Why Horton is wrong about "Smear"

[6balls]

@horton you think "over steer" is going to help more skiers? How many drive hard and understand the concepts of over/under steer and also happen to be skiers?

 

I full well understand smear at the ball (which in driving terms I'd call over steer), but to over steer off the second wake??? I have no clue what you just said.

 

Doesn't mean it's wrong, just needs some clarity.

 

There is a fin whispering book (excellent) that uses the term smear a lot and not over steer...smear being a turn concept not a concept off the second wake.

 

Smear makes a lot of sense in my head for skiing...over and under steer make a lot of sense in my head driving. Common terminology and understanding for all in order to improve is pretty important.

 

Not trying to be a crabby dude here...full respect...just think this terminology (smear vs. steer) has the potential to muddy the water of understanding.

[Vanilla System]

This discussion was created from comments split from: D3 NRG Review.

[Horton]

@6balls

My irritation with the term "Smear" is because the first time I really understood it, my understanding of slalom as a whole changed. Then Ballers started using "Smear" in different ways and the original meaning was lost - at least for me.

 

The original definition of smear as I understood it was, anytime the tail of the ski is traveling in an arc wider than the path of the skier and / or the arc of the tail of the ski is changing at a greater rate than the arc of the skier. This is specifically from the second wake to apex.

 

When skiers started talking about smear after apex and through the wakes and the term became synonymous with "slide" it means something totally different. Maybe those skiers were trying to express a correct idea but it is not what the term means to me.

[Horton]

@6balls so to answer another part of your post. When the skier stays more connected they are more apt end up in a state where the back end of the car is starting to step out just a little right after edge change. This allows the car to stay balanced and just finish rotating at apex as opposed to driving straight into the corner and trying to rotate all at once. ;-)

[mwetskier]

i don't think i have ever seen anyone discuss ' smear ' with more clear understanding than @jayski so i would like to see him weigh in on this and i would consider anything he writes about teh subject pretty much carved in granite. just my opinion of course. don't shoot the messenger.

[6balls]

I'm not sure we are in disagreement.

 

Sure you smear before the apex to some degree (in the pre-turn in old school terms), but if you are on top of your ski and the fin is more vertical you are smearing a whole lot less than when you go deeply on edge and make your turn. START smearing sure...just like the back end of the car stepping out a bit well before your apex.

 

As for smear moving toward the wake--would also call that slide and not use smear there as a term.

 

Everyone should read Fin Whispering and take notes...if nothing else we may then all speak the same language.

[jayski]

@mwetskier you want @SkiJay I assume, since he wrote the book...and you assume he is all knowing

 

Just teasing @SkiJay ;)

[DW]

To add some physics - at any time there is a load on a ski and it is moving, it will have a slip angle, or in the lingo being adopted for this sport, be slipping, sliding or in a smear condition. The degree to which it is doing it will change depending on how the load is applied. That means that when the ski is crossing the wake, there is some slip or yaw angle relative to the direction of travel. Same applies for pre turn and rounding the buoy. As this forum is comprised of niche skiers delving in to the details and the description of ski performance is evolving, several cooks are providing input as to what terms to use to describe behavior, thus some confusion will ensue for a time until the terms take hold. Fin Whispering appears to be the first stake in the ground to define the lingo.

[Horton]

@6balls I think you missed why I think the concept is so interesting (to me) and needs a specific term to describe it. Forget the word "smear". Stop thinking about how you tune your ski (for a second). Have you contemplated how the tail the ski "drifts" approaching apex and how that can change how far you have to turn the ski to finish?

[DavidN]

I like the term “over steering”, but I consider myself pretty technical inclined, so I fully understand what Horton is describing.

[skispray]

@Horton unless I misunderstand you, I think you just said it: smear = drift. It's when the tail or the ski travels an arc wider than the path of the skier, and in general this happens when we are not under load from the boat. When we are in our cut the boat is pulling the tip and tall down course at roughly the same rate, so that's "slip" or "slide," not smear/drift. Do you agree?

[6balls]

@horton sure...if you don't have to finish so far you don't scrub as much speed and are faster to the next turn. Wish I was better at it.

What technical changes do you think about when considering this concept?

[AdamCord]

@6balls pondering that exact question is what initially lead Caldwell and me down that rabbit hole that lead to the GUT theory.

 

In short, there isn't a simple answer to that question!

