# I wanna do park...



## ankkassa (Sep 25, 2012)

**Admin please close this thread thank you.

Hi guys im going into my third year of boarding i am able to 50-50 and do straight airs. i feel i rushed into the park and its holding me back on progression so what do you think i should have mastered before entering park?

Thank you in advance.

p.s. im 16 if that is significant in someway.


----------



## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

Why do you feel you rushed it? Those are the basic building blocks for park. 
If you can ride park your board awareness and edge control should be there. 

Are you a rudder steering rider on the rest of the hill. I assume you want to ride the groomers better if so we need more details on your skill and what you want to improve. 

Way to vague of a question as each person rides different and enjoys different aspects of boarding.

Details my man, more details....


----------



## ankkassa (Sep 25, 2012)

Alright i can ride regular fine, goofy no its an ugly mess. im rushed because im an idiot and want to do what my friends are doing (who are all boarding for 7+ years) which i realize was wrong of me. i dont mind small 3 footers as those are no problem for me. when i 50-50 i have trouble doing them because the little kids use them as mini jumps and it ruins mt track. so that's hard to get off of. i can turn pretty good and carve okay. i have this bad habit of thinking im not lined correctly for the rail so i just mess up re correcting my self.
so i want to ride park but i feel my skill level is not there yet.. as i rushed my self into park. The question im wondering is what should I have mastered before riding park like, riding switch, ollieing (which i can barely do), stuff like that i want to progress a lot this year so if you need more info, btw i want to master basically 50-50s switch and regular and maybe a 180 idk. Also when i do ride switch for some reason my body just automatically switches me back to regular(im assuming more practice will fix that).


----------



## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

sounds like you know your issues. To me from the info it just sounds like your not yet comfortable riding. Going flat based, proper turns, riding switch. I would spend some quality time mastering the basics. How are your turns, are you doing those properly. Way to many technical points to discuss but you should be aware enough to answer that.

Got any video of you riding that would help members critique your riding. 
Switch is a whole other beast. It really is learning to ride all over again and your reverting back to your regular position sounds like you are not riding with your body aligned correctly. Again just a guess, but I bet I'm right.

How many times a week do you ride this will be a big factor on advancing. Plus have you looked into a lesson that a instructor can point out your flaws and help you work on quality riding. This may help you progress faster than you think and would be money well spent. 

Just some thoughts


----------



## ankkassa (Sep 25, 2012)

i can turn pretty good that's where boarder-cross came in handy... but thank you i really appreciate your help, one last thing could you just give me a list of basic things i should be able to do besides the one you listed above? btw i wish i could have some film of my self boarding so i can picture what im doing wrong.


----------



## Nivek (Jan 24, 2008)

Ride pipe. Learn edge control.


----------



## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Are you equally comfortable with stopping on both heel and toe edge? Do you feel confident riding near others (skiers, kids etc)? 

Speed check turns before features. 
Learn to press and butter. (That will help with learning your board)
Practice board grabs between your feet off every jump you hit or any time you get air. (That will balance you out)
Start small and don't try something without confidence 
Ollie all over the place. 

And ride as much as you can!

P.S. I agree with the previous advice.


----------



## Jed (May 11, 2011)

ankkassa said:


> Alright i can ride regular fine, goofy no its an ugly mess. im rushed because im an idiot and want to do what my friends are doing (who are all boarding for 7+ years) which i realize was wrong of me. i dont mind small 3 footers as those are no problem for me. when i 50-50 i have trouble doing them because the little kids use them as mini jumps and it ruins mt track. so that's hard to get off of. i can turn pretty good and carve okay. i have this bad habit of thinking im not lined correctly for the rail so i just mess up re correcting my self.
> so i want to ride park but i feel my skill level is not there yet.. as i rushed my self into park. The question im wondering is what should I have mastered before riding park like, riding switch, ollieing (which i can barely do), stuff like that i want to progress a lot this year so if you need more info, btw i want to master basically 50-50s switch and regular and maybe a 180 idk. Also when i do ride switch for some reason my body just automatically switches me back to regular(im assuming more practice will fix that).


Here are 3 standard skills I teach everyone as the building blocks of freestyle:

*1) Switch is crucial*

You have to force yourself to ride switch. I know your body wants to go back to regular, but you have to force yourself to stay switch.

A huge amount (more than 50%) of freestyle tricks require switch, so if you don't learn switch you're basically stuck with only the most basic freestyle tricks.

It will get more comfortable over time and if you leave it too long it actually gets harder to learn switch later due to the large comfort gap between your regular and switch riding.

