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Ski designs have changed quite significantly over the last few years. Many people have heard of carving skis, parabolic skis or shaped skis, but a lot of beginners and intermediates are uncertain of what the terms mean. In this article we attempt to explain what a carving ski is, how it was developed, and how its introduction has affected ski technique. Note that carvers, carving skis, parabolic skis and shaped skis are all the same thing and the words can be used interchangeably.
The principle of the carving ski is fairly simple. The ski has curved edges so that it is narrower underfoot than at the tip and tail. This means that when it is tipped onto its edge it will bend under the weight of the skier. The further it is tipped, the more it will bend. As the ski moves forward, it will tend to follow the curve of the edge meeting the snow and turn in a smooth arc. This arc is controlled by the shape of the ski, the amount it is tipped over and the amount of pressure on it.
When the inhabitants of northern Europe first carved planks of wood to strap to their feet some 5000 years ago, making turns on a piste was not their first priority. These first skis were essentially sliding snowshoes designed to cross the arctic wastes. The skis developed further south, half a millennium later, were longer for stability in mountainous descents, but it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that a Norwegian named Sondre Norheim reinvented skiing as a recreational sport. As well as inventing the parallel and telemark turns, Norheim designed skis with a waisted shape – the principle behind today's shaped skis.
 The invention of metal edged skis in 1928 was the next major step forward and led to the shape of ski that remained common until the late 1990s – long and straight with a slight sidecut i.e. the ski was slightly narrower under the foot than at the tip and tail.
Probably spurred on by the increasing popularity of the snowboard, in the late nineties ski companies began producing increasingly radical designs. The slight hourglass shape of skis was exaggerated hugely following the deeper sidecuts of snowboards, and skis took on differing shapes for different purposes such as fat powder skis, freestyle twintips and piste performance carvers.
The principle is simple enough, and not new; if the ski has a curved edge, then tipping it onto that edge will cause it to bend and turn. What is new is the extreme to which the idea has been taken recently. The image to the left shows a recent slalom ski alongside a slalom ski from a decade ago. The older ski is longer, thinner, flatter on top and has only a slight sidecut. The newer ski is shorter, wider, and has a pronounced sidecut. It also has a much more shaped topsheet surface, although this is difficult to see from the picture. This means that the newer ski will have a much bigger tendency to turn when set on its edge. The sidecut of a ski is usually given as a radius in metres (see diagram above). A smaller radius means a more aggressively shaped ski with a bigger sidecut. Most modern skis have a radius between ten and twenty metres. The shape of a ski can also be given as three numbers representing the width in millimetres at the widest point near the tip, the narrowest part of the waist and the widest part of the tail.
So, what does this mean to the recreational skier? Firstly, there is no need to go into the hire shop asking for carvers. None of the hire shops in Arinsal, or anywhere else in Andorra , will give you straight skis anymore – you will always get some kind of carving ski. If you are a better skier you may find it interesting to try skis of differing radii to see how your skiing changes.
If you are a beginner you will be learning from scratch on shaped skis, so don't worry about anything else. For any skiers who learnt on straight skis, your technique will need to change a little to get the best out of the new designs, and it is well worth having a tune-up lesson to do this. Skiing with the feet close together is less effective with new skis, and vertical movement often needs to be converted to lateral movement.
The biggest difference though, is that carved turns are now much more attainable. The sensation of making a turn where the ski grips the snow and does not skid or brake is a unique feeling quite different to the basic parallel turn, and mastering it is a big step on the way to being an accomplished skier. It is important to remember though, that carving is one technique out of many. Not every turn can or should be carved, and trying to carve every turn will lead to skiing fast with little control. Like the basic parallel turn, a carved turn is simply a step on the progression towards better skiing, a technique to keep in your toolbox, and a building block for more advanced techniques.
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