# Help staying level in the air while doing 360s.



## Justin (Jun 2, 2010)

There are others who will be able to help you more than me but usually being off balance in the air is a symptom of being off balance on take off ( personal experience ). Make sure you are not leaning back on take off.


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Spence680 said:


> So I was practicing backside 3s today and I am very close to completing the full rotation but my main problem is I seem to be leaned back to far when I'm coming around instead of being centered over my board or level like you would be doing a straight air. Any tips on balancing myself out? Would going for a grab mid rotation help or should I be starting with frontside 3s instead. Hopefully you guys can picture what I'm doing by what I said. I'm landing to far leaned back and falling on my ass lol.


Basically it could be one of 2 main issues here:

1) Your pop might be off

Pop (pushing off both legs evenly as you ride up and off the take-off of a jump) is what sets you up for stable air. If you don't pop evenly and balanced, your air won't be even or balanced. A common mistake with this is popping back foot heavy instead of staying more evenly weighted as you pop upwards.

2) Your spin might be off-axis

Another thing that could be going wrong is you could be dropping your shoulder and initiating that backside spin into a corked spin (off-axis rotation) by accident.

You want to keep your shoulders parallel to your board and not dib them down when you initiate that backside spin off the jump.

Apart from these 2 problems, it's also possible it could be your rotation isn't being set up properly and you're twisting/waving your arms in a certain way that throws you off balance in the air and makes it hard to land, I've seen this happen a few times with people learning 360s.

Honestly though, we need video to properly analyse this, otherwise we're just guessing. There are a lot of things that could be causing you to not rotate properly in the air, video is the only way we can really know what's going on without seeing it in person.

Also as far as spinning goes, there's no reason you need to learn front 360s before backside. Either is fine to learn first (assuming you have your 180s mastered).


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## Spence680 (Jan 17, 2014)

Jed said:


> Basically it could be one of 2 main issues here:
> 
> 1) Your pop might be off
> 
> ...


Thanks for the good advice. I added a video from last weekend jumping into an airbag. Ignore the first run but the 2nd run maybe you can spot something. It doesn't look that bad in that video. I normally land up more leaned back when I do it off a real jump into snow.


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## Jed (May 11, 2011)

Spence680 said:


> Thanks for the good advice. I added a video from last weekend jumping into an airbag. Ignore the first run but the 2nd run maybe you can spot something. It doesn't look that bad in that video. I normally land up more leaned back when I do it off a real jump into snow.


It's kind of hard to tell what's going on because we can't see the setup for the trick (which is where 90% of the trick happens).

However, from looking at it you're definitely not setting up the spin properly with pop + carve + body rotation. It looks like you're kind of just turning and leaning your body into a spin, which would explain why you're ending up rotated off axis.

Need a better video to see for sure though.


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## shredjesse (Jan 29, 2014)

Pre-spinning with no *-pop-* is what's robbing you.

Spinning backside you want a slight heelside turn at the bottom of the jump, then ride toeside on the way up. You'll load force into your camber and be on the balls of your feet when taking off from a very light toeside CARVE, no skidding.

You then pop off your toes while acting like you're elbowing some one right behind you with your back arm, aiming for gut level. If you elbow high you'll spin wide open and awkward.

If you find yourself not getting a good visual of your rotation, fixate your eyes on that rear hand that you're throwing around via the elbow description above. It will help you from getting lost on unimportant visual cues while spinning.

Stay compact to speed up the rotation, open it up to slow it down.


What you're doing is not caving up the jump, you're skidding. When you skid and then attempt to pop, a lot of your energy goes into furthering the skid, and not into actually popping. This will cork you, and prespin. Depending on the jump you can use this to cheat but... it will bite you in the ass sooner or later when you hit a jump you need pop on.

Backside spins (IMO) are great for when you need big pop to clear something or get into the sweet spot of a landing right. You can load the camber of your board and get mega pop, while frontside I find a lot easier to throw your energy into pre-spin versus actual pop.


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## tonicusa (Feb 27, 2008)

^ +1

You're not getting any pop. But it also looks like you're dropping your back shoulder like Jed mentioned. Matching the transition is cool but don't get too far back, it will be hard to pop evenly. 

I also like Jesse's advice about a focal point for your eyes, its easy to lose discipline with that.


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## Spence680 (Jan 17, 2014)

Thanks a lot guys. Little things like picturing elbowing someone in the gut behind me will help a lot. Also fixing my eyes on my rear hand hopefully helps bc I do feel like I'm lost till the last second as I'm hitting the ground. So I'm sure spotting my landing earlier will help a ton as far as knowing to speed up or slow down the spin. I'm gonna slide up to a resort one evening this week and put this info to use. Hopefully I come back with good news lol. Feel free to post anymore tips. The visuals help a lot!


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## shredjesse (Jan 29, 2014)

The finding yourself kind of oblivious to what's going on in the rotation until the end is a pretty normal sensation for riders newer to spinning. You just don't know what to ignore and what not to ignore, and it's all too much to process.

Watching your hand you'll at least filter out a lot of unimportant stuff, and get a peripheral view of what's going on, and your eyes moving in the right direction. Over time, stop looking at your hand and it'll all start to come natural.

I've coached a lot of kids through back 3's. These tips tend to get them going.

Come back when you're ready for back 5 advice. Back 5's aren't all that far away from back 3's and are wicked fun.


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## Kenai (Dec 15, 2013)

In my two attempts at a back 3 I have had the same problem. Your video and these comments havehelped me realize, though, that leaning "back" on take-off is not the problem and leaning "forward" even a little to correct is not the answer. If you freeze your video just as take off the lip you will see the skidding everyone mentions (you have actually already turned 90 deg.), but at that point you are leaning way *forward*. In fact, you look more than 45 deg. forward laying back up the hill. As you can imagine if you rotate around another 90 deg. you will practically be laying on your back looking at the sky, which is exactly how I landed when I tried!

Good luck!


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## shredjesse (Jan 29, 2014)

Kenai, I see you're in NH. I'm in NH this winter helping family after being gone for a while. if you want anyone to ride with I'd be happy to join up. I'm not riding park this year as I'm recovering from a big injury last year, but I don't have anyone to ride with if you're ever free on weekends.


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