*2) Carving*

It sounds like you can kinda carve, but you need to work on that until you can carve effortlessly.

Carving is a crucial skill that is used to create spin and rotation in freestyle. If you don't learn to carve well, it's going to make learning spinning harder for you later.

*3) Popping & straight airs*

You need to get very comfortable popping off mini jumps. This means pushing off both feet, timing it well and staying balanced in the air (and maybe throwing some grabs into your straight airs).

Get very comfortable with timing those pops and not popping off the jump too early, which is a very common problem among beginner riders in the park.

Basically what you'll be doing is combining switch/regular riding+carving+popping to start create all your other freestyle tricks later, so if you don't get those 3 skills down your other tricks will not work.

Also, don't underestimate how important general comfort, board control and strong carving skills will help your freestyle.



Mystery2many said:


> Are you equally comfortable with stopping on both heel and toe edge? Do you feel confident riding near others (skiers, kids etc)?
> 
> Speed check turns before features.
> Learn to press and butter. (That will help with learning your board)
> ...


What does speed check turns before features mean? Also why are you advising him to ollie all over the place? I don't understand your advice sometimes. Some of it makes sense, but some of your advice is so random and out of place.

Carving, turning and popping skills are far more important than ollies at this stage of his riding.


----------



## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Jed said:


> What does speed check turns before features mean? Also why are you advising him to ollie all over the place? I don't understand your advice sometimes. Some of it makes sense, but some of your advice is so random and out of place.
> 
> Carving, turning and popping skills are far more important than ollies at this stage of his riding.


My nomenclature may be off but I only suggest what has helped others and myself and I'm just offering my perspective. There's more then just one way to do something. 

Speed check turn. Or whatever the proper description is: lining up for a "feature" box, rail or whatever they may have in the park or random things on the mountain. Edge heel toe swinging the back foot quickly to slow your speed and line up then set and hit the feature confident with legs bent. 

OLlLIE ALL OVER THE PLACE. Literally. Ride the entire mountain and Ollie over bumps, sticks, paint marks or anywhere really. Because the more someone does something the more comfortable they get. And Ollies get you familiar with lift off and landing and how to balance yourself without catching an edge. 
Let me know if Ollie is the wrong name as well. 


I agree with your advice and I have taught many people in my time and still do. But I'm not claiming to know it all, I'm just offering what little I can.


----------



## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Mystery2many said:


> My nomenclature may be off but I only suggest what has helped others and myself and I'm just offering my perspective. There's more then just one way to do something.
> 
> Speed check turn. Or whatever the proper description is: lining up for a "feature" box, rail or whatever they may have in the park or random things on the mountain. Edge heel toe swinging the back foot quickly to slow your speed and line up then set and hit the feature confident with legs bent.
> 
> ...


I appreciate other opinions and you wanting to be helpful, but honestly a huge problem with park is people who are doing things wrong advising others on how to do things, which just leads to bad habits getting passed on between riders.

There's a reason certain skills and techniques are taught in certain ways by snowboard school, and that reason is to stop bad habits and bad techniques from being used which handicap the rider later.

For example, with regards to the speed check turn, that's just a bad idea for a beginner. He should be setting a drop-in point where he can ride straight towards the obstacle without anything else.

Why add a speed check turn that can possibly mess his speed up, if he can instead just find the right drop in point and ride straight towards the obstacle with the right speed/stance from the start.

Also, ollies have a different balance and lift off to popping, and popping is the main skill he'll be more commonly using in the park, especially if he intends to learn spinning.

I don't see why he'd want to get used to ollies as his priority when he can accomplish the exact same thing with popping while at the same time learning a far more stable air and skill that carries on to spinning and hopping onto basic rails/boxes.

It sounds to me like you may be describing popping while telling him to ollie maybe? Otherwise I don't know why you're telling him to learn ollies before getting his pop technique down.


----------



## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Jed said:


> I appreciate other opinions and you wanting to be helpful, but honestly a huge problem with park is people who are doing things wrong advising others on how to do things, which just leads to bad habits getting passed on between riders.
> 
> There's a reason certain skills and techniques are taught in certain ways by snowboard school, and that reason is to stop bad habits and bad techniques from being used which handicap the rider later.
> 
> ...


You are correct. I mean popping not ollies. 

And a lot of local mountains for many riders have shitty set up parks and they don't have the luxury to have a hip to stop and set a drop point because they won't have enough speed. So I advise my friends to check they're speed heading to a feature and be set and balanced at least 15-20 feet before the feature. But when I'm in breck I find my drop point and drop straight to it. So I absolutely agree with you. 

There are tons of people giving shit advise and I try not to add anything I don't think is valid or helpful. 