[BraceMaker]

@skispray - I would not refer to smear as drift. A drift to me would have to be the difference between the "set" of the ski and the "path" of the skier - ie the difference between where the ski was aimed and where the skier ended up.

 

 

Luckily the fin whispering website has provided the ultimate in reference.

"One differentiating aspect of smear is that it’s the component of a ski turn that isn’t controlled by the rocker of the ski. The rocker defines the carving component of a turn, and the way the tail drifts wide around a turn can be referred to as smear. This means smear could be differentiated from drift or slip by its rotational component."

https://www.finwhispering.com/what-is-smear/

 

Probably easiest to just run with that, I like that component in bold - by defining it as not controlled by the rocker of the ski we can compare it to downhill skiing where the radius of the ski should define the turn that the ski "carves" and past that carve the ski "smears" across the surface.

[BraceMaker]

Also from the bold I would assume it is a parameter mostly statically influenced by the edge bevels/tunnel of the ski.

[Horton]

To all you guys who are simply saying read @Jayski's book.... I agree either 90 or 100% with his definition*. My heartburn is with those Ballers choose to use the term in the most general "catch-all" fashion.

 

What I am expressing is the need for a term that specifically represents a state where the arc of the tail is outside the arc of the bindings between the edge change and apex (maybe a few feet past apex). This is about far more than ski tuning. This about understanding what that happens from the edge change to the apex.

[SkiJay]

Wow! It looks like the off season has officially started!

 

I don't claim to be last word in any of this. But the language I used while writing the book was based on what I'd learned from a lot of discussions with as many pros as I could corner. Indeed, one of the goals of the book was to help establish a common language for these discussions. The following remains my understanding of the term "smear."

 

@Horton gave about as good a description of smear as possible at the start of this thread. Put another way, both the tip and the tail of the ski are virtually always sliding, slipping or drifting sideways through the water to some small degree. "Smear" refers specifically to when the tail is slipping or drifting more than the tip, so the ski (not necessarily the skier's path) is changing direction.

 

The car terms "understeer" and "oversteer" are excellent descriptions of when the ski's tail isn't smearing enough or is over-smearing. I also can't resist using the the chassis tuning terms "tight" and "loose" to describe how a ski is smearing. A tight ski turns like a school bus, and a loose ski over-rotates like a drifter.

 

Ski tuning is probably 90% about adjusting the ski's responses to the skiers habitual inputs so that the ski smears just right most of the time (mistakes excluded). And most of that looks like a nice tight controlled arc around the ball that finishes with perfect angle into the cut, without wheelies at the end.

[Wish]

Everytime I meet up with @SkiJay I learn something new about skis and cars. To say he knows his stuff about both is the understatement of the century despite him being humble. Haven't heard him mix car and ski terms yet but if it helped someone understand, I'm sure he wouldn't hesitate.

[Horton]

@6balls

If you recall how we started this conversation I said something like "being more connected off the second wake created more oversteer or smear or whatever you call it".

 

This is not all about the fin. In fact, if you come off the handle earlier the ski will likely roll over faster* and the ski will be more free to side-slip but it does not because the forces applied from the bindings-skier-boat are much less.

 

By being more connected you are likely taller off the water and the ski has less roll. You would think this would induce less "over steer / smear" out to the ball line because your fin is more vertical but because of the forces applied from the boat to the skier there is ample pressure to move the tail wide. (@adamcord let me know if that last sentence is the worst explanation you have ever read)

 

 

*Actually maybe this is just me. If I come off the handle early I am more likely to fall to the inside.

 

 

[RazorRoss3]

@Horton, to your last point, coming off the handle early definitely makes you more likely to tip in and fall to the inside of the turn. If you give up the connection to the boat it is much harder if not impossible to stay in a good balanced skiing position the rest of the way to the ball.

[Horton]

@SkiJay I have thought about and am not sure I can use "understeer" for a ski. To me a ski that turns in a long arc does not so much understeer as it is like a long wheelbase.

 

For the record I do not race cars but I know @DW so that should be good enough.

[DW]

Some visual assistance:

I think he earns every penny of his salary...

@Horton : If you fall in to the buoy at the apex, that does correlate to understeer as the yaw rate is not what you expected, and actually falling could be considered significant understeer. Just my opinion.

[Horton]

@RazorRoss3 yea sort of. This conversation started around my D3 NRG review. My feeling about that ski was that if I had a better than average connection off the second wake I could not screw up On Side but if I was a little lazy it was erratic. My theory was that with extra connection I was inducing more smear early (maybe keeping the tail higher in the water???) and than made the On Side turns so much more consistent.

