# Question about Pop



## greek01 (Jan 31, 2014)

Hello!

I am beginning to enter the terrain park, and I have a question about popping off of a jump. I am fine with coasting off of jumps, but it doesn't seem like I get nearly as much air as my friends when attempting to pop off the jump.

My friend states he simply jumps at the top as hard as he can, but he is always off balance in the air. 

When going off a jump, I flex my knees at the base, and extend my knees and then do a small, controlled jump at the lip, and then suck my knees up? I feel like my form is overall stable, but I am just not getting nearly as much air as my friends.

Thanks for any advice!


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## poutanen (Dec 22, 2011)

greek01 said:


> My friend states he simply jumps at the top as hard as he can, but he is always off balance in the air.
> 
> When going off a jump, I flex my knees at the base, and extend my knees and then do a small, controlled jump at the lip, and then suck my knees up? I feel like my form is overall stable, but I am just not getting nearly as much air as my friends.


From your description it sounds like your form is right. Do you feel stable in the air? Then you're doing it right; get more approach speed to launch higher if that's what you want...

If your friend isn't stable then he's got some issues to work out!


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## Casual (Feb 9, 2011)

poutanen said:


> If your friend isn't stable then he's got some issues to work out!


LOL this.

But for real, just keep working at it. Some people just have a knack at popping. I play volleyball and skateboard, I can jump pretty high and I pretty consistantly get more height and distance off jumps then the adverage riders that are hitting them. To me there is a lot more to getting height then just jumping at the lip. How you you load up, and when are huge factors. For example, if you jump from a bent position you wont jump as high as you would if you bend down and jump all in one smooth motion. Also make sure your jumping off the balls of your feet, not flat footed.

Anyways, I'd rather see a rider jump low and smooth then high and flailing, just keep working on your timing and slowly popping harder. Try it everywhere as well, not just off the jumps. If thats not doing it then start doing squats and pliometrics. It could just be that your buddy can jump way higher then you.


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## Extremo (Nov 6, 2008)

Keep doing what you're doing. You don't put too much effort into the pop. You control how much air you have with speed. Some tricks will vary, and so will some jumps. Keep it mellow and stay in control. Let your friend tard pop all he wants.


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## CassMT (Mar 14, 2013)

get low to get high...don't fully extend when you pop it, that will throw you off and you will look unstylish and feel embarrassment in front of all your friends


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## tonicusa (Feb 27, 2008)

If you are talking about "straight airs" you want to get the tail of the board to spring you a bit extra off of the lip.

Depending upon your riding ability there are two ways to do it. If you are an experienced rider and have a good ollie, then slightly driving or shuffling the board under you right at the lip will load that tail similar to an ollie and pop you. If you keep your core locked and you are compact in the air you can then pull the board back under you. It's a great feeling movement but don't try to pop straight airs this way unless you "get" what I'm talking about.

Otherwise time your pop so that as you are "slightly" hopping evenly and with an engaged core at the lip, if the tail still manages to catch the end of the jump, you will feel the tail boomerang you a bit. Keep you core locked so that your body doesn't extend and get tall.

And as Extremo mentioned, you probably won't feel any of this unless you are hauling ass and hitting a medium sized kicker at a good speed. ZOtherwise with all that dinking around on little stuff it will be hard to get gravity and board mechanics really kicking in.


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Basically your friend is doing it wrong and you're doing it right. A small, stable pop is great, don't change what you're doing (not sure why some people are telling you to add ollie or do other things, you're already doing it right).

There's a reason you're stable, while your friend is off balanced and unstable in the air 

Jumping isn't about getting a huge amount of air, it's about getting a clean, stable air that lets you land in the sweet spot of the landing. If you're already doing a pop (which you are), and you still need more airtime to get to that sweet spot, just increase your speed.

Never copy friends in the park unless they really know what they're doing... most people suck at freestyle and are doing a lot of things wrong.


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## tonicusa (Feb 27, 2008)

You don't know if he's doing it right. And snapping your tail on a straight air is jumping 101. Unless you are watching too many snowboard addiction videos. 

If you simply ride off a jump with a little hop at the lip that doesn't mean you are going to get any pop out of your tail. If you never learn to do that via timing and board control you will never have a straight air with any boost. It was my impression that his question was "basically" why do some guys get way more pop off the same kicker at the same speed than others (something you can see everyday in the park) its because they are snapping the tail on the jump. Im the guy who used the word ollie because in my age group (jumping with Jussi  everybody knew what snapping your tail or ollieing off a jump meant. And most people still do. No one thinks this equates to a flat ground ollie, simply loading the tail on a straight air the same way. 

