# Stance and straight-lining



## behi (Feb 27, 2013)

I spent a day switching back and forth between a very wide -12/12 stance and a 'normal' width -9/21 stance. With some headwind, it was necessary to let the board run flat to make an uphill section; top speeds were above 45mph.

What I noticed was that with the wide stance, running the board completely flat was no issue at all, my feet were automatically making all necessary adjustments and I felt in complete control. With the narrower stance, things were scary as hell, I felt like I might catch an edge at any moment and had to resort to slightly weighting front or back side. With the wide stance I seem to have a far better sense of what the board is doing.

Is that just me primarily using the wide stance or have other people had the same experience?


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## Casual (Feb 9, 2011)

The word your looking for is stability, a wider stance will always give you more stability and the 12/-12 will as well as compared to 21/-9.


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## behi (Feb 27, 2013)

Casual said:


> The word your looking for is stability, a wider stance will always give you more stability and the 12/-12 will as well as compared to 21/-9.


It's more than that. With the wide stance I sort of feel like I have a high resolution image of what the board is up to and it responds instantly to corrections. With the narrower stance it is more like having a low resolution image and having a significant delay to control input.


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## Casual (Feb 9, 2011)

Which provides you with stability.


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## hktrdr (Apr 3, 2012)

behi said:


> It's more than that. With the wide stance I sort of feel like I have a high resolution image of what the board is up to and it responds instantly to corrections. With the narrower stance it is more like having a low resolution image and having a significant delay to control input.


Disagree. What is more likely happening with a narrower stance (at least to a degree) is that your movements are having much more of an impact, i.e., a small amount of twisting (whether intentional or nor - you might even be unaware that you are doing it) results in much more of movement of the board, making it more difficult to control the board accurately/make fine adjustments. Not to worry, it gets better with experience and skill level.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

With a narrower stance you tend to stand up straighter (or if you crouch, you're in shit stance). With a wider stance you can bend your knees more and still keep your weight centered between the edges better. A horse stance gives you more immediate control using more muscle groups, allows you to extend into dips and better absorb bumps.


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## SnowDragon (Apr 23, 2012)

behi said:


> I spent a day switching back and forth between a very wide -12/12 stance and a 'normal' width -9/21 stance.


I recommend not using a pigeon-tied stance like you describe above. That's got to be painful on the knees!:laugh:

(Okay, I couldn't resist.)


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## behi (Feb 27, 2013)

GreyDragon said:


> I recommend not using a pigeon-tied stance like you describe above. That's got to be painful on the knees!:laugh:
> 
> (Okay, I couldn't resist.)


:icon_scratch:

Pick up a birding guide - I'm a duck, not a pigeon. 

I have the right foot forward (pun intended), so things are obviously listed left to right. If you hadn't skipped school to go boarding, you would know that alphabetically, 'back foot' comes before 'front foot'.


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## Joe77 (Feb 7, 2013)

My biggest improvement in progression was yesterday when i can officialy ride switch and do scarves to carves on both directions on my 7th day progression after i found my sweet spot wider stance. I'm glad i endured the pain of learning switch since day one.

From 21 to 23 with canting, I was more in control with the boards camber with my flat profile board. All I needed was to slightly vary the distance between each knee to get a positive camber or reverse camber and the 4 degree canting is what alows me to comfortablly have farther apart knees for positive camber. Without anything applied and in athletic stance, the board is just in it's normal flat profile 

Thanks to this forum and Snowolf, i have all his helpfull sugestions that got me this far copied and pasted on my phones notepad when i need reminders on the hill.


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