# Centered-stance on an all-mountain board?



## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

Setback stance shortens your tail which makes it stiffer and helps you initiate turns faster and carve more aggressively (when you're not riding switch obviously). That and better powder riding is the reason most all mountain boards have a setback.

There are other things you can play with such as adjusting your forward lean to initiate heel side turns faster.


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## surf-the-earth (Oct 10, 2010)

Thanks for your response, Doron. One of the snowboard instructors I had a lesson with told me that the centered stance is technically supposed to initiate turns faster than a setback stance. His reasoning was that the front of your board (nose end) and front foot is like your steering wheel, and the closer you are to the steering wheel (again, nose end), the more control you'll have and the faster you'll initiate turns. Granted, I'm not doing much carving yet, and he may be referring to initiating faster skidded turns, which is okay by me right now. My heelside turns are pretty fast already, but the toeside turns are still slower. This hurts me when I'm on steeper runs (mostly non-mogul black diamonds) when I'm trying to get more turns in to stay in control and bleed off speed. I'm trying to lean forward more on toesides but their still pretty slow. Any tips you might suggest? Thanks.

P.S. I'm from the midwest, so setback riding for pow isn't much of an issue since we basically don't get much. Mostly hardpacked snow and ice


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## doron (Nov 14, 2010)

I think someone like snowwolf could give you a better answer on the whole "front foot steering" thing, but it doesn't really make much sense to me. Then again, I'm one of those people that can ride but not teach, and as you mentioned it might make more sense for getting your first turns down.

My toeside turns are by far my strongest suit, but I am going throug similar issues as you when riding switch. What has helped me get to my toe edge faster is a bit more speed and focusing on the up/down movement of my upper body. I finish my turn with my knees bent and my upper body low to the ground, then "stand up" while changing edges before I get nack into a low stance. This takes some of the pressure off the edge and allows me to turn faster.

btw, you should always feel confident to experiment with all aspects of your riding. It's good to ask first to make sure you're not learning any bad habits, but with something like this feel free to change your stance to see if it helps you, regardless of your experience level.


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## HoboMaster (May 16, 2010)

I could be totally wrong, but I do notice that I can *initiate* turns much faster with a centered stance. What it means though is that while going from edge to edge is faster and I can quickly manipulate the board much better, I tend to make smaller quick turns and can't carve or make big wide turns as well when compared with having a 2+ inch setback. Having a setback gives you more force and torque in making your turns, as well as probably a little more stability. Initiating the actual turn however seems a little bit slower.

If your primarily freeriding you may as well just use a setback because the benefits you get from it outweight the disadvantages by a lot for that type of riding. I ride trees a lot, so I actually benefit from having a centered stance as I can initiate my turns much quicker and the board will respond much quicker. If I was doing wide open groomers or powder however, I would use a setback.


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## surf-the-earth (Oct 10, 2010)

Thanks for the advice, Doron and HoboMaster. I may just play around with the centered stance a little bit and see which feels better. I'm at kind of an intermediate stage where I'm linking turns pretty aggressively and dynamically down blue runs (with maybe some mild carving), but once I hit the steeper black diamonds, I feel that I need to make more skidded turns faster in order to bleed off speed otherwise I feel like I'm flying down the run with not as much control. That's the main reason why I'm thinking about centering my stance so that I can initiate turns quicker so my board spends minimal time parallel to the fall line. Even though I link turns pretty confidently and aggressively on blue runs, I'm having a harder time with quick toeside turns on black diamonds. I'll experiment with the centered stance, and just keep practicing. Thanks again for the advice.


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