# Freestyle Tips?



## Trenxex (Jan 9, 2014)

Does anyone have any pointers or things to take into notice when getting into freestyle? I've been trying to get into it, but I'm not sure how to. I've been getting into jumps and trying to do some basic 180s and 360s, but I can't seem to get them down. :dizzy:


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## hardasacatshead (Aug 21, 2013)

Jed is your man for this. He's put together some great tutorials. Jump on his website @ Free Snowboard Trick Tips, Videos & Lessons - Snomie.com 

I'm sure he'll chime in as this one's right up his alley.


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## Krato (Apr 29, 2013)

Damn if Yobeat only liked him as much as we do... 

Anyway just keep working on your riding. Park will come with time. Unless you are batshit looney. Then it comes faster. Just put in the effort to improve and be patient.


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## 24WERD (May 9, 2012)

learn to ride switch and carve.

buy snowboardaddicition video or watch them on youtube.

go practice


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## hardasacatshead (Aug 21, 2013)

Krato said:


> Damn if Yobeat only liked him as much as we do...


Yobeat aren't really renowned for liking anything that isn't inbred in Utah though...


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

hardasacatshead said:


> Jed is your man for this. He's put together some great tutorials. Jump on his website @ Free Snowboard Trick Tips, Videos & Lessons - Snomie.com


Thanks for the recommendation 



Trenxex said:


> Does anyone have any pointers or things to take into notice when getting into freestyle? I've been trying to get into it, but I'm not sure how to. I've been getting into jumps and trying to do some basic 180s and 360s, but I can't seem to get them down. :dizzy:


So basically with freestyle it's all about figuring out exactly what you want to learn and breaking it down. Everything has a step-by-step progression and you want to do things step-by-step instead of going for that bigger trick like a 180 or 360 right away.

It sounds like you want to learn spinning and jumps, so here's roughly the progression path you'd want to be following (I'm assuming you're already a solid rider and have basic turning/carving skills already - if not you want to get your riding level up to that before learning freestyle):

1) Learn to pop

Pop is basically how you push off evenly with both feet as you ride up the take-off ramp of a jump and the whole point of pop is setting yourself up to get a nice stable launch into the air. If you don't pop, you're going to have issues with staying balanced and upright as you get airbourne.

There's a good discussion on popping we just had that you should find useful here (look for my later post with the photo and explanation of popping inside that thread): http://www.snowboardingforum.com/tips-tricks-snowboard-coaching/117449-problem-jumps.html

You'll want to have straight airs (no rotation) off jumps mastered and stable with pop 9 times out of 10 before you even think about spinning off a jump.

2) Flatground spins

Okay this is where things get a little complicated because spinning by itself is a complicated technique, but basically what you want to do is start with 180s and you want to learn spinning on flatground, don't learn them on jumps until you have them figured out on flat green runs first.

Learn to combine carving, body rotation and pop all together while riding down a flat green run or off mini sidehits before you take it to jumps. I don't have a public spinning tutorial on this yet (it'll be coming later this month... but more on that later), but there are plenty of free basic trick tip videos on spinning on youtube. Most of them are pretty old and short, but they'll at least give you a rough rundown of how spin works and you can apply that to your practice.

The key with any video tutorial you'll find online (at least the ones I've seen on youtube) is taking that same spin technique that every tutorial describes and learning it on flatground and mini sidehits/drops first instead of taking it to jumps right away. A lot of them kind of skimp on the practice and some basics, but just remember that despite how easy it looks, the timing of spinning is one of the trickiest things to learn in snowboarding, so stick with it.

Also, the thing most people screw up with spinning is carving so here's a quick blog I did awhile ago on getting that basic carve line figured out: The Secret To An Effortless 360 Rotation - The Perfect Carve Line

Don't even think about spinning off a jump until you have that 180 figured out on flatground or sidehits first. Master the timing of combining your carve, pop and body rotation on flatground to spin 180s and you'll find that when you take it to jumps later it'll be 100 times easier.

Anyhow, that's your basic gist for what you want to learn, if you have questions on specific parts of spinning feel free to ask, most people have a few questions with regards to spinning once they get started since it's a complicated topic, but I encourage you to join the forum and stick around because I'll be releasing what I think is the most comprehensive and detailed free video lessons to spinning, jumps, jibs and butters on the forum later this month


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

hardasacatshead said:


> Yobeat aren't really renowned for liking anything that isn't inbred in Utah though...


Yobeat has a unique demographic. I find their blog hilarious and entertaining, but man, they sure do attract a lot of angry/troll readers, but I suppose that's to be expected when many of their blogs are tongue in cheek entertainment blogs.

I spend about $100 per day in FB ads and last month I did a test targeting Yobeat readers and wow their readers are angry. Usually people leave nice comments when I advertise free snowboard trick tip videos, but yobeat readers just called me a sellout, ***, then proceeded to to mock people who learn via videos and started chanting for yobeat to make a blog making fun of online video tutorials.

So yeah.. their demographic is very interesting... and oddly angry. I think their readers need more hugs or something.


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## Walnut (Jan 6, 2014)

It's probably in Jed's post somewhere. Anyway, for my part the trick was just doing the spinning on flatground then progressing through doing a carving turn on your toes while popping the board around more and more in the end. 
the final result is you'll be able to pull a 180 or even a 360 off of the ground with the same feel of carving before a kicker, when you get that far. 

Pulling those small things off on the slope, if you're not only riding park, is a lot of fun, and good practice while also looking badass in front of the young girls :tongue4:


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## Trenxex (Jan 9, 2014)

Whats the best way to learn how to ride switch? Just throw away my natural style and learn from step 1? Is there a simpler way?

And I've been trying to do the spins from Jed's lesson 1 video, but I can't seem to balance the tail press that well... I somehow always get caught on my toe edge when I'm trying to tail press straight.


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Trenxex said:


> Whats the best way to learn how to ride switch? Just throw away my natural style and learn from step 1? Is there a simpler way?


Switch is mostly about going back to basics and remembering how you initiate turns and how you use your knees and ankles etc, so you're forcing your body to learn how to snowboard again, except in your opposite direction.

If you need to, it can be useful to watch some basic turning videos to get it into your head of what you should be paying attention to, such as remember to use your knees to turn while riding switch, or keeping your whole body lined up properly etc. etc.

Honestly though, that's the easy part since you'll remember a lot about how to turn from your regular snowboarding. A big part of switch is just getting into the habit of it. Get into the habit of doing a couple runs switch at least every day you go riding. You have to force yourself to ride switch even though it kind of sucks compared to your regular riding.

Even if it's just 1 run at the end of the day, making habits of riding switch will force you to improve your switch because the longer you leave it, the bigger the gap will grow between your regular/switch riding and the more you won't want to ride switch.

Another thing you can do is force yourself to ride switch on runs that you have mastered riding normally. So if you ride down a green run and it's become trivial for you, ride switch on it instead. In general, the more switch you ride, the better it'll be for your long term progression in freestyle.



Trenxex said:


> And I've been trying to do the spins from Jed's lesson 1 video, but I can't seem to balance the tail press that well... I somehow always get caught on my toe edge when I'm trying to tail press straight.


It sounds like your riding stance may be a little off. If you're catching your toe edge, it means you're likely hunching your body and putting more weight towards your toe side while learning forward trying to put your weight over your tail and that's causing you to end up on your toe edge somehow.

Don't get discouraged though, this is all growing pains, especially when you're very new to freestyle. Concentrate on paying extra attention to how your body is balanced during the press and try to keep from hunching and leaning over toeside. It won't happen overnight, but paying attention to it will force you to improve it little by little.


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