in, while being able to feel your shins on the tounges of your boots, and keep that nice centered athletic stance as you come into that jump. Its also important to note that you should keep your core muscles tight so you dont look like a noodle in the air.

3) If you have time, take deep breaths on the in run.

4) Make sure you have a good pop and wait until after you pop to set your trick

5) Do your trick, spot the landing, stomp it.

6) Afterbang.

If you're in the moguls:

7) After you land, don't try to turn right on landing to slow yourself down, go straight into the next set of bumps and use your edges to slow yourself, not sliding and pivoting.

Hope that helped!

-- Todd.


P.S.  Chris, that day up at momentum this year when you pulled that fat switch back was sick. Thanks for teaching me 270 disasters as well!