[BraceMaker]

Understeer would probably be a ski that doesn't "finish" it still is pointing down course or is so engaged that it doesn't come around as quickly as you would prefer.

[RazorRoss3]

@Horton, I think about it that when we are skiing there are 2 connection points that make everything we are doing possible

1) connection to the water, if the ski leaves the water you're in trouble

2) connection to the boat, without the boats pull you literally can't go anywhere

 

If you give up control of the handle you are giving up control of one of the two connection points and are no longer in control. Reach to early and you are at the mercy of your pull hoping that you happen to glide to the right place and are able to turn. I've described it before as just a big controlled fall all the way to the buoy, maybe the ski comes back through in time to keep you from falling, maybe it doesn't, but it is not within your control either way.

 

I have no idea what effect it does or does not have on smear but keeping with your handle longer has been to my benefit regardless of what ski I'm riding.

[eleeski]

Ever run the course on a trick ski? It is good for your slalom form. Definitely there are transitions from carving to slipping a turn. Word definitions are easier to envision and feel since it's slower in those transitions.

 

Go slippery slalom. I'm not recommending designing a slalom ski to turn like a trick ski - or am I?

 

Eric

[Horton]

@dw that is a good point. I think of understeer as the front wheels not pulling the car around. With skis it is more often that the tail has too much grip but I like the term anyway.

 

@RazorRoss3 there is a difference between total loss of connection and less pressure. I am saying the NRG does better with extra. More is almost always better. The interesting thing is how it changed the way this ski worked for me. On other skis like the 2014-15 Radar Vapor I could focus on staying tall and moving forward to get the same effect. On the NRG this did not work.

[AdamCord]

@Horton yes that makes some sense.

 

@6balls I first started really paying attention to this and trying to understand slalom at a deeper level because of a picture I saw of Will Asher probably 10 years ago where he was coming into a turn, and from the angle of the picture you could see that the fin was already wide of his feet well before the apex of the turn. I was completely baffled by this at first, but it's a great question to ask...how is that possible??

 

 

When you are able to stay connected coming off the 2nd wake into the buoy line (meaning the handle stays as close as possible to the hips), several really good things happen.

 

 

Your head, shoulders, hips, knees and feet stay in line more, which is a balanced position, meaning it's much easier to keep your balance.

The ski stays flatter, making it more efficient and faster to swing up on the boat aka wider and earlier to the buoy.

The ski takes LESS angle out to the buoy line, allowing you to ski more along the same path as the handle (cause and effect gets blurred with this point, as this is probably why you stayed connected in the first place).

Your connection to the boat will stand you up taller on the ski, putting you more forward and engaging the front of the ski.

 

The last point is the one that really explains what you're feeling, @Horton. Engaging the tip of the ski, often described by the skier as "getting tip pressure early" is what is causing that early oversteer. The front of the ski grips and starts to pull to center, but because the trajectory of your COM is still up and out (away from the centerline of the course), you drift, and the tail washes (smears?) earlier.

 

If you can do that part right, the ski has already rotated a good amount before you reach the apex of the turn, so the finish of the turn is very uneventful and smooth (CP, Nate, Asher, Mapple, etc.).

 

Sorry for the tangent, back to the bickering over semantics!

[Horton]

@AdamCord do you think that early oversteer impacts how deep the tail rides or do you think that any change in ski attitude is only the result of the skier moving forward?

[Jski]

Our club (mainly 3 of us) bought Jay's ski "Bible" & we only use Jay's terminology except we call it Shmear-lol. We have thrown all the old garbage on ski tuning as it was so incomplete. Just ordered another "Bible" because the other copy has yet to be returned from early summer.

[AdamCord]

@Horton....yes and....yes? If you're getting really early shmear B) you either stayed connected and moved forward, which unweights the tail and lets it ride higher, or you're running a forward and shallow fin / forward boot setup that also lets the tail ride higher into apex.

 

BTW that kind of early ultra-oversteering setup often feels great on your first pass, but becomes erratic or unforgiving as the rope gets short.

[RazorRoss3]

@AdamCord I can vouch for that last part. I was riding a 68.5 inch mapple 6.0 at 36 with the boots maxed forward and the speed felt great at -22 through -32, at -35 it was a shit show composed of a Hail Mary at every ball. I’ve moved the bindings back a hole and while it’s different it is far more forgiving at short lines

[mwetskier]

even as i write this i am cringing at the thought of publicly correcting @AdamCord but i feel compelled to point out that, while i may not be exactly sure what ' smear ' is, i know for a fact that ' shmear ' is a thin lay of cream cheese applied to a bagel at brents deli in northridge california.