This idea of not teaching beginners this is something real new in the last five years and for different reasons .


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

tonicusa said:


> You don't know if he's doing it right. And snapping your tail on a straight air is jumping 101. Unless you are watching too many snowboard addiction videos.
> 
> If you simply ride off a jump with a little hop at the lip that doesn't mean you are going to get any pop out of your tail. If you never learn to do that via timing and board control you will never have a straight air with any boost.


Well from his description of what he's doing it sounds like he's doing it right:

"When going off a jump, I flex my knees at the base, and extend my knees and then do a small, controlled jump at the lip, and then suck my knees up? I feel like my form is overall stable, but I am just not getting nearly as much air as my friends."

If you want to snap your tail off the lip on a straight air you can I suppose, it's not something I ever do or ever needed to do, especially not as the jumps get bigger and stability becomes more important than boosting up for no reason when I'm already landing in the sweet spot of a jump.

I suppose it's something you could do on small jumps, but I have no idea why you'd want to be doing this as you move to bigger jumps.



tonicusa said:


> It was my impression that his question was "basically" why do some guys get way more pop off the same kicker at the same speed than others (something you can see everyday in the park) its because they are snapping the tail on the jump. Im the guy who used the word ollie because in my age group (jumping with Jussi  everybody knew what snapping your tail or ollieing off a jump meant. And most people still do. No one thinks this equates to a flat ground ollie, simply loading the tail on a straight air the same way.
> 
> This idea of not teaching beginners this is something real new in the last five years and for different reasons .


I think we went into this with different assumptions on what he was asking. From his description it seemed to me like he said his friend was just jumping really hard off a jump and getting more pop, but was also unstable and he wanted to know if he should be doing that too or if his current pop technique was wrong.

I'm not really there on the whole snapping tail on a straight air thing, but I suppose if some people want to do that off jumps they can *shrug*, seems odd to me to be increasing your instability vs just popping though.


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## linvillegorge (Jul 6, 2009)

A lot of it just plain comes down to how good you are. Most of us can't get away with popping hard off of jumps, we're just not good enough. Most of us look like your buddy flailing around when we try to pop hard off of a jump, but watch the pros in big air or slopestyle, hell even in the pipe. They're popping the shit out of those hits. They're really fucking good.


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## tonicusa (Feb 27, 2008)

I know Nev Lapwood and I think he's done a great job with SA. But he's got everybody thinking even legged pop is "proper" and now I've seen it in the CASI manual. And while it might be a safe teaching method it's a technique that was more common off of giant tables. 

The best riders I see everyday are popping off their tail on 3s and less and almost always on straight airs. And some of the sickest riders I know pull that technique on pretty big booters. 

Both ways work. But it's the raddest feeling and the sickest style to see a guy who gets a freaking rainbow arch off a simple kicker. I can't even stand to hit small or medium size jumps without it. 

What's funny is you don't need to teach it, gifted riders seem to figure it out on their own. I saw a 14 year old kid throwing the most beautiful straight airs in the park the other day. I didn't think at 110 pounds he would have enough speed to clear the knuckle but he was absolutely boosting off his tail on every kicker. You can recognize a rider who has this on lock because the arc of their jumps have a noticeably different trajectory than everyone else. If you ride camber and pop your tail right on a kicker you can feel the "straight up" trajectory you get. It's a rush it feels for a second like catching an updraft in a plane. It makes straight airs and ones on smaller and medium sized jumps feel great.

Eventually guys using even pop will dial in their timing so that the back foot and tail start to catch the lip better. But back in the day we were taught in the park how to ollie or snap your tail off the jump. They would tell you to push the board away from you at the lip and pull it back under you once in the air. Some guys would call this motion an ollie or a sort-of-ollie. I know other guys who came up skating and would always refer to it as snapping the tail.

But a big difference today is that everybody is spinning a lot!


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

tonicusa said:


> I know Nev Lapwood and I think he's done a great job with SA. But he's got everybody thinking even legged pop is "proper" and now I've seen it in the CASI manual. And while it might be a safe teaching method it's a technique that was more common off of giant tables.
> 
> The best riders I see everyday are popping off their tail on 3s and less and almost always on straight airs. And some of the sickest riders I know pull that technique on pretty big booters.
> 
> Both ways work. But it's the raddest feeling and the sickest style to see a guy who gets a freaking rainbow arch off a simple kicker. I can't even stand to hit small or medium size jumps without it.


