Why Real-Time Feedback Changes Skiing

Skiing asks you to do things that feel unnatural. Lean downhill. Let your skis move away. Hold an edge at speed. Instinct tells you to stop, but progress only happens when you push through that discomfort.

The problem is simple. Without immediate feedback, you can’t tell when you’re doing it right. That’s why so many skiers plateau, even after years on snow.

Carv Co-founder Alex Jackson lets us know how real-time feedback changes that learning process, and why it might be the key to unlocking your best turns.

1. Why did you start building Carv in the 
first place?

The idea of Carv first came about because skiing is hard. And it’s even harder if you try to learn as an adult. If you didn’t grow up on skis, you can’t help but feel how awkward it is, how far behind you are compared to your friends, and how much you want to catch up.

Jamie Grant, my co-founder, who first created Carv, went through that journey himself. He started skiing at 18, but his friends had been skiing since they were kids. They were miles ahead. He wanted to improve fast, but he didn’t want to spend his ski holiday on the beginner slope or dragging behind the group, missing out on the fun.

So the ‘problem’ Carv solved was actually personal: if I can measure what’s happening when I ski, could I break it down into things to improve, all while I ski about with my friends?
That very common issue was the seed Carv sprang up from. Although it certainly helped that Jamie had a PhD in economic modelling.

2. What makes skiing so hard to improve at?

Skiing is a sport that constantly asks you to do things that don’t feel right. You have to put your body in positions that feel unstable or even unsafe, and your brain naturally resists that.

I notice the same thing with my toddlers right now. My youngest only recently learned to walk, and you can see how tough it is. He has to go from crawling, which is very stable with four points of contact, to standing on two points of contact only (which is still kind of stable), to suddenly walking (which is wobbly and dynamic). I don't have to ask you to imagine what that was like… you’ll empathise with that feeling if you’ve been skiing!

You’re basically constantly moving your body away from your feet, and your brain doesn’t like it.

The first time you ski, you go from standing comfortably on the mountain to sliding uncontrollably, so we have to learn to snowplough to stop that happening!

Then, when you try to ski parallel, you have to let go of that inner ski crutch that is ‘braking’ your slide, and get your feet under you. This A) makes you go faster, and B) gives you a scary moment of instability as you transition from turn to turn (it’s why so many of us struggle to transition onto the outside ski even as advanced skiers).

And then if you want to push it further, the reason a carving turn is so hard is that you need to go even further on this journey of instability. Your skis need to run out from underneath you - going across the hill - away from your body - at the same time as your body projects forwards down the slope.

No wonder it’s scary to learn. Your center of mass (the body) is no longer over your base of support (the feet), and our brains do not like this one bit. It feels like you’re going to fall. Plus, we need to balance against the outside ski and brace against the forces of the turn, which adds a second dimension to the whole thing. And finally, to make all that work, you need to hinge your upper body upright, pull in your inside leg, and trust your skis will come back around. All at 60 km/h. If you even get close to that, you deserve major credit.

Because of all of that, it’s all too tempting to settle for what feels comfortable and gets us down. The trouble is, what feels good is not always the best technique. We can get tired, be prone to injury, and above all, we miss out on unlocking these incredible rollercoaster feelings in every turn.

But without feedback in the moment, you just keep repeating the same habits, especially if you only get a week or two on snow. We’ve all had that moment of seeing ourselves on video and realising we’re not nearly as good to watch as we felt in our head.

3. How does Carv change that learning process?

Well, that’s why Carv’s real-time feedback is so important. To break through those sticking points, you need something objective that tells you right then and there, yes, that’s the right feeling.
It’s just like with my kids. Every time they get back on their feet, we cheer, and they smile. That is how they know it is the right move. As skiers, we need that same instant feedback to get us to learn what ‘good’ is - we need to relearn what to feel. I can’t transplant you into Marcus Caston’s body, but I’ve skied behind him, and I can tell you I’m not feeling what he’s feeling.

The real hack is how quickly you can create that loop between action, feeling, and feedback. With Carv, our goal is to create as many moments as possible. Why wait until a friend films you or someone gives you a tip? In fact, why wait until that pitch ended - because if you can get that feedback in the moment of each turn, you can change your skiing in one run.

It sounds like I’m overshooting here - but this was actually the reason I joined Carv in the early days. I remember the first time I tried an early prototype of the edge angle monitor - it simply read out a number (my edge angle) on every turn.

Until then, I thought I was carving well. Carv was measuring my edge angle and showed I was hitting about 30 degrees. Not great, and that p*ssed me off. So I tried harder on the next turn, again and again. 40, 45, 46, 49, 51, 57. Then I pushed harder and hit 60. Instantly, I knew this was different. Ok, that’s what carving feels like. That single run changed my skiing more than the three years before it.

