# Forward Stance Better for Carving?



## Joversch

Is Forward Stance really better for carving? and how so?


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## kaborkian

Yes. Because it is..


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## tonicusa

If you mean this kind of carving then yes.


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## hardasacatshead

speedjason said:


> well you engage more edge under front foot to cut into snow. if you sit in the back its very easy to skid.


I feel like a lose a handful of brain cells every time I read one of your posts.


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## Mel M

I've been doing exclusively duck the for two years (50+ times going up the mountain) and went forward stance this year (about a dozen trips). I don't want to go and outright say it's better, since many experienced riders carve excellent using duck stances, but I've found an improvement in both speed and angulation for various reasons.

1.) I liked the mechanics better, as I found forward stances were more dependent on knee drive and rolling of the ankles as opposed to when I went duck and found I really had to focus more on the "hump and dump" action which took me out of rhythm and seemed a little unnatural for me. I had a pretty extreme duck (+21,-21), so that might have something to do with it

2.) I'm able to dive forward better into my next turn. Again, I had a pretty extreme duck, so that might have something to do with it, but for some reason, my forward motion going into my next turn wasn't as fluid and lead to some pretty sloppy turn initiation. Maybe another year duck would've improved it, but with forward, I found it much easier by the second trip up the mountain to do this going down steeps or going at speed.

3.) Body alignment. With duck, your body is aligned with the board and with forward stances it seems a bit counter-rotated forward, but really, it's aligned with your feet. When riding dynamically, I much prefer having my body position face more down hill than to the side of it. Plus, I don't have as much neck pain looking to the left all the time as I did with duck. LOL 

Again, not for everyone, but it might be worth a try. Also, you might not like it all that much the first time like I did. It took two trips for me to dial it in (angles, stance width, mechanics, etc.), so give it some time.


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## CassMT

Well said MelM...the only rider who could answer this objectively is on who knows both ''modes' well


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## Joversch

Mel M said:


> I've been doing exclusively duck the for two years (50+ times going up the mountain) and went forward stance this year (about a dozen trips). I don't want to go and outright say it's better, since many experienced riders carve excellent using duck stances, but I've found an improvement in both speed and angulation for various reasons.
> 
> 1.) I liked the mechanics better, as I found forward stances were more dependent on knee drive and rolling of the ankles as opposed to when I went duck and found I really had to focus more on the "hump and dump" action which took me out of rhythm and seemed a little unnatural for me. I had a pretty extreme duck (+21,-21), so that might have something to do with it
> 
> 2.) I'm able to dive forward better into my next turn. Again, I had a pretty extreme duck, so that might have something to do with it, but for some reason, my forward motion going into my next turn wasn't as fluid and lead to some pretty sloppy turn initiation. Maybe another year duck would've improved it, but with forward, I found it much easier by the second trip up the mountain to do this going down steeps or going at speed.
> 
> 3.) Body alignment. With duck, your body is aligned with the board and with forward stances it seems a bit counter-rotated forward, but really, it's aligned with your feet. When riding dynamically, I much prefer having my body position face more down hill than to the side of it. Plus, I don't have as much neck pain looking to the left all the time as I did with duck. LOL
> 
> Again, not for everyone, but it might be worth a try. Also, you might not like it all that much the first time like I did. It took two trips for me to dial it in (angles, stance width, mechanics, etc.), so give it some time.


Thank you, What angles did you end up with?


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## baconzoo

duck makes you a turtle on your heelside...:laugh:

Carving is all knees and hips. a forward stance allows you to drive your weight over the edge via hip projection, in a way that allows you to get more of an effective edge throughout the entire board.

Duck allows you to rock the board on edge and carve, but projecting your hip forward and into the carve is a lot harder to do. So you cant carve as hard or as long and drawn out as you can with a forward stance.

My 10cents:blink:


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## Mel M

CassMT said:


> Well said MelM...the only rider who could answer this objectively is on who knows both ''modes' well


Thanks. I know two seasons worth duck might not be enough time to dial down advanced carving, but I don't see myself going back. I still have duck on my softer board to do more freestyle oriented stuff (switch, spins, presses, etc.) 






Joversch said:


> Thank you, What angles did you end up with?


Honestly, don't quite remember. The front was 24 or 27 and the back was 9 or 12. I remember I had to change it around when I started the season and that was a month ago.


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## jml22

I noticed a big difference from +15 -9 to +15 0
Probably do +18 +3 so on. It just makes it so much easier to hold a heel side carve


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## KIRKRIDER

jml22 said:


> I noticed a big difference from +15 -9 to +15 0
> Probably do +18 +3 so on. It just makes it so much easier to hold a heel side carve


try +21 + 18/12, the feeling you get when kicking in with the back foot at the exit of a turn feels so much more natural with a high -rear foot- angle too.

