# Unweight board on kink??



## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

Boardslides??
Ok I'm studying my training videos and watching lots of fellow riders to study their movements.

I"m gonna try some boardslides this year. I have 50/50 kinks and have done some boardslides on straight boxes. 
When boardsliding a kink do you unweight your board just prior to hitting the kink?
I would think so but I have never heard it discussed. It's always just keep your base flat and adjust your body to stay perpendicular to the feature.

Hoping to nail this down this season.


----------



## ThunderChunky (Oct 1, 2011)

A little bit. It's more of just keeping your knees really loose. I don't have a whole lot of experience with kinks so I'm not 100% sure. I just keep my knees loose. Unless it's a significant kink.


----------



## BurtonAvenger (Aug 14, 2007)

It's a lot of ankle and knee mix and knowing that going into that kink you have to slightly rock the board. Or just say fuck it and buy an Echelon that 3d base doesn't catch.


----------



## Cr0_Reps_Smit (Jun 27, 2009)

ankle flex is def key for hitting kinks, you want your knees a little loose too but i think its more in adjusting your ankles to match the pitch of the rail. i remember the first time i really did a kink rail the thing that really stood out to me was how i used my ankles to get through it.


----------



## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

That makes sense. My biggest fear is that edge just jammming in there and throwing me good onto the rail. I have my edges detuned so I'm good there


----------



## SnowOwl (Jun 11, 2012)

slyder said:


> That makes sense. My biggest fear is that edge just jammming in there and throwing me good onto the rail. I have my edges detuned so I'm good there


This is something that interests me as well, as one of my goals for the season is to be able to boardslide rails. All of my friends bitch out saying that rails are way too hard and slippery. Is there anything I should expect, or anything I can do to prep myself for a rail?

I quoted the above because it also brought up another question with detuning because apparently I never detuned my new board, and learned everything from carving to hitting jibs on non detuned edges. Does it make that big of a difference, if so should I also detune my newish Attack Banana since it has magnetraction?


----------



## slyder (Jan 18, 2010)

tylerkat89 said:


> Is there anything I should expect, or anything I can do to prep myself for a rail?


Make sure you can 50/50 rails would be a good starting point. I have also been practicing my body form and rotations needed on a balance beam. This I'm hoping is building balance and some muscle memory for when I hit the real feature.



tylerkat89 said:


> it also brought up another question with de-tuning because apparently I never de-tuned my new board


I ride a skate banana, I de-tuned my edges 2 degrees. I'm not that experienced a rider so some the of veterans can chime in on this. I haven't caught an edge. 
I'm also guessing that if you haven't tuned up your board all the riding you've been doing will have dulled your edges but still worth looking into to make sure


----------



## ShredLife (Feb 6, 2010)

its always scary to go fast, but the faster you go (within reason) the easier it will be as you'll have more forward momentum and less downward mo...

try hitting your flatbox or flat rail or down rail as fast as you comfortably can, or at least try to step up the speed on those smaller features so you can take it to the kink with more speed... the more you're traveling forward the less impact you'll have onto the rail, onto the kink...


----------



## SnowOwl (Jun 11, 2012)

Snowolf said:


> Truth here!
> 
> The biggest problem we face as new park riders or when advancing to bigger stuff is our fear causes us to want to slow things down. Speed is the hardest thing to maintain when you are apprehensive about committing to hitting a feature. My limited box riding has shown me that what Shred is saying is true. Speed offers an element of spatial stability and that translates to more stability on the feature.
> 
> Its really tough to make yourself do it and trust it. Take Shred`s advice and go to an easy, low consequence ride on box that you are totally comfortable with and just start lapping it at higher speeds. This experience will help you trust the stability offered by speed.


Yeah that helped me land my first boardslides. Going throughout the season with just my GF, I obviously didn't advance too much as she didn't know much herself, and was scared. It wasn't until I went with a buddy for the first time and he told me "just go faster, features will be easier". Having to keep up with him, because I'm not the type to be left behind, it quickly made me advance. It helped with everything from maintaining my carves better, to hitting features a lot easier.


----------



## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

The other benefit of going faster is that if you hit the box with a rotation, or slightly off center with your line, going faster means you're off the feature before this becomes an issue.


----------



## Nivek (Jan 24, 2008)

slyder said:


> That makes sense. My biggest fear is that edge just jammming in there and throwing me good onto the rail. I have my edges detuned so I'm good there


This fear is exactly why you will slip out backwards. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. I've learned that the more you think about it the harder it is.

My best advice for getting comfortable on a land feature, go faster. When you're getting ready for that last speed check, don't.


----------



## SnowOwl (Jun 11, 2012)

made one of these for some practice and self amusement =D for $8.00 for the 4x2 and some nails, not too bad of an investment.


----------



## tlake2568 (Dec 22, 2011)

I Agree with this. Its similar to sliding in socks on a hardwood floor. The faster you go, the less time you have to screw it up... Its the long, slower ones that will have you wiping out everytime.


----------



## Thad Osprey (Feb 18, 2009)

Plenty of good stuff on here, so I just have about 0.5 cents to add. On speed, if you are worried, do it within reason. Bombing a jib feature can lead to unintended consequences and chances are most people instinctively slow down and the first try will be like (bah! wish I had more speed). The other thing with speed is the line you take to go into a feature. Think about it before you hit a feature, bearing in mind you have some kinks to go thru. And how much speed depends on what kind of kinks. But the foward vs downward momentum things is true.

Related to that above is like some have said you need to change your body positioning as you hit the kinks. This can be your shoulders, to how you angle your torso to be 90 degrees above a feature, to ankles which are IMO the most important cos they probably are the part of you that react the fastest and the most direct (but not only) factor influencing the edge angle you put onto a jib.

As for the unweighting issue, you see MANY riders do it. Especially on down flat down features or up flat up features cos there is an obvious angle when approaching a flat section where your board can catch. For straight up flat-down features where the kinks are just downwards, the problem is not so much catching but slipping out backwards cos you dont lean forward enough to match the gradient. Unweighting also becomes important when you do transfers on a kinked rail, like backboard-front-board-whatever out etc.

Last thing is the unweighting period is usually really short but critically important. Cos all your body adjustments like shoulder alignment, (counter) rotation, ankle flex are ideally done when unweighted so you come back down on the feature after a split second ready to continue to the end of the feature and stomp it nicely (which is the punctuation mark at the end of the sentence when it comes to jibbing).


----------