I also understand that most people just want some basic advise or tips and just want to enjoy they're limited time on they're board and never plan to be pro. So I along with many others add what things we have experienced in hopes to help that person enjoy they're ride and meet they're goals.


----------



## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Mystery2many said:


> You are correct. I mean popping not ollies.
> 
> And a lot of local mountains for many riders have shitty set up parks and they don't have the luxury to have a hip to stop and set a drop point because they won't have enough speed. So I advise my friends to check they're speed heading to a feature and be set and balanced at least 15-20 feet before the feature. But when I'm in breck I find my drop point and drop straight to it. So I absolutely agree with you.
> 
> ...


Not trying to be down on you, and being helpful is nice, but you need to be extra careful with advice, particularly if you're advising people on park while not being that experienced in the park yourself (I'm just assuming that based on mixing up ollies and popping).

If you want to tell people to do speed checks, you have to clarify that you mean in situations where they can't have a set drop-in point in between features or they'll fall into the bad habit of trying to do 50 speed checks to adjust their speed before every obstacle.

Teaching people the right way will mean they learn faster, quicker and get less frustrated, even if they don't want to be 'pro'.

The last thing you or anyone here wants is for this forum to become like r/snowboarding where you have 50 people offering their own experience and advice in the wrong way and just making 99% of the advice useless.


----------



## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

I can't argue with any points you just made and I've realized I need to get my snowboarding nomenclature up to par with my actual skill. I don't get to talk about this sport with others where I live enough to learn the proper names. 

I will take your advice and be very mindful of what I say, because I definitely don't want to cause more harm then good.


----------



## ankkassa (Sep 25, 2012)

so is popping using both feet and ollieing using ur board as a spring in a way?


----------



## Jed (May 11, 2011)

ankkassa said:


> so is popping using both feet and ollieing using ur board as a spring in a way?


Basically yeah. Popping is pushing off both feet evenly and ollies are the one where you use your tail as a spring.


----------



## Krato (Apr 29, 2013)

Ya dude like Jed said, learn switch definitely. Learn how to carve very well as very small carves and adjustments coming into a rail are quintessential when you start getting good. 

Aside from those, getting good at rails is just repetition and muscle memory. I love talking with other rats and riders about the small things they do with their mechanics and footwork. That stuff takes time to learn so just learn the fuck out of your fundamentals.

A tower is only as tall as its foundation permits it to be.


----------



## Ken2234 (Feb 15, 2013)

A good test to see how well you are at dynamic turning would be to see how well you handle the glades. A lot of my friends who felt they where "pretty good" couldn't even handle the simplest of thickets. Glades teach you how to handle your board efficiently.


----------



## Casual (Feb 9, 2011)

Jed said:


> Basically yeah. Popping is pushing off both feet evenly and ollies are the one where you use your tail as a spring.


I think it's important to learn both of these as early as possible, and clearly understand the difference between them. Both can be done on flat land, and both should be learned before even going into the park. I actually agree with M2M in a way, riding the whole mountain and practising popping and ollying is both great practice and great fun. There is no reason he should not learn to ollie, it is a basic and fundamental trick which will help him greatly with rails.



Krato said:


> A tower is only as tall as its foundation permits it to be.


What a great quote!


----------



## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Casual said:


> I think it's important to learn both of these as early as possible, and clearly understand the difference between them. Both can be done on flat land, and both should be learned before even going into the park. I actually agree with M2M in a way, riding the whole mountain and practising popping and ollying is both great practice and great fun. There is no reason he should not learn to ollie, it is a basic and fundamental trick which will help him greatly with rails.


I'm not saying don't learn both early, I'm saying learn pop, THEN learn ollies. It's all about the most natural progression while focusing on one skill at a time, and in this case learning pop will naturally flow into learning ollies after you master pop.

If he's still on 50/50s, I doubt he'd be using ollies for rails anytime soon anyhow. Most rails are easier and more stable to pop on rather than ollie on, especially while he's still learning boardslides.

Also, not sure why we're bumping this thread out of nowhere.


----------



## ankkassa (Sep 25, 2012)

yea lol im closing this thread so other peoples threads can be read again thank you all and gl this season.


----------



## Littlebigdreams (Jan 27, 2011)

Mystery2many said:


> I can't argue with any points you just made and I've realized I need to get my snowboarding nomenclature up to par with my actual skill. I don't get to talk about this sport with others where I live enough to learn the proper names.
> 
> I will take your advice and be very mindful of what I say, because I definitely don't want to cause more harm then good.


+Respect for you answering Jed's post the way you did.


----------

