# Help with my skill progression



## BigVig90 (Jan 1, 2016)

Hey guys, new to the forum here.

While I started snowboarding a couple years back, I consider this to be my first real season because previously i never logged more than 2 days in either of my first two seasons.

I'm 25, 6'6" tall and currently weigh 265lbs. I ride regular stance and have both of my bindings set to 15/-15, ducked stance. My board is an Elan El Grande and is 171 long with a waist width of 286??(maybe 284). My boot size is 18, however I feel like I could downsize to 17 as my foot feels slightly loose inside. I do have some toe overhang but don't really feel hindered by it.


Last weekend when I was at Whistler I really got a hang of linking my turns and began carving. By the end of the trip I was aggressively carving down blues. I even was able to tackle a couple blacks, The Daniel Murray Downhill Run. Felt like an actual snowboarder for once rather than a clueless beginner. Just yesterday I hit up White Pass here in Washington state. I had in my mind that I was going to begin working on switch riding and hitting small jumps.

Riding switch for me has been very tough as I feel I totally lack control when turning. I found myself often overturning and would end up plowing or coming perpendicular to the fall line. By the end of the day yesterday I was fairly comfortable making the toe side turn but linking it with the heel side was still very difficult and only managed to link a few before fault. Some tips on this would be greatly appreciated.

For jumping i started practicing popping ollies down greens. It was tough at first but I got the hang of this after a few spills and was starting to ollie off humps and small jumps at pretty decent speeds. When I tried doing 180s, even on flats at very slow speeds or even motionless, I found it very difficult to get my board to move all the way around. It took ALOT of effort. I tried the tradional wind up method as well as the twist with my torso already turned and bringing the legs around. All of the snowboarding training videos make it look so effortless. I don't know if i'm struggling simply because of my size but I've always refused to let that stop me. Some more pointers here would help me out a lot.

My final question is, am I taking the right path for progression? What else should I be working on? Am I missing anything?

Sorry for the novel of a post and thanks to anybody who responds with feedback :wink:


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

sounds like you are doing fine, just ride more. as for 180's...and I suck...at home I just pretend doing 180's by jumping (pylos)....like imaginary jumping rope...but focus on spinning your hips instead of your shoulders or whole body...at least ime...I can spin my hips around more and quicker and then my body/shoulder lag behind abit. However, I'll defer to folks that can actually do 180's


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## SnowDragon (Apr 23, 2012)

I think you should be patient.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and you are not going to be a competitive snowboarder that fast either.

It sounds like you're making good progress from little experience. Allow yourself to get accustomed to a couple of things at a time rather than trying everything all at once.

As an aside, it's the Dave Murray Downhill, (hey, I'm Canadian, what can I say?), and I seriously doubt that you are carving given your limited riding experience. I suspect you are doing sliding linked turns - which is perfectly fine, but it's not "carving".


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

Videos always make everything look so easy. Just like cooking shows where they say 'season to taste' WTF does that mean??? 

They gloss over the hard part, which is practice practice practice.


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## BigVig90 (Jan 1, 2016)

GreyDragon said:


> I think you should be patient.
> 
> Rome wasn't built in a day, and you are not going to be a competitive snowboarder that fast either.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the perspective!

Had a feeling I was goofing on the name of that run. On the Murray Downhill you're right, they were definitely sliding turns rather than actual carving. Even had to straight up plow a few times... Was too steep for me to get all the way up on an edge. Was picking up speed QUICK lol. On the other runs, especially the greens, i'm almost positive i'm doing real carves but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that i'm just wrong. I felt like I was certainly up on the edge while keeping parallel or mostly parallel with the fall line. I know that once I thought I was "carving" well, the whole mountain felt much easier with my new-found ability to manage my speed without having to traverse or go sideways. This weekend I'll have my buddies with go pros record me and I'll upload something to YouTube and hopefully get some feedback from you and others?
Again, thanks for the feedback!



wrathfuldeity said:


> sounds like you are doing fine, just ride more. as for 180's...and I suck...at home I just pretend doing 180's by jumping (pylos)....like imaginary jumping rope...but focus on spinning your hips instead of your shoulders or whole body...at least ime...I can spin my hips around more and quicker and then my body/shoulder lag behind abit. However, I'll defer to folks that can actually do 180's


Thanks a lot! I will try focusing more on the hips this weekend. 



f00bar said:


> Videos always make everything look so easy. Just like cooking shows where they say 'season to taste' WTF does that mean???
> 
> They gloss over the hard part, which is practice practice practice.


