# Help take us from beginner to intermediate



## surfinsnow (Feb 4, 2010)

mastershake said:


> Hey guys, I've been teaching my gf how to ride...


Best tip anyone can offer: _*Never teach your gf/so to ride or ski!*_ Buy her lesson, then take off by yourself for a couple of hours. Your relationship will last longer, and you'll both enjoy the sport more. :grin:


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## surfinsnow (Feb 4, 2010)

BTW, for a beginner she doesn't look too bad. Teach her to bomb it down that wide-open empty trail! Screw turns!


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## mastershake (Jan 9, 2012)

surfinsnow said:


> Best tip anyone can offer: _*Never teach your gf/so to ride or ski!*_ Buy her lesson, then take off by yourself for a couple of hours. Your relationship will last longer, and you'll both enjoy the sport more. :grin:


Agreed on the lesson btw, also i'm not the typical teacher. I give her tips and let her work them in by herself and in the meantime we enjoy riding together. As you can see she's come pretty far, I'm just looking for some more tips to give her in case I'm missing something in her form. I think she needs to initiate with her front foot more and let the board do its job.

In general my main tip for her is relax and enjoy !

P.S.: I've taught her from never even seeing a snowboard to that, so I think I've done pretty well so far, but I think im at the point where she may need to take some more advanced lessons. We just dont have enough $$ for that. So, I'm just looking for some general form critique.


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## WasabiCanuck (Apr 29, 2015)

I've been kinda teaching my wife to ride so I know how you feel. I'm not the best rider either I'm maybe intermediate to high-intermediate. I can't really teach her too much anyhow since she doesn't really listen to me, she is also stubborn and refuses to take a lesson. Haha lucky me. 

Anyhow on to your girlfriend, she looks good especially heel edge. She is basically carving heel edge, but she might need to get lower and bend knees more on heel edge when on steeper/faster terrain. But she is still ruddering on toe-edge. She needs to stick her crotch out on toe-edge more. Get her to watch Wrath's creepy basement video. She is doing really well, better than my wife.

Another option is to take a couples lesson. I did this a month ago and it was fun, I'm alot better than my wife so I did the whole lesson switch. My switch riding got tons better and she got some great tips. I highly recommend this option if your switch riding is as bad as your wife's normal riding. haha


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## mastershake (Jan 9, 2012)

WasabiCanuck said:


> She needs to stick her crotch out on toe-edge more.


Absolutely! Its funny you say this because I recorded this literally minutes after saying "try sticking your hips out", she hasn't been doing that before, so this was her first time trying it. I think as she gets used to the feeling and starts sticking her crotch out even further she'll definitely get better.


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## snowklinger (Aug 30, 2011)

My wife has asked me several times to teach her to drive stick.

I prefer the fight of refusing to teach her over the alternative.

18 years its not not working lol.


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

I think she's doing pretty good. She's past the point where people on the chair are looking and waiting for disaster to strike and well on her way to where they're acknowledging 'snowboarding chicks are awesome'.

Work on her toe side ruddering mainly. It's the one thing that really sticks out. Get her a bit more dynamic.


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## phillyphan (Sep 22, 2016)

surfinsnow said:


> Best tip anyone can offer: _*Never teach your gf/so to ride or ski!*_ Buy her lesson, then take off by yourself for a couple of hours. Your relationship will last longer, and you'll both enjoy the sport more. :grin:


I will even go as far as to pay for my GF's lessons. It allows me to hit up my favorite styles of riding and I don't have to stay on greens all day.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

She's doing great! She's a keeper :wink:
Have her glue her trailing elbow to her ribs.
She could sit/squat a bit more on heelside

Have her let the board run...instead of swishing her back foot. Swishing the back foot kind of finishes the turn too early. In part that's why in the creepy vid...the focus is on the front/leading side of the body...and in general you just let the front knee, hip and shoulder lead...and since your body is aligned, in the cereal box, the trailing part of your body will just follow....and you don't need to over-rotate and end up swishing. But you let the board run and use the sidecut of the board...instead of your body...and thus it becomes more efficient riding because you are using the designed sidecut to do the work.

The main thing is...she is not attacking the nose. You can see that she is not getting on that front knee and really bending/driving it. And that as a result...abit later in the turn (at the finish) she is overcompensating on the trailing leg by swishing it....which you also see that she is bending the rear knee more than her front knee.

another thing that might help is for her to get her leading shoulder in the game...she has pretty good form, i.e., stacking and alignment...but she is not attacking the initiation of the turns...which will involve becoming a bit more dynamic in the phases of the turn. That is, going down on the initiation, squatting in the middle and rising up on the finish of the turns. She looks abit hesitant and is not weighting the nose...and is kind of in the middle to slightly too far in the back seat....get her to shift her leading hip (and shoulder) sideways toward the nose...while also driving/bending that front knee (toeside). And for heelside...getting on the nose, swinging the front knee towards the nose and get her hip and leading shoulder also in the rotation towards heelside....then squatting more in the middle of the heelside turn. 


anyway my long-winded armchair 2 cents


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## Oldman (Mar 7, 2012)

*Most impressive*



mastershake said:


> Agreed on the lesson btw, also i'm not the typical teacher. I give her tips and let her work them in by herself and in the meantime we enjoy riding together. As you can see she's come pretty far, I'm just looking for some more tips to give her in case I'm missing something in her form. I think she needs to initiate with her front foot more and let the board do its job.
> 
> In general my main tip for her is relax and enjoy !
> 
> P.S.: I've taught her from never even seeing a snowboard to that, so I think I've done pretty well so far, but I think im at the point where she may need to take some more advanced lessons. We just dont have enough $$ for that. So, I'm just looking for some general form critique.


Indeed, you have done brilliantly. She is linking turns, cruising down the run and looks very comfortable in doing so. AND she is still your SO. Well done!!

I would suggest that if the $'s are tight at the moment that you both just continue to ride as much as you can. In the meantime spend some time here on the forum. There are buckets of video that you can watch to improve almost every aspect of your riding. There are multiple threads on technique.

The best part is that you can both hit the hill together and ride top to bottom. Don't get hung up on being technique perfect. Work on it, but most importantly as you have said yourself; 

ENJOY !!!!!!! :snowboard1:


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## f00bar (Mar 6, 2014)

Oldman brings up a good point. Some people obsess over a constant progression some don't. All that matters is she's out there seemingly having fun. A good day is when you both get out, have fun, and there isn't necessarily any lessons being taught.


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## lbs123 (Jan 24, 2017)

She is doing well, already pretty good heel turn. Besides what was already said - there is a moment when she transitions from the heel edge to the toe edge when she doesn't put the board on the edge but instead let it slide below her. Then she compensates this movement by sticking out her back arm in front of her and gets into counter-rotation. Or maybe boards slides because she sticks out the arm first. Anyway, she could try to align her back arm with the board too (maybe grab the pants). Plus work on quicker heel to toe edge transition, not letting the board slide down. 

Good luck with the progress and have fun!


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## ItchEtrigR (Jan 1, 2012)

I'm with oldman and foobar, she's doing fine, how far she wants to take it is really up to her. Buy her a few lessons or better yet just buy her a season pass...

Sent from my SM-N900 using Tapatalk


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## muzzyahoy (Nov 19, 2016)

one simple thing.... play around with a little bit of forward lean. Brings upon edge control a little quicker which helps with counter rotation.


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