# Help with riding - riding looks weird



## raap (Mar 4, 2020)

Hi! 

I'll go snowboarding next week again, since not been riding for 2-3 years now. I consider myself an intermediate rider; no problem coming down slopes, but also feel like I reached a plateau.

My plan is too improve this next week and one of the things that bothers me when I see my own riding, is that I somehow have too much weight on my front leg. Like I'm pushing my waist forward so my body comes in a some what triangle position.

What am I doing wrong and do you have any tips on improving? (I'm planning on taking a few lessons, but last time I did that the teacher said there was nothing wrong..).

Thanks for your feedback!


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

At the end of your toeside turns, you are kicking out your rear foot. In general you are too static...that is not dynamic. You are not riding the board...and the board is not riding you...which is good. You are passively riding and don't know some of the stacking and alignment...especially the pelvic/hip tilt or rotating...you got to hump. You seem to have the basic low intermediate skills. If you have hit a plateau...then start riding and trying to keep up with mobbing around with better riders. Try squatting low and straight line that run...then make some big sweeping turns. Let the board run and let gravity work. Suck up your knees to fly over the tiny bumps/inperfections.

btw find and watch the creepy basement vid

and Welcome to the addiction!


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

You're slightly 'slouched' on some of your toeside turns, like you're _way _too relaxed. On toesides your pelvis should be more forward, like you're trying to hump the turn. With your hips back like that, you have to bend your knees a lot more to get adequate edge, which means you end up squatting.

All your turns seem to end with a fall-line braking maneuver. That's not terrible if it's on purpose, but if you're actually trying to scrub speed you should be scarving at the top of the turn, not at the bottom.

These are also low-speed moderate-slope turns, so there's very little commitment required or involved. Film some higher-speed stuff and that'll say a lot more about your form.


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## Funks (Dec 28, 2015)

Ran into this "wall" two seasons ago with the "zombie, or corpse" method. Consciously stop doing it or you'll make it permanent.

Look at the vids below, they ride slightly open, back knee bent quite a bit more than the front, torso angled forwards, keeping their upper body still down the fall line, while the lower body does the work. Requires a lot of energy at first, but once you get better - you'll be shredding better than 90% of the folks out there.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

I don't see much wrong with your riding. I mean if I am keeping a tight turn while trying to bleeding speed off I would do a little skidded turn at the end of the turns to maintain speed.


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## DaveMcI (Aug 19, 2013)

I like the spray on the downed skier kid. Atta boy


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## Hugo Boss (Mar 17, 2020)

From watching that video, it just looks like you're not having that much fun :/ . Loosen up a bit! Try riding with more speed, do some ollies, spray some snow, do a trick, try getting a fat toeside carve lol. Best way to improve is to ride often, watch good riders, and ride with more experienced snowboarders!


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## Stevomcd (Apr 1, 2020)

There’s a few things going on here, as you’ve spotted yourself, the main one is that you’re stood on your front foot all the time.
The first thing I would suggest is actually to fix your eye-line. Your eyes are fixed on the bottom of the hill all the time. The idea isn’t to be going straight down all the time. You want to make nice, round turns where your board is travelling across the hill between every turn. Try focussing your eyes on a target at the side of the piste (marker pole, tree, lift pylon...) and try to be heading towards it by the end of the turn.
This in itself should help a lot, but you also need to make some technical changes to give you enough grip to do this. To get grip on toe-edge, your shins need to be pressed hard into boots, really dropping your weight into your boots and crushing them. To get grip on heel edge, pull up with your toes, like you’re trying to touch your shins with your toes. Both these movements should really flex your ankles. Both your ankles should be flexed at all times when you’re snowboarding and should never open out.
Lastly, you stand very tall when you ride, aim to be squatted lower, especially towards the end of each turn.
Defo take some lessons, there’s more to work through than it’s possible to describe in a forum post. If you were on a lesson with me, I’d get you stood lower and work on your eye-line before even getting into more technical stuff. If your instructor tells you there’s “nothing wrong”, ask for your money back!!! (Unless your name is Travis....)


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## ETonasnowboard (Jan 28, 2018)

Ok so I'm having way too much fun doing instructing here and should be going to bed, but here we go.

Your main problem is your position, and NOT that you're on your front leg all the time (bc on the front side you are defo not). You need to revisit the basic snowboarding position, which is the following:

frontside: both shoulders above your toes (this is where you go wrong, see the vid, and this prevents you from putting adequate pressure on your edge and probably speed control on steeper hills), knees lightly bent, both hands above your frontside edge (for practice you can exaggerate and make sure your front hand is inside your turn).
backside: leicht angedreht (=licht aangedraaid), which means that your front shoulder is over your heel and your front hand over the backside edge, which is clearly not the case with your riding). Imagine there are eyes in your shoulders, and they want to see where you are going on the backside (i'll insert a picture below with the right position). Also, after you've got the shoulder right (these things go hand in hand actually) you can focus on tipping your upper body slightly over your front hip so that it is more forward oriented. But the main problem is that currently your upper body is looking back and following your board, rather than telling it where it needs to go --> this is fixed if you make sure your shoulders are "looking" where you want to go.
This is the key to your problem (and yes, it could definitely be more dynamic, but that is the next step), and it is also the reason you had to lean forward so much to get something like a carve out of your board in the end. Practice this position until the end of times, do it with your arms crossed, on your hips, and behind your back... borrow a ski pole and practice it while holding that with both your hands (this one is also a really good exercise).