Truth


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## WasabiCanuck (Apr 29, 2015)

Sounds like you are progressing quickly. You are probably a decent athlete. I'm a very average (maybe below average) athlete. :crying:
So it took me awhile to learn to carve and just be comfortable on my board, I still have trouble at high speed and steep stuff. It will take months to get good at some of the things you are talking about. I think snowboarding is harder for big guys, I'm also 265lbs, only 5'11" not 6'6". Haha. Most snowboard pros are 170lbs.

I would concentrate on switch riding before you try 180s. Just take a day or 2 where you do everything switch, even chairlifts. You may need to do the bunnyhill and it will suck but keep at it. I need to do this too, I have gotten lazy with my switch riding and haven't tried it in a while. I'm just getting back into snowboarding now that my kids are old enough. 

Good luck and keep riding.


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## snowklinger (Aug 30, 2011)

as some have said

#1 ride more

-imo switch is harder than throwing 180s, carving switch is tricky, you just gotta put the time in, I try to spend time doing it but its not pretty

-there are 4 180s fs, bs, and switch of both, 3 of them are fairly easy (switch bs is usually harder for ppl, its awkward)

-several techniques to the different 180s, fs for the most part is just a pop and swivel hip, while bs requires some more specialized counter-intuitive technique like the uphill look.

-you can press, cab, nollie, ollie or flat pop into 180s


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

I can carve decent digging about 1 inch into the snow but when doing switch it's just stiff stiff stiff.
I also have a tendency to put too much weight on the back foot when riding switch which means overturning.
There is no trick or should I say easy way but practice. Some time's if I am tired, I just spend entire afternoon riding switch grabbing my front leg pant making turns.


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## BigVig90 (Jan 1, 2016)

WasabiCanuck said:


> Sounds like you are progressing quickly. You are probably a decent athlete. I'm a very average (maybe below average) athlete. :crying:
> So it took me awhile to learn to carve and just be comfortable on my board, I still have trouble at high speed and steep stuff. It will take months to get good at some of the things you are talking about. I think snowboarding is harder for big guys, I'm also 265lbs, only 5'11" not 6'6". Haha. Most snowboard pros are 170lbs.
> 
> I would concentrate on switch riding before you try 180s. Just take a day or 2 where you do everything switch, even chairlifts. You may need to do the bunnyhill and it will suck but keep at it. I need to do this too, I have gotten lazy with my switch riding and haven't tried it in a while. I'm just getting back into snowboarding now that my kids are old enough.
> ...


Thanks a lot. It's encouraging to see that there are other big men out there on the mountain lol. I'll keep at it and continue practicing my switch.



snowklinger said:


> as some have said
> 
> #1 ride more
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback. I assume that the simplest method and starting point for a 180 should be a FS using a flat pop to get up rather than an ollie?



speedjason said:


> I can carve decent digging about 1 inch into the snow but when doing switch it's just stiff stiff stiff.
> I also have a tendency to put too much weight on the back foot when riding switch which means overturning.
> There is no trick or should I say easy way but practice. Some time's if I am tired, I just spend entire afternoon riding switch grabbing my front leg pant making turns.


Based off what you said, I think I am also bearing too much weight onto my back foot. When switch, I feel like I totally lose control and end up overturning almost always. I REALLY struggle with coming out of a toe side turn back into a heel side turn. Thanks a lot for your input and thanks to everybody who's responded :smile:


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

BigVig90 said:


> Based off what you said, I think I am also bearing too much weight onto my back foot. When switch, I feel like I totally lose control and end up overturning almost always. I REALLY struggle with coming out of a toe side turn back into a heel side turn. Thanks a lot for your input and thanks to everybody who's responded :smile:


Yes from toe to heel is very scary if you overturn. I have caught heel edge a couple of times and its not pretty.


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## stillz (Jan 5, 2010)

Get the board quietly running tip to tail and never catch your edge again. As long as you aren't skidding when you change edges, it should be impossible. If you're skidding even a little, you're gonna have a bad time.


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## zenboarder (Mar 5, 2009)

Unless you are jumping onto rails 180's should not be coming from the lower body/upper body counter rotating. They should be initiated by carving into them and allowing the shoulders to open up leading the rest of the body to follow suit. The second you try to bring a 180 that's counter rotated to jump you're going to have a bad time. It's not very conducive to having a proper tucked stance and grabbing. Not to mention it's next to impossible to slow it down to do the big floaty 180's. So in short proper 180's AKA not the kicky flailing kind are actually fairly technical and your foundations for proper spins of >180 degrees.


