# Anyone ride switch permanently?



## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

I haven't been riding switch a lot this year because there's been so much powder lately my very directional powder board became my daily driver for a while. But the powder is gone this week, and the last two days I've been riding switch exclusively, including lifts and one-footing which are now only mildly embarrassing.

Last night I went with my younger daughter who isn't as fast as the rest of the family, and I promised her I'd only ride switch so that I wouldn't go as fast. So I set up my twin with a +9/-18 stance to make regular riding feel weird (it didn't) and switch feel more natural (it did).

But by the end of the night I was feeling really comfortable at speed and riding switch started to become fun and not just an exercise, especially 180's which felt _great_ landing on my more confident side at speed.

I'm thinking about changing to a goofy stance permanently, sucking it up on the lifts for a while and keeping this party going. I think it might really help with freestyle.

I was talking to a lifty last night who said he grew up wakeboarding so he's always done both and doesn't have a "switch" side. I'm a little jealous.


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## WigMar (Mar 17, 2019)

drblast said:


> So I set up my twin with a +9/-18 stance to make regular riding feel weird (it didn't) and switch feel more natural (it did).


That's a good idea! I feel that's like setting bindings up ++ to favor heelside turns because they're naturally weaker. Toeside turns are stronger, so they can take the hit. Regular riding is stronger, so you'll have an easier time adjusting to binding angles set up to favor switch. I'll give that a try next time I'm rocking a twin.


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## freshy (Nov 18, 2009)

I ride switch with my kids too, or perhaps on no fresh snow groomer days,and like you said it gets more comfortable. I find it also helps understand the fundamentals of carving better as you figure out the proper positioning of body and board, way too easy to get complacent riding the same way for decades. But I don't see myself wasting a fresh pow day to "enjoy" it switch, and I'm too old to care about freestyle these days.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

WigMar said:


> That's a good idea! I feel that's like setting bindings up ++ to favor heelside turns because they're naturally weaker. Toeside turns are stronger, so they can take the hit. Regular riding is stronger, so you'll have an easier time adjusting to binding angles set up to favor switch. I'll give that a try next time I'm rocking a twin.


Yeah when I learned to ride switch I did double positive goofy on a directional board to force myself into it, just like when I started riding in the 90's. Not fun but it works.



freshy said:


> I ride switch with my kids too, or perhaps on no fresh snow groomer days,and like you said it gets more comfortable. I find it also helps understand the fundamentals of carving better as you figure out the proper positioning of body and board, way too easy to get complacent riding the same way for decades. But I don't see myself wasting a fresh pow day to "enjoy" it switch, and I'm too old to care about freestyle these days.


I realized my regular riding is entirely muscle memory after 20+ years. I've been watching the "how to carve/ride better" videos specifically to work on my switch riding, but I've never thought about any of that regular. It's all second nature at this point and YouTube didn't exist when I started and I couldn't afford lessons. Even being more conscious and knowing what to do, my instincts are backward.

I think making the permanent change to goofy is going to keep me stoked on riding because I feel like I'm close to a point where riding switch can feel natural too and that's exciting. I feel like I did when I moved to the PNW, realized I could ride all the time, and started getting much better at it.


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## htfu (Mar 18, 2015)

on non-pow days i usually try to do as much switch as possible. when riding alone i do 1 run switch then the next regular ... did this ages ago when my switch was terribad and after a month doing it every day it became way better. weirdly enough my switch has less technical problems/bad habits compared to my regular


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## RayzTheRoof (Mar 10, 2014)

Barely ever rode switch before. I've been riding 6-7 years, and early on I would try switch and it would go pretty well, could get down some ice coast blue runs pretty easily, but I stopped doing it so much because the past few seasons sucks and I didn't want to feel like I wasted days just learning switch (not really a waste in hindsight). 

But this season I just got a Bataleon board and holy crap it's so easy and fun to learn switch on. it's almost impossible to catch an edge and it saved me so many times on my first day with it. You can literally just spin your body will sliding down the mountain and putting no pressure on either edge, and you'll look like a beautiful snow ballerina. Learning switch can be tricky because it's difficult to manage how much pressure I am applying with my non-dominant foot while simultaneously avoiding catching my edges. So this kind of forgiveness is super helpful here.


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## Myoko (Dec 11, 2018)

I tend to ride maybe half the day switch if its just groomers, but I really should commit to riding switch the whole day as I can see how that would make you progress quicker. It's good to learn new things to improve and I really want to do the J curve thing equally as well both ways one day.


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## htfu (Mar 18, 2015)

agreed @RayzTheRoof , 3bt definitely helped me with switch too ... almost feels like cheating


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## htfu (Mar 18, 2015)

always learning both ways makes both better and arguably makes for a better snowboarder ... it just takes a fair bit longer (or exactly how long it should take?)


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## jstar (Sep 21, 2016)

Ya, as I get older I find myself riding switch way more. On non powder days I ride switch 80-90% of the time, including on/off lifts and skating. 

I'm finding a lot of tricks are just easier switch (ex. switch frontside 3).

Makes me think of the first time snowboarding, my buddy and I couldn't figure out whether we were regular or goofy. After a day I settled into regular, and he went goofy...makes me wonder if I made the right choice or not.

I skate goofy, but other board sports (wake/surf/etc) I'm pretty much start regular. Seems common enough I guess. I think I'm rambling.


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## ridethecliche (Feb 27, 2019)

I spend a fair amount of time riding a directional board these days and have debated setting it up switch to force myself to learn. 

I used to skate regular but Mongo and snowboard goofy but move on /off the lift regular. I blew a disc and had surgery because I had left leg weakness so I don't really trust my left side as much just from having had years of dealing with the issues before surgery. 

I think forcing myself to ride switch more would help. I have at least two boards I can set up twin ish. Might follow the advice here and set them up to be 'switch favored' so I can get myself out of trouble more easily. 



RayzTheRoof said:


> You can literally just spin your body will sliding down the mountain and putting no pressure on either edge, and you'll look like a beautiful snow ballerina.


😂😂😂


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

If you want to learn switch fast, set up a directional board the opposite of how you normally ride. It's like starting over, but after years of half-assing switch riding on a twin and flipping around again when I felt unstable, I improved my switch riding so much in one night by full-assing riding goofy.

It helps now that I've been out for 20 days this season so far and doing the same runs with my daughters is getting really old, so doing them switch is much more fun than regular now.


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## Firstorlast (Jan 18, 2019)

Recently realized my switch carves on wide open groomers are becoming better than my standard stance. Trees, ollies, jumps, jibs are still all way more comfortable in my regular stance.


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## speedjason (May 2, 2013)

Idk about riding switch permanently but I do ride switch a lot more. Lately I have been riding switch onto boxes and jumps and try switch ollies and spin off switch.
Carving switch is also fun.


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## drblast (Feb 28, 2017)

So update: I spent three days last week riding switch exclusively except for on lifts so I don't take people out. I'm rapidly improving and it's becoming comfortable and fun. My balance is to the point where I can almost always turn when _I_ want to even on the more moguly runs, and I can make those tiny carvy quick S-turns faster than I used to be able to.

Hardest part is cat tracks and any time I have to flat base. All my instincts are still wrong there and I go slow.


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