# How to pop off heels?



## Music Moves (Jan 23, 2009)

It is a bit more difficult to learn this. *In my case*, there were a few things I had to learn:

1. I wasn't "sitting" in the approach enough. What I mean is that in order to get a combination of decent pop and good form in the air, I needed to mimic a good-postured sitting position to initiate my compression... good-postured meaning bending my knees with my back as straight as possible.

2. Keep the head turned down the mountain as much as possible because this is the direction you're spinning... even when you are winding your torso, keep that head facing the direction of the spin.

Once these concepts are instilled as second-nature, you will need to find your correct board placement. This can vary depending on what you are coming off of, but for ground, it should be a quick pop. What makes it even easier is as you are coming out of a toeside turn and about to link into a heelside turn, pop either right as you hit the flat area of your base or as you're going onto your heel edge. Experiment with whether you want to do it from falt or from the edge, as it can really be done from both. For me, it depends on what I'm going to do after the front 180. 

These realizations helped me... hope they work for you as well.


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## Officer Shred (Apr 21, 2010)

You're never going to get much pop off your heels to spin frontside on FLAT snow. You need either a rise in terrain (roller, whatever) or you need to find another way to pop. That said, it can still be done.

There's a few ways you can pop frontside on flats without using your heels. You can ollie, nollie, or even pop off your toes. What you need is time in the air, so find a way to put yourself in the air. Once you're up there, a 180 rotation can happen fairly easily.

You're barely spinning for a 180. You can get all of your rotation around regardless of whether you use your heel edge or not. The rotation comes from your body's movement (pre-wind, unwind, using your hips etc.)

I'd give frontside off your toes a go - they're super fun!


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## xxfinnellxx (Aug 30, 2009)

It takes practice. A super easy way to do it is to cut along a steep (that way you have good edge lock and support) then whind and ollie. That will teach you what it will feel like, then just practice the rotation. You should pretty much prewind your front shoulder and hips over your toe edge maybe 30 degrees and then throw that whole core section behind you. Once you get the right muscle groups triggered (like a golf swing) then it will soon become easy.

Exactly why I like spinning backside. Its easy to get a good lock on a jump and on flat ground, easy to torque up for, and its already natural to hop off your toes. Feels SOOOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD when you have backside spins beyond dialed.


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## eastoakland (Mar 1, 2011)

Oops. I probably didn't make myself clear. I have no problem doing frontside and backside 180s off my toes. It's just trying jump off my toes is where I get about an inch off the ground and end up catching an edge for not getting enough air. Just trying to add new techniques to my repertoire.

Thanks for the advice so far.


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## xxfinnellxx (Aug 30, 2009)

something called an ollie


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## eastoakland (Mar 1, 2011)

lol k thanks. I thought it would be possible to pop straight off the heels as one could do with their toes. No point in trying to learn an impossible technique.


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## Extremo (Nov 6, 2008)

You need speed to pop of your heels. That's pretty much it. If you focus too much on thrusting upward with your knees it'll throw off your spin technique. Just work your way up and use your speed to increase your pop.


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## xxfinnellxx (Aug 30, 2009)

eastoakland said:


> lol k thanks. I thought it would be possible to pop straight off the heels as one could do with their toes. No point in trying to learn an impossible technique.


Just try jumping off both your heel's in the living room, its gonna be awkward. That awkwardness kill's your ability to rotate properly. 

Its really easy to pop evenly off both of your toes, and you can do so with your heels but only very lightly so that it doesn't throw you off. Just try jumping half a foot off the ground off both your heels in the living room, its going to be very very awkward and I doubt that you can really do it. You loose a lot of true pop by not using your ankles. Its pretty easy to pop well over 6" off the ground from your toes because you have that natural power loaded into your ankles. 

Alright, back to snowboard sense.

When popping off your heels on a snowboard, you have to do so very lightly so that it doesn't feel so awkward that it disturbs your rotation, let alone your balance in general. its very hard to do frontside spins on flat ground without using a proper ollie. Best way to feel this out is to just simply torque up for your rotation and as you ollie, try to scoop your backfoot in front of you. Takes a bit of practice to feel out properly. Super fun off of rollers once you find the sweet spot in your pop. 

Another way of thinking about it is like doing a frontside shove it on a skate board. If you think of it like doing a frontside bigspin on a skateboard then you'll understand the form perfectly. Its that kind of motion in your legs that will allow you to get perfect frontside spins in the flats. Just torque up harder and look sooner to get that front 3. 

When popping off my heels on jumps, i usually pop off both for low rotations like 1's and 3's on larger jumps. When i get into 5's and 7's I'll do that scoop technique because it feels better and cleaner, that way I feel more confident on getting those larger and faster rotations around. But the consequences is that you can easily end up corked (which is cool, but can make you end up not landing on your board) because your shifting your weight over your tail to get that ollie.


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## eddiethebus (Mar 16, 2011)

i struggled with frontside spins off the heels so just choose to do them off the toes instead, might be worth giving that ago. Once i'd been doing them off the toes for a while heels just came naturally as i already knew i could get the rotation:thumbsup:


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## CheeseForSteeze (May 11, 2011)

Something else that helped me with my flatland is whenever I ride switch, I just nollie to get my 1's (frontside or backside). Just think of it like a fakie ollie, you will get more power driving out of your back foot (switch nose).

As for toes vs. heels. Some proponents of well roundedness might advocate being able to pop off your toes and heels no matter which way you are spinning (front or back) and which stance you are in.

That said, I don't think there's particularly compelling reason to be able to pop anything more than a front 1 off your heels, particularly half-cab. Coming of a side hit, rollover or jump, you'll get enough pop off with a little push through your heels that you can spin however much you want frontside-heels without ever building that slow-sign-clearing pop into your heels that you get with your toes.

You will need a strong ollie to get your 1 off your heels, however. Work on your presses and ollies and fakie ollie. Get big, smoooth and quick exaggerated motion and focus on rolling your knees to your chest. Thinking about this followthrough will cause your legs to press the board and unload the tail smoother and more fluidly enhancing your pop.

Once you have your ollie really dialed in and you are really rolling it in a fluid motion, rotations become MUCH easier on flat ground.

I don't recommend big, smooth ollying for coming off any sort of abrupt feature, especially any kickers you try to hit. It just will divide your concentration away from the manuever. A more even, balanced pop with the right pre-wind timing and setup when coming off the lip usually will yield much smoother and loftier spins.


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