# Linking turns and torsional flex



## boarderaholic (Aug 13, 2007)

bkrieger said:


> When linking turns, are you supposed to unweighted both feet, or just the front foot? For ex. Your in a toe side traverse, to do a heels side turn, do I keep the grip on my back toes, while transferring weight to my front heel to initiate a heel side turn? And if so, how soon after putting weight on my front heel do I put pressure on my back heel in a turn?
> Same thing toe side.
> Also, should weight always be on the front foot, and knees always be bent?
> People say to stay low, but when watching other riders, they don't seem to always have their knees bent.
> ...


Assuming you're talking about isolated beginner turns, you don't necessarily "unweight" the feet. You want to make sure both knee's are bent, and I try to teach my students to have their weight pointed downhill. The point of that is to encourage the student to make sure their weight is on their lead foot to try and avoid encouraging rudder steering. After that, you start the rotation with the shoulders, and follow through with the hips, knees and ankles to get the board around. If you do this correctly, you should essentially be able to make the turn around someone standing stationary.


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## thatkidwho (Feb 15, 2014)

In general keep your weight on your lead foot and look to where you want to go. The body will naturally follow your look and so will the board. Your lead foot will initiate the turn and the back will follow.
Practice making slow/gentle turns and really feel the board.
Torsional flex isn't important at this stage. As you progress and your turns become fast and aggressive then feel how the board twist under your feet.

Low with knees bent helps center you on the board. Which aides in balance and control. It may be tiring at first but good form will enable faster progression.

Don't sweat the details, just feel it. Snowboarding is a one fluid motion.


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## kwillo (Jan 11, 2013)

boarderaholic said:


> Assuming you're talking about isolated beginner turns, you don't necessarily "unweight" the feet. You want to make sure both knee's are bent, and I try to teach my students to have their weight pointed downhill. The point of that is to encourage the student to make sure their weight is on their lead foot to try and avoid encouraging rudder steering. After that, you start the rotation with the shoulders, and follow through with the hips, knees and ankles to get the board around. If you do this correctly, you should essentially be able to make the turn around someone standing stationary.


I appreciate you are a much more experienced rider than me but according to CASI quick ride and what I've always been taught, you initiate the turn with the lower body, hips, knees, ankles as opposed to the say winding up the shoulders and letting your lower body follow?


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## bkrieger (Oct 26, 2011)

Thanks. As far as link turns goes, before switching to a new edge, should the board be flat pointed down the hill briefly?


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## kwillo (Jan 11, 2013)

bkrieger said:


> Thanks. As far as link turns goes, before switching to a new edge, should the board be flat pointed down the hill briefly?


No, almost across the fall line if you are closing off your turns correctly. Imagine making linked C shapes down the hill, change edges between each C.


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## boarderaholic (Aug 13, 2007)

kwillo said:


> I appreciate you are a much more experienced rider than me but according to CASI quick ride and what I've always been taught, you initiate the turn with the lower body, hips, knees, ankles as opposed to the say winding up the shoulders and letting your lower body follow?


I use the pre-winding of the shoulders to force the students to aim themselves where they should end up. You are correct though that the lower half of the body should be doing the work.


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## Krato (Apr 29, 2013)

Dude this is a wonderful question. You've just opened up a portal to the divine philosophy of how to use torsion. There are so many combinations and situations of when and how you use torsion, it's almost impossible to answer that question completely. But yes the secret of being a phenomenal rider lies in footwork and torsion.


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## kwillo (Jan 11, 2013)

boarderaholic said:


> I use the pre-winding of the shoulders to force the students to aim themselves where they should end up. You are correct though that the lower half of the body should be doing the work.


Ok I see, wasn't having a dig, figured you're an instructor and wanted a little insight, thanks.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

bkrieger said:


> When linking turns, are you supposed to unweighted both feet, or just the front foot? For ex. Your in a toe side traverse, to do a heels side turn, do I keep the grip on my back toes, while transferring weight to my front heel to initiate a heel side turn? And if so, how soon after putting weight on my front heel do I put pressure on my back heel in a turn?
> Same thing toe side.
> Also, should weight always be on the front foot, and knees always be bent?
> People say to stay low, but when watching other riders, they don't seem to always have their knees bent.
> ...


Personally, I think the torsional flex explination is a difficult to translate in to riding for a beginner/intermediate rider because it involves some subtle movements and timing...its a good conceptual but putting it into muscular movements...while dealing with speed anxieties, terrain reading, collision avoiding and etc. is abit much.

There are two basic approaches or focuses to turning...top down (look where ur going) and bottom up (feet and knee movement)...eventually you learn to use both at the same time for efficient riding.

As far as watching other riders...its good to recognize good riders...but a noobie generally does not know what is good riding nor able to see the subtle differences unless specifically pointed out and it also depends on where they are at in their level of progression and thus what is most helpful to pay attention to.

Thus in conclusion...having a good instructor that can readily see your level and see what you need to specifically work on to take you to the next level...and be able to explain and show you in a manner that you can undeerstand and implement. 

Also imho...the hill/terrain/snow conditions also play an important factor...learning on ice, packed or pow will have a bit of a different focus. An example, last Saturday on packed pow, I was taking 2 girls who were on day 6, down a ducked rope double black to teach them about steepness and getting them to straight-line bomb some blue runs to teach them about how to manage our terrain traps and riding flats.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

torsional force makes transition more smooth because when you change edge, you engage front edge first then the rear. by doing that, your board is more smooth and your lines will be more smooth thus a lot less chattering when turning hard.


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## bkrieger (Oct 26, 2011)

Thanks everyone for the help. Hopefully I'll continue to get better next time on the mountain.


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