[Horton]

@mwetskier what you fail to realize is that for the first time in his life @AdamCord made a funny

[VONMAN]

For me smear happens at the apex of the turn when the ski finishes the turn. You are still reaching out the line is tight and not loaded, but your still in tune with the boat. And in a split second you are back, stacked and being picked up by the boat. Years ago I had a Goode 9600 that would smear big time, loved it. Tried to produce it in all my skis since but was never able to quit achieve it in other skis. But with the Denali, its back!!!

[lpskier]

What do you call the opposite of smear? As in someone that skis at and to the buoy in a more or less upright stance and then drops their body to the inside (or back) to change direction?

[Jski]

I call it the "Z" turn after the old O'Brien Synergy Z-series ski years ago. The others were C & (TC-that Mapple used to ski on). Narrow & not much angle.

[mwetskier]

the z turn concept reminds me of steve shnitz old ' coordinates skiing ' system.

[Adam Caldwell]

@Horton, I attribute the word schmear as it relates to bagels more then I do skiing. Although I understand its place. Just makes me cringe a little. I'snt smear just describing an abstract thing - a trace left in the water. Why cant the conversation simply be about ski rotation vs trajectory?

 

The way smear is often discussed makes it sound like its a goal or an objective. In reality, the goal is not to produce smear during the preturn and finish. Sure it feels cool....and looks cool. However, smear shouldn't be a 'goal' so to speak, but a necessary side effect of the inefficiency of the system.

 

The goal should be to minimize the necessary amount of smear overall (both in the preturn and finish). Otherwise stated; to maximize the drift and slip, as defined by the picture posted by @BraceMaker.

 

@AdamCord

[SkiJay]

@adamhcaldwell

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with the statement that "smear shouldn't be a goal."

 

"Forcing" smear shouldn't be a goal, but learning to time and modulate it is most definitely a goal—especially for novices. It's what learning how to use the tip of the ski to produce tight complete turns is all about. To me, the bigger issue is that most novices don't understand that this is the "why" behind learning to use the tip.

 

As you've suggested, during the cut and pre-turn the ski isn't rotating, so it's not smearing. It's side-slipping in a relatively straight trajectory. But at the ball when we yaw more tip into the water and roll the ski onto a steeper edge, we're doing so to increase traction at the front of the ski so the tip slides less and the ongoing tail slide rotates the ski, smearing the tail around the ball. Learning to use the tip is specifically about learning how, when, and where to get the tail to smear.

 

And tuning skis is mostly about getting the right amount of smear out of a given ski design without having to force or resist anything too much.

[Adam Caldwell]

@Skijay, My comment was sparked from the picture..which is showing smear off the second wake.

 

The smear highlighted here from your book is something I try to teach people to avoid through managing energy generation in the approach to CL by utilizing timing on the boat, path, speed, & connection. If the approach CL is executed porperly, the resulting trajectory off CL produces a turn in which the ski doesn't need to 'smear' or what I would preferre to talk about, rotate, nearly as much.

 

The more angle the ski takes off the CL, the more rotation/smear you need to actually complete the turn. However, the less angle we take off CL, the less overall ski rotation is required to complete the turn, therefore reducing smear.

 

I will go a little deeper into my thought process......

I look at the ultimate and most efficient path in slalom as straight lines from buoy to buoy with a nice sharp apex right at the ball - thus creating the shortest overall distance traveled, requiring the least amount of overall speed and total energy. Is it possible? No...because its not a perfect system. However, in order to support this global objective, I would see that smear should be nearly non existent off the second wake, and very quick on the back of the ball, more of a pivot turn. Hence my earlier post to 'minimize overall smear in preturn and finish'.

 

[SkiJay]

I think what's often at issue is just the term "smear" itself. To me it's just a short descriptive word that differentiates between side-slip with no ski rotation (drift, slip, etc.) and side-slip with rotation of the tail around the tip (smear).

 

And we can't just say "ski rotation" either when speaking without context. Smearing the tail around the tip at the ball is a different rotation than when the tip rotates around the tail, or weathervanes down course (windshield wiper turn), through the edge change.

