What does "finishing your turns" mean?

[CalG]

I am often required to ski rapidly while confined to narrow trails or "lanes" through traffic or at the trails edge.

"Finishing turns" does not seem to be a useful concept.
How might the intent of the expression be applied?

 

[pchewn]

Hey, if you've started the next turn you must have "finished" the previous one, no matter how much of a turn it was.

 

[DoryBreaux]

Completing. What is the difference between ( and C ? The C is closed and at the bottom that would be bringing you back up hill, which decreases your downhill movement. Because it's the opposite of... uphill. Because it's down. Yeah great analogy I know.
Now look at the (. It's open at the top and bottom, not coming up or even across the hill. Allowing for much less restricted downhill movement. More downhill movement = more speed.

That's theory though. You don't always have room to do it, or time. It's just another tactical approach to skiing that you can use if you so choose.

 

[slowrider]

I am often required to ski rapidly while confined to narrow trails or "lanes" through traffic or at the trails edge.

Sounds like a recipe for disaster. However, increasing your upper/lower seperation enables a skier to stay in the fall line with the upper body while the lower can complete the high C turn.

 

[Philpug]

I remind people to enjoy the turn they are in...don't be in such a rush to get the next turn. Personally for me, the second half of the turn is much more enjoyable because thats where the energy for the next turn is created.

 

[Mothertucker]

To me, finishing your turns means, "See you later!".

 

[Fuller]

Finishing your turns is like finishing your plate - your Mother said to do it so it must be good for you.

That's why I'm skinny as a rail and my skiing sucks...

 

[Goose]

I remind people to enjoy the turn they are in...don't be in such a rush to get the next turn. Personally for me, the second half of the turn is much more enjoyable because thats where the energy for the next turn is created.

I like this analogy. I love that feeling where the energy is built up and then releases into the next turn where it then builds again.

 

[SkiFree]

Isn't the "finish" of the turn the phase at which most of the energy is loaded into the system? This is the point at which the snow, your skis, and your legs are all compressing; storing the work that gravity does upon you as potential energy. This energy then gets 'unleashed' (I enjoy thinking of it like this) by forcing your body laterally into the next turn. ZOOOM

If you don't finish your turns, you are just wiggling down the hill. This limits your vertical speed control, as you aren't converting the work done by gravity upon you into lateral momentum. Thus, you have less control, less fun (arguably), and don't look nearly as cool (which is also essential). To control speed with this methodology, you are forced to perform 'stivots', 'slarves', or whatever other word people have come up with for pseudo hockey stops. These require more quad and calf tension than carving and put the skier off balance, as the center of mass is diagonally above the skis.

 

[Goose]

Isn't the "finish" of the turn the phase at which most of the energy is loaded into the system? This is the point at which the snow, your skis, and your legs are all compressing; storing the work that gravity does upon you as potential energy. This energy then gets 'unleashed' (I enjoy thinking of it like this) by forcing your body laterally into the next turn. ZOOOM

If you don't finish your turns, you are just wiggling down the hill. This limits your vertical speed control, as you aren't converting the work done by gravity upon you into lateral momentum. Thus, you have less control, less fun (arguably), and don't look nearly as cool (which is also essential). To control speed with this methodology, you are forced to perform 'stivots', 'slarves', or whatever other word people have come up with for pseudo hockey stops. These require more quad and calf tension than carving and put the skier off balance, as the center of mass is diagonally above the skis.

I would say yes (sort of). Id say its exactly what you describe but imo its the "unloading" part of that energy (hence "finish") of the turn. But as for pure and full carving vs some slarve I think much depends on a combo of factors such as conditions(how icy or not), steepness, speed, turn radius and quickness, weight of the skier (pressure applied) and all combos of it affected by each other. Lets also not forget to add something in as for the given model of ski and its side cut dimensions in combo with those other factors too. At least is my take on it.

 

[Scruffy]

looks like we're in for another 20 pager

Advanced skiing requires a lot of different turns; some are finished before they even start. Don't get hung up on maxim.

 

[KingGrump]

looks like we're in for another 20 pager

Going Epic.

 

[James]

Finishing tuns means skiing into neutral.
Practically speaking the transition, where skis are in neutral, is in the middle. So there is equal amounts of your line on each side. Watch most people ski. You'll see they get very far across the middle and suddenly turn. So there's not skiing into neutral, there's abrupt edge change. The transitiion or abrupt edge change is not in the middle but way off to the side. We all tend to default to that I suspect unless conscious of it.
If you have to ski slowly, with young kids etc, this is a very good thing to work on. You can feel it when you ski into neutral.

Neutral: skis are just at the edge angle where they are released. This is not flat when there's pitch though many think of them as flat. Doing a pivot slip you are in neutral.

If you're skiing in a "limited corridor" nothing is different, except if you think about it and cease to turn then you may exceed the limits of said corridor. This is not recommended. Disengage mind or retrain it.

 

[Goose]

looks like we're in for another 20 pager

Advanced skiing requires a lot of different turns; some are finished before they even start. Don't get hung up on maxim.

Long discussions are good imo. As long as interesting, civil, informative, or even just fun, its all good in my book
The more we understand about skiing the better off we are. At least is how I view it

 

[karlo]

while confined to narrow trails or "lanes" through traffic or at the trails edge.

I have not read other posts

In this OP's context, I believe this means making short, quick turns, starting the next early, well before the fall line, to maintain both speed and control within a narrow lane. Finish the turn is anything that permits the early start of the next turn.

 

[Blue Streak]

I don't like the phrase "finish your turns," because it encourages people to hang onto the end of the turn, often resulting in a static position, instead of the more ideal dynamic pattern, with ever-changing edge angles, distribution of pressure, and leg rotation.
I would rather suggest, "make round turns."

 

[CalG]

Myy "favorite" turns are to give in to gravity, even if augmented with inertia, just as the forces reach climax.
A "catch and release" experience well appreciated by fishermen. ;-)

But mostly, there just is not time nor situation on any given trail for all my 'druthers.

 

[Jamt]

For me finishing the turn means getting some real pressure that moves the CoM across the hill. It's so easy to give into the forces after the fall line instead of resisting the forces and building a real rebound. It can be a difference of just tens of seconds.

 

[Read Blinn]

Excellent turn finish requires what we in the East call good or hero snow (what you Westerners call snow).

Unless your race tech has just tuned your skis, completing turns on what we often have here is an exercise in skidding — it's a sport de glisse — until you hit the next pile of manmade.

 

[JESinstr]

In my teaching experience the phrase "finish your turn" is used as a directive of sorts to help get students out of a "bracing against the fall line" mode and into a circular flowing mode. This is what @BudHeishman is promoting with the J turn progression. I agree that the phrase can derive various interpretations as witnessed above.