This also from an article James sent me:
http://www.powdermag.com/sochi2014/rise-stivot/“A stivot is a rapid redirection of the skis,” says Dave Lyon, a longtime PSIA-AASI Alpine Team member and race coach who works with the USSA in the coaches’ education department. “A lot of high-end racers and coaches simply call it a ‘redirect.’ If you can’t carve because of the set of the course or the angle of the hill, it’s a quick slide to get in a spot where you can arc the rest of the turn.”
Lyon says the rise of the stivot is as much a result of changing ski technology as it is World Cup course setting, with the move occurring most often in steep situations where a racer on a ski with a 35-meter turn radius is confronted by a 24-meter turn. Although young racers are already being trained in its mechanics, Lyon says its actual race day use might still be more reactionary. “Guys can pull it off because they’re in good balance,” he says. “You can make the case for it sometimes being an accident, but it’s definitely an evolution.”
Former U.S. Ski Team superstar and big mountain ripper Daron Rahlves says “a reactionary stivot” at warp speed helped him win the Beaver Creek Birds of Prey Downhill in 2005. “It’s the only time I’ve ever done it during a downhill,” he says. “If I hadn’t, I would have been kicked out of the turn and been way off line.”
For Rahlves, the move is now as ingrained into racing as it is freeskiing, where it’s known as the
slarve, or the “McConkey turn.” The difference he says, is that the stivot occurs at the top of the turn, where a racer is trying to quickly realign his arc without losing too much speed, while the slarve is a buttering, speed-slowing move occurring at the bottom of a turn.
"You just need to go at that shit wide open, hang on, and own it." —Camp
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