If you're going snowboarding in Serfaus, Austria this year you can book a class with me and we can work on this, haha 

This dude is showing the right backside position (compare it to yours on the video):


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## francium (Jan 12, 2013)

Your're not centered and mobile on the board, you want your weight to be even and you need to flex your lower body when making turns. You're also initiating your turns with your upper body.


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## MCrides (Feb 25, 2019)

Donutz said:


> All your turns seem to end with a fall-line braking maneuver. That's not terrible if it's on purpose, but if you're actually trying to scrub speed you should be scarving at the top of the turn, not at the bottom.


Sorry to resurrect the the thread, but this caught my eye. What's the advantage to scrubbing speed at the top of the turn?


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

MCrides said:


> Sorry to resurrect the the thread, but this caught my eye. What's the advantage to scrubbing speed at the top of the turn?


Scarving at the top of the turn, you're skidding across the fall line, which is a helluva lot less work. Braking at the bottom along the fall line, you're fighting your speed _and _gravity. It's a subtle difference because if you think about it, the top of one turn is the bottom of the previous one. So instead of braking just as you come around off the fall line at the bottom of the turn, wait a moment longer and brake as you're turning into the fall line on the beginning of the next turn. Less work = less tired = more snowboarding.


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## MrDavey2Shoes (Mar 5, 2018)

I’m sure there’s lots of good feedback in this thread so far as this is a common issue we address on the forum and the simplest way to put it is you need to start weighting your front foot in your turns. You’ll get there dude!


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## MCrides (Feb 25, 2019)

Donutz said:


> So instead of braking just as you come around off the fall line at the bottom of the turn, wait a moment longer and brake as you're turning into the fall line on the beginning of the next turn.


Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it. This is actually something I notice a lot of people doing by accident as they learn to carve. They'll be traversing across the fall line after completing a turn, then skid the board around until it's pointing down the fall line, then ride the edge out. Even people who can transition onto their downhill edge on toe side will still do it without noticing when they transition to their heel edge--I think because it's so weird to lean backwards down the hill.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

MCrides said:


> Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it. This is actually something I notice a lot of people doing by accident as they learn to carve. They'll be traversing across the fall line after completing a turn, then skid the board around until it's pointing down the fall line, then ride the edge out. Even people who can transition onto their downhill edge on toe side will still do it without noticing when they transition to their heel edge--I think because it's so weird to lean backwards down the hill.


I've had that problem. My turns are/were very asymmetrical, with the heelside turn almost a braking maneuver. Worked on it the entire second half of last season, and I've mostly got it fixed.

But what I'm talking about is more of a scarve than a brake, just enough to bleed off some speed before you go into the big loop around.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

MCrides said:


> Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it. This is actually something I notice a lot of people doing by accident as they learn to carve. They'll be traversing across the fall line after completing a turn, then skid the board around until it's pointing down the fall line, then ride the edge out. Even people who can transition onto their downhill edge on toe side will still do it without noticing when they transition to their heel edge--I think because it's so weird to lean backwards down the hill.


Another way to look at it; is that its a timing thing. Meaning you are too long in the count and thus get at the bottom of the turn. Thus get too much on your back foot, get too much compressed/pressure at the bottom of the turn. Instead you want to move sooner/faster on to the nose and transition sooner to the next edge...don't wait...start to anticipate going to the next edge sooner.


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## MCrides (Feb 25, 2019)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Another way to look at it; is that its a timing thing. Meaning you are too long in the count and thus get at the bottom of the turn. Thus get too much on your back foot, get too much compressed/pressure at the bottom of the turn. Instead you want to move sooner/faster on to the nose and transition sooner to the next edge...don't wait...start to anticipate going to the next edge sooner.


I could do this with or without scrubbing speed though, no?

I'm going to keep this in mind as the season starts up since I tend to wash out on my heel edge I try to scrub speed at the bottom of a turn. There's just too much pressure and it pops out.


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## MCrides (Feb 25, 2019)

Donutz said:


> I've had that problem. My turns are/were very asymmetrical, with the heelside turn almost a braking maneuver. Worked on it the entire second half of last season, and I've mostly got it fixed.
> 
> But what I'm talking about is more of a scarve than a brake, just enough to bleed off some speed before you go into the big loop around.


It's something I worked on last season also. I found grabbing the toe edge early in the turn pretty helpful.

Are there any videos that show the technique you're talking about? Would really like to see it in action.


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## Donutz (May 12, 2010)

MCrides said:


> It's something I worked on last season also. I found grabbing the toe edge early in the turn pretty helpful.
> 
> Are there any videos that show the technique you're talking about? Would really like to see it in action.


Never seen one. Just diagrams.


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## MCrides (Feb 25, 2019)

Donutz said:


> Never seen one. Just diagrams.


Thanks man. I'll STFU about it now, but would love to see any diagrams/discussions/pics/whatever about the technique if you have some that are easy to find.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

MCrides said:


> I could do this with or without scrubbing speed though, no?
> 
> I'm going to keep this in mind as the season starts up since I tend to wash out on my heel edge I try to scrub speed at the bottom of a turn. There's just too much pressure and it pops out.


Yet another way to look at it: Basically you are getting too traverse/perpendicular of the fall line...And are too late initiating the next carve. Instead of doing a "C" shape...do an elongated "S" shape. Transition to the downhill edge sooner. Before you get to the "apex" of the carve, you need to be already transitioning to the next turn. Go to a mellow run, say a green/blue run. Point it and keep your leading shoulder pointed straight down the fall line.


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