I’m the most average skier on the mountain. This tool helps me improve my game

Every time I stand at the top of a black diamond trail that I’ve never skied before, I have the same thought: “I know I can get down this trail, but at what cost will I lose my dignity?”

Sometimes, you don’t know how things are going until you point your skis down the slope and flip over that first ledge. Maybe the mountain will surprise you and you’ll ski with the same kind of skill you can muster on the green and blue runs. Or maybe the slope at the first corner will be steeper, more bumpy and icy than you expected, and you’ll be forced to slide your way into more forgiving terrain.

Not all skateboarders have this problem, but many do. I’m stuck with what in ski parlance is known as an intermediate plateau. It’s common among people like me who have been skiing for a long time (almost 30 years in my case) but ski infrequently, for a maximum of only one week a year.

Life on the plateau is comfortable and free of challenges. You’ve got enough training and experience to ski at a solid intermediate level, which opens you up to most groomed runs at any resort. But your limited training time prevents you from progressing to anything that could realistically be called advanced – those double black diamonds are none of your business.

This is the way I’ve been skating for about two decades. After recovering from childhood trauma inflicted on me by angry instructors at the Ecole du Ski Francais in the French Alps, I have managed to reach a decent level that allows me to confidently navigate any ski run. Aside from the few days I learned to float on powder in my twenties, this includes the total ski instruction fee.

I just assumed that this was how I would skate forever. How could I hope to make serious improvements to my technique with my six annual ski days without a coach?

But it turns out there is a way. Enter Carv, a technology that seems designed to give skateboarders like me the help we need to identify and break our bad habits.

The Carv consists of two units equipped with standard matchbox-sized sensors — one for each of your skates — and costs $250 a pair. They clip onto your power bands, measure your footwork, and connect to a phone app, which provides you with analysis and coaching. If you choose, this can be done in real time via headphones. It plays a role in a broader trend of wearable technology that not only tracks our activity (steps and sleep most commonly), but also gives us actionable feedback that makes that data actually useful to us.

Since one day of instruction at a resort where I regularly ski will also set you back $250, Carv seems like good value for what it offers (although it’s worth noting that you also need to pay a subscription fee to use it, which varies depending on the plan). This does not mean that Carv is a replacement for a human trainer. But if you want to improve without spending time skating with friends, or if, like me, you bear the scars of childhood ski school, it can be a great compromise.

“Carv is a way you can get feedback without any sacrifices,” Alex Jackson, co-founder of Carv, told me. What the team found, he added, was that even small bits of feedback provided quickly and in real-time could help change small things. “Honestly, if you could change just one thing, what would happen is…you would unleash a whole new sensation that you didn’t quite realize existed,” he said.

I was excited to see if he was right.

Hit the slopes with a carve

In January, I had six days to test the Karv on my annual trip to Whistler, skiing with my family and on my own. The night before I hit the slopes, where the snow has just fallen, I load up the Carv units ready to attach to my boots the next morning.

To my dismay, my first day on the mountain brought with it a never-ending torrent of rain. Despite this, I managed to score a Ski IQ of 111 on my first run, earning Carve the title of “Peak Pioneer.”

Ski IQ is Carv’s proprietary metric that takes your best eight consecutive laps in any part of your run and provides you with a score that ranges from 80 on the low end to 170+ if you’re Olympic-worthy. I’m thrilled to have passed the average skater using Carv, who according to the company’s own data has a skating IQ of 100, but I’m disappointed that a friend I know with Carv who has a skating IQ of 124, giving him “legend of the line” status, didn’t come through.

My competitive instinct kicked in and I was determined to beat him by the end of the week (spoiler alert: I didn’t). On the chairlift, I immediately started looking at the data to see where I could improve. The Carv app told me I was “proven” keeping my skis parallel, but making smoother turns was “something to work on.”

This has become a topic all week. The app identified the shape of the turn as a particular weak spot, suggesting that instead of carving nice, wide C-shapes across the slope, I was instead forcing my legs to turn too early, creating corners in the snow where there shouldn’t be any.