That’s the power of Carv. It turns vague “just ski more and hope for progress” into something concrete, run by run, turn by turn, that you can hack and adapt to.

4. Why does the speed of the feedback loop matter?

In any physical skill, the speed of feedback makes all the difference. Look at gamers. They get insanely good at these tiny muscle movements because every tiny action has an immediate consequence. Even better if that fast loop is so fun and addictive you barely notice it's 'learning’.

Skiing usually has a much slower cadence of learning - you ski a whole run, a friend gives you a tip at the bottom, or you watch a video later. By then, the feeling is gone. You certainly can’t practice turn to turn.

Carv changes that by giving you a cue in the moment. A little gamified “ping” when you nail it. Suddenly, your brain clicks. Because it happens instantly, you can connect the action to the outcome and just intuitively play it. At its best, it's playing, not learning.

Now, not all of Carv is while skiing, and there is a place for slower cadences of feedback, but this fast real-time loop is the underpinning idea in Carv.

As we evolve the product every season, our challenge is to create the coaching advice needed to teach skiing (it is a hard sport, remember!) while keeping it simple for you as the skier. When you’re flying down a slope surrounded by your friends, you don’t have time for a lecture. You just need a nudge. That’s what makes the Ski:IQ and real-time loop powerful. It’s fast, it’s simple, and it makes learning feel more like play.

5. Does this replace instructors?

Honestly, not at all. We study this in our user group every year. Carv doesn’t make people less likely to get lessons. If anything, it makes skiers more engaged in improving.

The reality is, instructors have so many skills things Carv can’t ever replace. They give you empathy, they see the whole picture of your skiing, they can pull exactly the right bit of coaching for you and apply it with human interaction.

Our goal isn’t to replace lessons. Our goal is to give you progress and momentum outside and in between those traditional forms of learning. What Carv does is fill the gap and keep you improving, mindful of your skiing, and stoked, every day you get on snow. Sadly, an instructor can’t ski every run with you, but Carv can. It’s there when you want to push yourself, or when you just want a little reminder of what to focus on.

The truth is, many instructors already use Carv as part of their teaching. A few will set their students up with headsets so they can give live feedback alongside the data. That combination of human coaching and constant feedback is really powerful.

So it’s not one or the other. They’re two tools that work well together and apart. The instructor helps you understand the bigger picture and make leaps forward, and Carv helps you keep improving every day in between.

6. What’s new this year in Carv?

Last year was a big one for us. We pulled all of the expertise and data science from Carv 1 and made it work in a tiny sensor for Carv 2.

This year, we looked at what we were happy with in the product and what we weren’t, and have invested a ton of energy into building a fundamental coaching progression for every goal. We wanted the coaching system to feel more like a journey you can follow, whether you do 7 days or 70 this season.

Instead of just looking at which metrics you need to improve, Carv now takes at your goals (powder, moguls, carving, parallel etc) and - based on your skiing data - gives you tangible skills to work on.

These skills (e.g shorten the radius of your turn, engage both edges together) use metrics just like before, but they are coaching the inputs that you as a skier need to do, rather than focusing on the outputs of your foot movement (the metrics)

But if that all sounds a bit technical, the simple answer is, this year Carv will feel more like a personal coach that has a plan for your skiing journey, not just your skiing numbers.

7. Why do you think this kind of coaching will change skiing?

Most of us plateau after a few years. You get to a point where you’re comfortable, and it feels good, so you just stay there. There are still great days out there, but you’re not always making great turns.

The thing is, skiing only gets more fun when you keep getting better. And the fun can actually come from the turns, not just the environment. I challenge anyone to put down a great powder turn, or a deep carving turn, and not leave with a smile on their face
I see it every time I ski with our athletes and instructors. They move with more confidence, they can ski lines I can’t, and they just have a different level of freedom on the mountain. And it’s obvious they’re enjoying themselves more.

That’s what we want Carv to give to you. A way to keep progressing every season to unlock more feeling. And a way to do that without being a burden or hard work - if we get it right, you shouldn't even notice it. Because when you’re improving, you’re exploring more of the mountain, you’re safer, you can ski for longer, and you’re having more fun.

From Jamie’s first awkward runs at 18 to the millions of turns Carv now measures every season, the aim has always been the same: to give skiers clear feedback in the moment, so they can keep moving forward.

Because when you’re improving, skiing really does become more fun.

Every skier knows that rush when a turn just clicks. With Carv, you’ll get more of those moments. Not by chance, but by design.

Here’s why there’s a waitlist: we only build a limited number of units each year, and last season every one of them sold out. Demand is already higher this year, so the waitlist is the only way to secure early access at the best price.