I change angles a lot depending on conditions, but if three's no pow...it's carve time.


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## CassMT

fwiw, after much dialing in i'm at about +24/12


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## neni

KIRKRIDER said:


> I change angles a lot depending on conditions, but if three's no pow...it's carve time.


What angles for which condition?
Had +30/+15 (which were the feelgood angles with the former board) first on the Flagship but reduced them slowly and felt perfectly fine with +21/+6-9 end of last season riding almost exclusively pow. So I set up the new (smaller slimmer) Farah with the same angles but for the combinatin of groomer/this board they felt wrong, went up to +24/+12 and was fine again. Wonder, if it's the condition or the board width that makes the difference...? Do you have different angles for different boards as well?


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## jml22

I'll try it out, it's definitely a lot of fun and feels more natural than fore-aft movements while duck.


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## snowklinger

*Your KNEES are touching!*

Surfing is pretty directional, but nobody surfs with forward stances. Wake up monoskiers, we are boarders. We ollie, we nollie, we fucking 180 and cab, we pow butter and ride switch sometimes.

I'm old too, nobody is making you huck yourself off a 60 footer, but you too can be part of this progression! It is still a new sport. 

Nothing wrong with eurocarving alpine hardbooting narrow boards (reads just a few inches difference from a mono ski or somone skiing with their boots together), I see it all the time, but I know some of u guys around here are walking that fine line in the middle and I'm pulling you!

*kisses

tldr: natural stance for boarding, skate, surf, wake, otherwise is not double forward, try you some ducks


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## trapper

snowklinger said:


> Surfing is pretty directional, but nobody surfs with forward stances. Wake up monoskiers, we are boarders. We ollie, we nollie, we fucking 180 and cab, we pow butter and ride switch sometimes.
> 
> I'm old too, nobody is making you huck yourself off a 60 footer, but you too can be part of this progression! It is still a new sport.
> 
> Nothing wrong with eurocarving alpine hardbooting narrow boards (reads just a few inches difference from a mono ski or somone skiing with their boots together), I see it all the time, but I some some of u guys around here are walking that fine line in the middle and I'm pulling you!
> 
> *kisses


I almost fell for it. Then I read this and was brought back from almost slipping into the Dark Side.


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## poutanen

snowklinger said:


> Nothing wrong with eurocarving alpine hardbooting narrow boards (reads just a few inches difference from a mono ski or somone skiing with their boots together), I see it all the time, but I know some of u guys around here are walking that fine line in the middle and I'm pulling you!


I'm one of the pulling ones I'm sure and I ride with a slightly forward biased duck! Despite the fact I love to carve, there's still nothing like riding a hill switch and then popping off a roller to regular stance and tearing it up! 

Switch riding is the reason I still ride duck, and because it feels natural to me.

FWIW, I started with a forward stance some 22 years ago and slowly worked backwards on my own...


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## nillo

Carving duck works ok toeside, but heelside is a bit of a PITA with a lot of chatter. If you are carving heelside really aggressively you will probably end up on your ass unless you have amazing technique. The reason for this as it was explained to me is that the pressure wave has to pass smoothly all the way through the board and with a negative rear angle the wave stalls in the middle of the board. The energy is still there and has to go somewhere. The load on the edge spikes and blows out resulting in chatter. Plus, unless you are properly setting your highback angle you are probably twisting the board so that it is trying to carve two different radii simultaneously.

At least that is how it was explained to me.


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## KIRKRIDER

neni said:


> What angles for which condition?
> Had +30/+15 (which were the feelgood angles with the former board) first on the Flagship but reduced them slowly and felt perfectly fine with +21/+6-9 end of last season riding almost exclusively pow. So I set up the new (smaller slimmer) Farah with the same angles but for the combinatin of groomer/this board they felt wrong, went up to +24/+12 and was fine again. Wonder, if it's the condition or the board width that makes the difference...? Do you have different angles for different boards as well?


I just have 2 boards, the Arbor A-Frame for carving, and the JJ Hovercraft for giant smile days. I use generally +21 +18 (or 12) for carving, and a more relaxed + 18 +9 (or even 6) for pow, since you use the back leg a lot more and I want to have a comfortable position for the knee. I started playing with stance instead, and found out that a narrower one helps a lot when you make fast changes of edge (serpentine), but up to a point, you go a tad more narrow and you start loosing control of the tail of the board...having the feeling of pivoting intend of turning. Next time I want to try something extreme...like +35 + 21... But yesterday was my first day of the season basically... in this Californian summer called January.


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## Mel M

snowklinger said:


> Surfing is pretty directional, but nobody surfs with forward stances. Wake up monoskiers, we are boarders. We ollie, we nollie, we fucking 180 and cab, we pow butter and ride switch sometimes.