Erm, I run a totally different snowboard company to SA and Nev, not sure why we're bringing him into this, although I guess me and Nev teach spinning the same way in the same resort town (we're both Canadian instructors so it wouldn't surprise me if we do).

As you said, both ways work, I think the method you're describing is rarely taught anymore because of the way instructing tends to work.

In general, instructors like to teach the most common way that will be easiest to learn and that can easily be applied to the most things. So while your method of ollies works fine on smaller jumps, instructors like teaching the current pop method that will be the most stable and apply to all jumps (small, medium and large jumps).

Your way would work too, but if instructors taught that, then they have to teach them this technique, then the other technique later for bigger jumps, then teach the difference in when you should use it etc. etc. Plus a lot of people tend to struggle with being stable and doing ollies off jumps when they're beginner/intermediate riders just getting into park.

You're right, a lot of good riders ollie off small hits to get more air. It's just slightly more advanced and instructors don't like to teach it early on because it tends to screw people up trying to learn it vs. just teaching pop first.

To give another example, it's kind of like how you can 180 off a jump by rotation and counter rotation (rotating your upper and lower body opposite ways - like how you rotate for a frontside boardslide to regular), and some advanced riders will use that counter rotated 180 to add cool shiftys and other things into their 180, but it's not taught as much to beginners early on because it tends to mess with them if they get used to counter rotating their 180s, then have to change their entire technique up to do 360s and 540s.

So yeah, hope that sheds some light on why you're seeing more people taught pop vs. learning ollies off jumps right away. It's just about instructors preferring teaching the easier to learn, and more useful technique before they get to advanced methods that are more of a special use technique.


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## tonicusa (Feb 27, 2008)

Yeah I ride with a lot of instructor buddies and they've been telling me the same thing for the past couple years. You do see the average rider much better prepared in the park now a days. So I understand why they do it.

The old "Jumping with Jussi" videos were the first big thing back in the day before all of the online teaching. And it was hilarious because he had a pretty strong accent and would finish every narration with "snap an ollie off your tail and spot your landing". He was the "Horgmo" back then. Without the triple cork


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

tonicusa said:


> The old "Jumping with Jussi" videos were the first big thing back in the day before all of the online teaching. And it was hilarious because he had a pretty strong accent and would finish every narration with "snap an ollie off your tail and spot your landing". He was the "Horgmo" back then. Without the triple cork


Yeah it's funny how far instructing has come, I remember the old jumping with jussi videos. I remember at one point transworld even hired one of top N. American coaches to try make their trick tip DVDs better for beginners vs. their old method of just hiring pros to recite how they do a trick (although I have no idea how well that worked out).

It's kind of crazy that 5-10 years ago there was barely any freestyle instruction outside of in-person lessons, but now you have guys like me or nev or any number of other guys making videos on youtube offering trick tips online.


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## Mystery2many (Aug 14, 2013)

Remember our last conversation Jed. Prime example of what you do. 

"not sure why some people are telling you to add ollie or do other things"

Or is that too complicated for you buddy? 

Yes I know, I'm not contributing but am I the only one that see his pattern. Probably. I'm a loner anyway. :thumbsup:


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Mystery2many said:


> Remember our last conversation Jed. Prime example of what you do.
> 
> Yes I know, I'm not contributing but am I the only one that see his pattern. Probably. I'm a loner anyway. :thumbsup:


? We had a very civilized and interesting back and forth about pop technique. He knew I wasn't attacking him or anything like that.

He went into it answering a different pop question as we later figured out and we both agreed that both techniques work and we talked about how it was just a difference in how instructing has changed over the years to try to help beginners better.

No one was offended and we both talked like adults. This is unlike how conversions with you tend to go because you act like a passive aggressive 10 year old and also like talking about things you don't know anything about, whereas tonicusa seems to not be talking bs.

Stop trying to stir up your nonsense.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

Mystery2many said:


> Remember our last conversation Jed. Prime example of what you do.
> 
> "not sure why some people are telling you to add ollie or do other things"
> 
> ...


Please refer to the member guidelines member-guidelines.html
about "ongoing battles". Manny, as reluctant as I am to pick sides, Jed is showing a lot of self control. Most people (including me, I admit) would have gone postal by now.


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