 

True, most skiers didn't grow up using the terms smear and weathervaning. But should that alone disqualify them as concise descriptive terms?

[Horton]

The thing about terms like "smear" is that they clarify ideas and actions. When I first heard and understood the word "smear" it was a small epiphany. I had never thought about how the ski oversteers approaching the turn before. It did not really change my skiing but it did increase my understanding.

 

[SkiJay]

Good point regarding the incidence of smear you've circled above @adamhcaldwell. I used that picture to illustrate where smear can be found. It never occurred to me that some readers might see that brief smear beyond the white water as a worthy goal—it's not. The less energy-wasting smear there the better.

 

In fact, any smear anywhere is a significant waste of energy, even around the ball. This is why I regularly make the statement that carving turns is better than smearing around them. And I always tune for as much carve and as little smear as possible.

 

Too bad that great carving skies (highly rockered and/or soft, etc.) are slow to accelerate, and fast skis (flatter, stiffer, smaller bevelled, etc. skis) have to be smeared a lot to get around the ball. Essentially, smear is a necessary evil where a mostly carved radius would be too wide.

 

But isn't it nice to have a simple word like "smear" to describe these energy-consuming rotational events for discussions like this?

[Adam Caldwell]

@Skijay, So - seems as though you do agree with my comment earlier of or reducing smear!??

 

But question to your comment, how is a carving turn different then a smearing turn? Is that not the same thing? Both types of turns smearing turns - are they not?

 

Does this align with your logic?

- Carving turn = slower ski-rotation over a longer arc?

OR could be said this way....

Less straight-line drift and more consistent rate of smear.

 

-Smearing turn = later & faster ski-rotation on a shorter arc?

OR stated differently....

More straight line drift with high rate smear later in the turn?

 

@Horton - agree completely...Smear describes an idea - and also provides evidence to an action.

 

[Horton]

@adamhcaldwell I am a bit perplexed that you are painting smear in the preturn as a bad thing. Too much is a real bad thing but I believe not enough is also suboptimal.

 

If it is enough that the skier can feel it happen it is likely way to much but being a little loose should actually result in a smoother and higher water speed turn.

[Adam Caldwell]

Yes agree. Great way to put it and well said. Definitely not trying to paint it as a bad.

 

 

 

[SkiJay]

@adamhcaldwell

I wouldn't classify the difference between carving and smearing that way because it's possible to achieve the exact same path around a turn with a ski that's either carving or smearing. This depends far more on the ski's design and setup than on technique, but in either case, the rate of ski rotation would be equal (the same number of degrees over the same time and distance).

 

For all practical purposes, all slalom ski turns include both a carving component and a smearing component. A purely carved turn would be where the sideways drift/slip of the ski are equal at the tip and tail, and the arc of the turn is totally a function of dynamic rocker (static rocker + flex). A purely smeared turn would be a case where the ski is very stiff and totally flat, so the only way it can turn would be if the tail drifts/slips more than the tip, smearing around the turn like an over-steering car.

 

In practice, all slalom ski turns are a combination of both carving and smearing. The more dynamic rocker a ski has, the less it needs to smear around a turn to achieve a given radius. The flatter and stiffer a ski is, the more it has to be smeared around the turn to achieve the same radius.

 

I believe we should always strive to get any design of ski to carve as much as possible (primarily binding position), then use smear to fine-tune turn radius and finishing angle (bindings and fin). This is because the carving component of the turn tends to be more consistent and energy efficient than the smearing component.

[Drago]

Smear came from Rossi, I think. He was relating it to a smear freeskiing on alpine skis (which is basically a fall-line sideslip until the speed drops enough that they can continue actually turning). Racers may have a smear-like move when they can't pure carve, at the top of the turn (preturn to us). It's wasting energy (speed), but has to be done occasionally.

So, if we are relating to alpine skiing, a Carve is when the tail follows the tip exactly (the ski is flexed and makes a certain radius--more flex = smaller radius). In snow your track would be a thin line, in water, or powder, that's not possible, but I think that's what we are still striving for, no? Or at least that feeling.

As I said a couple years ago, it seems like suicide to try to get smear at centerline /edge change. I don't think that pic is smear, just a thicker track because of the change in water displacement. goo.gl/G9Zd28

 

 

[Horton]

@Drago You have highlighted what I was getting at when I started this thread. Smear once meant what you describe above. I got exasperated when readers started talking about smear at the centerline. At that point the word must be synonymous with slide and it then is un-descriptive.