Haha, my friend calls me a monoskier, even though I don't have an alpine/hardboot setup. I'm fine with that. I feel such a rhythm and precision carving with a foward stance that I can't get while doing duck. Until that happens, I'm more than happy with my two board, two stance quiver.


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## CassMT

snowklinger said:


> Surfing is pretty directional, but nobody surfs with forward stances. Wake up monoskiers, we are boarders. We ollie, we nollie, we fucking 180 and cab, we pow butter and ride switch sometimes.
> 
> I'm old too, nobody is making you huck yourself off a 60 footer, but you too can be part of this progression! It is still a new sport.
> 
> Nothing wrong with eurocarving alpine hardbooting narrow boards (reads just a few inches difference from a mono ski or somone skiing with their boots together), I see it all the time, but I know some of u guys around here are walking that fine line in the middle and I'm pulling you!
> 
> *kisses
> 
> tldr: natural stance for boarding, skate, surf, wake, otherwise is not double forward, try you some ducks


interesting, but when you start using 'natural' and 'progression' your whole point is fukt


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## tonicusa

If you are going to ride like the hard booters, carving on piste then the positive stance is great. It's not so great if you want to hit jumps, throw spins off of rollers and rip through some trees (unless you are Terje Haakonsen). It's academic really, the duck stance is for one style of riding, and carving is almost like another discipline within snowboarding. I know a lot of guys who do both and have separate gear and stances for it.

But I know plenty of guys who can carve the shit out of a mountain with a duck stance, but they happen to be phenomenal riders. If they were planning on true carving all day they would probably buy a dedicated carving rig.


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## snowklinger

CassMT said:


> interesting, but when you start using 'natural' and 'progression' your whole point is fukt


only if u don't get it.


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## CassMT

of course i get it, it just fails by overreaching..opinion presented as fact


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## poutanen

nillo said:


> Carving duck works ok toeside, but heelside is a bit of a PITA with a lot of chatter. If you are carving heelside really aggressively you will probably end up on your ass unless you have amazing technique. The reason for this as it was explained to me is that the pressure wave has to pass smoothly all the way through the board and with a negative rear angle the wave stalls in the middle of the board. The energy is still there and has to go somewhere. The load on the edge spikes and blows out resulting in chatter. Plus, unless you are properly setting your highback angle you are probably twisting the board so that it is trying to carve two different radii simultaneously.
> 
> At least that is how it was explained to me.


I had this issue when I got onto a setup that could really carve. Could dig trenches on the toeside, but heelside would chatter. The fix was to slow the fuck down a bit, and focus on REALLY bending my knees more, once I got the technique right I could ratchet the speed back up.

This was on chattery hardpack FWIW...


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## nillo

slow the fuck down and focus on technique is a solution to many many problems.


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## poutanen

nillo said:


> slow the fuck down and focus on technique is a solution to many many problems.


That's what she said!  No it's true though, it's like we're trained to push it to 100% all the time...


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## baconzoo

*Carving Switch*

I had to dig up this old "How To" in which I'm riding a Supermodel 181 with 30* +15* stance. The way I see it, is that you have to have an upper and lower body separation. Upper body remains balanced in the direction of travel, and the lower body angleulates to handle the sidecut. Most of the time it's cocked over the edge. Think how freeskiers hit everything switch, how cocked are their knees and ankles while maching into a Wu-Tang booter?


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## CassMT

wow! that actually looks familiar, what year was that?

exactly what i meant when i said if one is used to +/+ then riding fakie with that foot position is a non-issue. not advocating it for all, or talking shit about duck, just saying don't underestimate ++ for everything, and you sure as shit don't have to be terje to ride all-mountain with it


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## baconzoo

between 97-99 I'm guessing.

Not to "beat my chest" but I'd challenge anyone to a switch race. I'm pretty confident that I could beat you...


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## CassMT

there could be a boarderX between the 4 ppl in the world who still give a damn about carving switch, i'm in


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## baconzoo

Ha ha, awesome!

I'm going to go out and film some comparison videos. Duck vs. ++ and use some movement analysis.

I'd love to see some duck carving pics if anyone has any to post.


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## Hurricane

This is an interesting topic and is getting me thinking for my sons board setup. What is easier to learn on? I have my sons board set up duck and he is doing well but really struggles with toe side turning and usually just rides switch to turn that direction, I don't know if it is a fear thing or maybe it has something to do with his set up. He is 10 year old, riding a burton 121 chopper, with a -12/+12 duck I believe and this is his third season but second off the bunny hills and pretty much always riding hard pack. Would a forward stance help him on his toe side turns?? Hope this isn't considering jacking the thread??