The data was presented to me in a number of different formats, each useful in its own way. The chart depicting the step-by-step analysis showed me that on some of my best runs I was actually within the “Line Legend” performance zone, but not consistently. A diagram of the average turning path showed me that I was making a slightly smoother arc when turning left than right. All of this encouraged me that I was at least getting it right some of the time, and that with some focus I could improve.

During that first day, I kept the Carv app in “track” mode, and got a top score of 115 despite the bad weather. I spent the evening watching the tutorials in the app and checking out the workouts to try the next morning.

From couch to trainers

The study paid off immediately. On my first run of day two, on a wide, empty green slope, I focused on rounding out my turns and immediately reached a new high Ski IQ of 116.

Perhaps the most important lesson in all of this was that I released the “new feeling” that Jackson described to me before the trip. By finishing my turns correctly, rather than forcing new turns too early, I found it easier to shift my weight to my new outside ski and find the edge. It felt smoother and more natural, and I was able to keep my upper body pointing more steadily down the slope as a result.

“The fundamental problem is that we are teaching your body something that is against its best interests,” Jackson told me. “It’s very difficult to retrain your brain that this movement is the right movement.”

On the third day, my family joined me on the slopes. My brother, who lives in Whistler and is unsurprisingly a better skier than I, achieved a skiing IQ of 135 immediately (it has since peaked at 150, making him a “grim destroyer,” according to Karff). After our first outing together, he immediately noticed that my skating had improved from the previous year. For several seasons now, he’s been encouraging me to take a more forward-leaning stance, so that I won’t be afraid to tackle the bottom of the mountain, but it was Karv’s drills and training that finally gave me the confidence to follow his advice.

Over the next few days, I switched between the Carv’s “Learn” mode, which provides tips in the headphones when you’re on the lift, and its “Train” mode, which provides real-time feedback on turns using a series of rising sounds when you’re on track to unlock a new high score.

This play was especially fun when I was skiing solo, allowing me to focus on turn and close shape, and encouraging me to stay in a consistent rhythm even as the grade of the slope changed beneath me. I loved being able to separate and train specific skills, shifting the focus away from general skiing IQ, and instead hyper-focusing on initiating turns with my grip or steering with my legs.

In this mode I boosted my skiing IQ to 118 the day before heading home — and on Black Diamond, no less — because as of the last update, the CARF algorithm now favors more challenging terrain. I felt energetic at the moment and it was a total achievement for me to have the best result of the week in skiing, and probably the best turns ever on a steep slope.

Rediscovering the thrill seeker in me

After years of slowly cruising the blue trails, with one eye always on my next chocolate stop, my experience using the Carv has reignited my passion to dramatically improve my skiing.

“Skating is one of those sports where the better you get at it, the more fun it becomes — pretty much consistently, all the way to a very high level,” Jackson said, and he was right.

For the first time in years, I actively focused on improving my technique and was reaping the benefits. My gains pointed to a life beyond the average plateau and helped me rediscover the excitement of the sport.

As Jackson pointed out when I reached out to tell him I was humbled by his ski IQ test score, improvement isn’t always easy or linear.

“The most important thing to remember is that skiing is really hard, and getting better is a) scary (there are new feelings to get used to) and b) takes time (we can’t ski every day!),” he said via email. “But even a small improvement, and more focus on the skiing itself (rather than just the sailing) can unlock a great deal of control, confidence and enjoyment.”

Carv may not be right for every skater, but it has helped me tap into the focus Jackson mentioned, and find confidence, fun, and (sometimes) control. For the first time in a decade, I feel like I’ve broken bad habits and opened up a lot of potential for improvement.

When I got home, I continued watching Karv lessons on YouTube. The algorithms running my life have gone viral, and I’m constantly bombarded with ads for Helly Hansen on Instagram and videos of skiing tips on TikTok. I’m already wondering how much of my annual vacation I’m willing to give up for skiing, and I’m considering remortgaging my house to pay for a day coach next time I’m in Whistler.

Either way, I know Karv will be waiting for me, along with endless opportunities to tackle Whistler’s black diamonds – hopefully with more speed, style and agility.