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## BigVig90 (Jan 1, 2016)

zenboarder said:


> Unless you are jumping onto rails 180's should not be coming from the lower body/upper body counter rotating. They should be initiated by carving into them and allowing the shoulders to open up leading the rest of the body to follow suit. The second you try to bring a 180 that's counter rotated to jump you're going to have a bad time. It's not very conducive to having a proper tucked stance and grabbing. Not to mention it's next to impossible to slow it down to do the big floaty 180's. So in short proper 180's AKA not the kicky flailing kind are actually fairly technical and your foundations for proper spins of >180 degrees.


So should I still wind up and throw my shoulders or simply just carve into it and hope I get enough momentum from that? 



stillz said:


> Get the board quietly running tip to tail and never catch your edge again. As long as you aren't skidding when you change edges, it should be impossible. If you're skidding even a little, you're gonna have a bad time.


So the idea is to keep the board from ever flat basing when trying to carve, right? By ever I mean minimizing


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## zenboarder (Mar 5, 2009)

BigVig90 said:


> So should I still wind up and throw my shoulders or simply just carve into it and hope I get enough momentum from that?


It's a combination of both. You carve into the lip and look with your head which causes the shoulders to open up. A 180 is very very easy and should take almost no effort to get around. If it's taking effort you're doing it wrong. Same goes with 360's the rotation is almost effortless because it's so short hence why you see people throw 360's off nothing on the hills. You actually have to have proper edge control and good carving technique which this early on in the game is not likely.


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## BigVig90 (Jan 1, 2016)

zenboarder said:


> It's a combination of both. You carve into the lip and look with your head which causes the shoulders to open up. A 180 is very very easy and should take almost no effort to get around. If it's taking effort you're doing it wrong. Same goes with 360's the rotation is almost effortless because it's so short hence why you see people throw 360's off nothing on the hills. You actually have to have proper edge control and good carving technique which this early on in the game is not likely.



Ok. I'm going to get some footage together this weekend when i hit White Pass for some critique. Should I post the footage here or make a new thread asking for advice?


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

Flat 180 you should make sure you can ollie. If you can ollie flat 180 is pretty easy.
It's about timing, you don't want to start rotating before you ollie because that will almost kill your ollie.
Usually 180's don't really require any winding up, you just twist the bottom half of the body.
Now if you are talking about 180 off kicker, you will need to carve before off the lip to get the rotation started.


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## WasabiCanuck (Apr 29, 2015)

BigVig90 said:


> Ok. I'm going to get some footage together this weekend when i hit White Pass for some critique. Should I post the footage here or make a new thread asking for advice?


Na, post it here. That way we have some context. I keep meaning to get footage of my ugly riding but I'm too busy coaching my kids on the hill to bother.


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## XxGoGirlxX (Jan 15, 2016)

speedjason said:


> Yes from toe to heel is very scary if you overturn. I have caught heel edge a couple of times and its not pretty.


 yep ^ been there bailed that, had no idea what hit me lol.. 



BigVig90 said:


> i'm almost positive i'm doing real carves but I wouldn't rule out the possibility that i'm just wrong.


when I joined this forum I also started questioning if I'm really carving lol and I agree with u here word for word.

This has been nagging me so I'll suggest it and ask our ride advisors if I'm crazy... 

My husband is excellent at riding switch. He rides +/+ both feet pointing left not duck. I am stubborn and tho he is usually right about everything I usually think he is wrong  

I just couldn't articulate my front knee correctly to get my board to link - sounds similar to your issue. Also in switch I could not get up on the edge. 

Sounds crazy, go ++ to ride better switch, so I did my own research and went further ducked instead. I thought it helped and may have a bit. Now I am +/+ for the first time ever and my switch ride instantly feels correct, in control on edge and able to link turns. Seems backward than what id expect but that happens to me a lot in snowboarding  

So I suggest trying to mess with your stance one variable at a time and see if that helps.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

XxGoGirlxX said:


> I just couldn't articulate my front knee correctly to get my board to link - sounds similar to your issue. Also in switch I could not get up on the edge.


You know what worked for me?
When riding switch grab your new front leg pant and have your back arm out a bit. By doing this it helps you to put more weight on the front foot and allow changing edges much easier. You won't be carving right away and your body can be a bit stiff but it will definitely get your edge switching easier because the moment you are in the back seat, your edge would lock in and unable to change.


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