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## baconzoo

*my tech...*

I think young kids need to build up strength to kneel into a toeside. I would run some drills to do one C-shaped turn at a time, and have them turn back uphill. (to their knees)

The counter to this is the "shit-fuck turn" when they try to lean into a toeside with their upperbody while letting their center of mass go back. (shit)

If they can just break at the knees on a toeside leaving their upper body tall... they could rock the board up on edge.


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## poutanen

baconzoo said:


> I'd love to see some duck carving pics if anyone has any to post.


Poor form but this was last year at Nakiska... Since then I've worked a lot on technique. This is with a +9/-9 or so stance.


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## nillo

nice stick:thumbsup:


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## poutanen

nillo said:


> nice stick:thumbsup:


Thanks!  Believe it or not it's a good steep and deep board too. Nose is rockered and there's a fair bit of taper so she floats.


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## baconzoo

Nice form. I'd like to see a heelside farther across the fall-line.


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## CassMT

baconzoo said:


> Ha ha, awesome!
> 
> I'm going to go out and film some comparison videos. Duck vs. ++ and use some movement analysis.


that would be interesting, i actually don't doubt that duck is 'better' for switch. but going all the way back to the OP, with your experience in both baconzoo, when the Q is simply, "is ++ 'better for carving?", would you say Y/N? (not talking eurotrenching hardboot alpine, etc, i mean general everyday allmountain riding carving on a normal board)

i tried duck, but in the way Poutenen does it, duck but with the chest 3/4 like you were riding +/+, my back knee was about to blow out every turn..i probably didn't give it enough of a chance but i'm absolutely willing to try again, maybe even this afternoon seeing as our conditions have gone from superb to total shit in the last 3 days...


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## poutanen

baconzoo said:


> Nice form. I'd like to see a heelside farther across the fall-line.


Thanks, yeah that's one thing I worked on a lot late last year. Getting those knees REALLY bent on the heelside and driving the edge into the snow. Also working on controlling my hands better on both sides.

On heelside I've been bringing my back hand across my body towards the tip, and on toeside getting that front hand down closer to the snow instead of way up in the air (to help rotate my shoulders back where they should be).

The great thing about carving is it gives you something to work on when there's no powder! :yahoo:


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## baconzoo

*Heelside advice*

anatomically, everyone is different, so nothing is ever set in stone.

So find a stance that allows you to drive your weight, specifically your leading hip, over the board in a way, that your center of mass (weight) is forward of the middle of your effective edge... [/techno babble]

Once you weight goes back towards the tail, you no longer are driving into the turn, or through it. Your effectiveness at managing that edge pressure is gone.


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## Hurricane

baconzoo said:


> I think young kids need to build up strength to kneel into a toeside. I would run some drills to do one C-shaped turn at a time, and have them turn back uphill. (to their knees)
> 
> The counter to this is the "shit-fuck turn" when they try to lean into a toeside with their upperbody while letting their center of mass go back. (shit)
> 
> If they can just break at the knees on a toeside leaving their upper body tall... they could rock the board up on edge.


Thanks I'm trying to find things he can work on here and there, if I push him to practice it too much he (and sometimes I) get frustrated. I'll talk with him about the C turn and see if that helps. He does great on the heel side.


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## jlm1976

For what it's worth, in my profile pic I am riding a duck stance(15,-12) a salomon special(was similar to a burton custom). I have a few of me in a deep heelside carve that I can try and post later tonight. 
The thing for me that was a real revelation for a solid heelside carve in duck stance was angulate such that your hips are even with or preferably below your knees right at the top of the turn.

I think that technique can overcome the shortcomings of duck for carving just like technique can overcome the shortcomings of riding switch with a forward stance. I rode forward angles for years but switched to duck for more versatility.


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## East§ide

Does this count as carving ducked? Im at +15,-12 I believe..on an Evo


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## jlm1976

Note the hips are level or slightly below the knees...


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## nillo

Is it just me or does that run look very flat?

Also, if that edge blows out you are coming down square on your tailbone like I did last weekend, lol. My GF is still giving me shit about that one.


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## jlm1976

That is a flatter trail, I wasn't posting it to show off the terrain. 
I don't have any pics on steep terrain. 

Luckily, if the edge does give out, you butt isn't very far off the snow!


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## skip11

Here's me trying to euro carve with a duck stance (+21 -9). I don't think it is necessary to use a forward stance but I can see how it is easier. And if you see almost all the best turners in snowboarding have forward stance (e.g. Craig Kelly, Terje, Jake Blauvelt).


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## nillo

it's just that I have found that most of my chatter problems on heelside would occur on steeper slopes. Higher speed = more energy that blows out when the wave stalls = harder to compensate.

sure your butt is close to the ground, but tell that to my tailbone that skipped across the run because I was going mach 2. lol


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## snowklinger

skip11 said:


> Here's me trying to euro carve


problem identified


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## skip11

@snowklinger: And what is the problem? I know it's not the best euro carve.


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