# keeing board flat?



## Troskinatior (Nov 25, 2009)

well ive been snow boarding for 3 years with no lessons and i have a problem keeping my board flat, so i always got to stay on my toe or heel and at the end of the day i get cramps so bad i can barely walk. the problem is that when i put my board flat my board wobbels back and forth and gets progressivly worse until i fall or go back on my edge. if anyone can help that would be great


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2009)

It's recommended to always have at least a slight edge angle. Boarding flat based is possible, but reserved for the more skilled as it's way to easy to catch an edge.

If you're getting cramps that bad the only thing I can suggest is get your legs in shape!


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## freshy (Nov 18, 2009)

It's hard for me to put into words how to ride flat because I dont really know what I do to do it, but I can tell you to just stay relaxed. Seems like your wobbles are from trying to over correct, or being too tense. I suppose it is a trial and error thing. You will have to just go for it and expect to catch an edge every so often, soon you will feel when that is about to happen and be able to correct your self before you slam. Obviously you should only do it when you need to go straight and keep or pick up as much speed as possible.


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

What Snowolf said about keeping your body aligned...AND slightly shift your hips toward the nose of the board, to keep from catching an edge. Remember which ever the tail or the nose is weighted more...that weighted end will want to go down the fall line first...so to keep your tail from wanting to swing around...i.e. get wobbly and catch an edge...keep a slight weight on your nose and relax/loosen your knees and ankles but keep your body aligned. 

At the local hill there is a narrow cat track where you have to bomb around a curve then it flattens out with a slight uphill grade for at least 50 yards...its easy to get through when riding flatbased and if you try it on edge you often loose too much speed and then have to skate.

Its sort of like rear wheel drive (weight on the tail) verses a front wheel drive (weight on the nose) ...rear wheel drive can push you sideways....catching an edge... verses front wheel drive pulls and then the rear of the car just follows.


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## Thadwood (Dec 13, 2008)

Some thing that helped me out when I was learning to stay flat was to keep my weight a little more on the back foot. I found it much easier to control the board and keep from catching an edge when I was leaning back slightly. When I was centered on the board, my front foot was the cause of my wobbliness. Snowolf has the right advice as usual, it's essential to keep your hip and shoulders aligned with your board.


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## Troskinatior (Nov 25, 2009)

wrathfuldeity said:


> Its sort of like rear wheel drive (weight on the tail) verses a front wheel drive (weight on the nose) ...rear wheel drive can push you sideways....catching an edge... verses front wheel drive pulls and then the rear of the car just follows.


 so the more foward is like understeer on a fwd and the farther back is the equivelent to a jdm tokyo drift, so that means the farther back its less likely to catch an edge, but farther back you are more nimble, is that right?





Snowolf said:


> Your cramps are something that a little tweaking with your bindings should help eliminate. Adding in more forward lean to the high back often helps leg cramps. Also stance width and angle can have a big impact .


 thanks, ill seach how to do that


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## Guest (Dec 3, 2009)

actually, weight on the back is more understeer, while weight on the front is more oversteer when it comes to riding. i prefer weight on the front.


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## twin89 (Jan 21, 2009)

when i keep my board flat i like to shift some weight onto the back just to that my front contact points and not super pressed into the ground and therefore you are les likely to catch. but yeah make sure your body is not turned in any way.


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## Guest (Dec 4, 2009)

ThirdEye said:


> If you're getting cramps that bad the only thing I can suggest is get your legs in shape!


This is not true at all I've been playing soccer for 15 years now and my legs are in extremely good shape. Also when I played soccer I never got shin-splints or horrible cramps like I would get from snowboarding by the end of the day.I had these horrible cramps as well when I first started snowboarding.

The best thing you can do is follow wrathfuldeity's instructions as well as finding all the best angles on your bindings that allow you to just relax in a good stance, rather than having to always force your feet to be on a side "toe-side and Heal-side", which is always what created the horrible cramps that I got. 

I Hope this helps


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## wrathfuldeity (Oct 5, 2007)

BabyBear24 said:


> This is not true at all I've been playing soccer for 15 years now and my legs are in extremely good shape. Also when I played soccer I never got shin-splints or horrible cramps like I would get from snowboarding by the end of the day.I had these horrible cramps as well when I first started snowboarding.
> 
> The best thing you can do is follow wrathfuldeity's instructions as well as finding all the best angles on your bindings that allow you to just relax in a good stance, rather than having to always force your feet to be on a side "toe-side and Heal-side", which is always what created the horrible cramps that I got.
> 
> I Hope this helps


BabyBear...that's right, soccer players have awesome legs. Cramps are often due to new riders trying to ride/steer/work the board with their feet and ankles. That is, they are doing "tippy toes" and "gas pedal" to engage the edges and to stay on edge instead of using their hips, quads and bending their knees. The problem is that they are using their small joints and muscles of the feet/ankle/calf...which are fine to make small quick subtle adjustments...but you want to use the larger muscles and joints of the hip/quad/knees because they are bigger for more efficent riding.

Also learning to ride flat is about learning to trust the board. That is, a board ...without the rider...will travel straight down the fall line...try it sometime in a safe place...just set it down and let it take off....it will zoom down the fall line, not get sideways or flip over til it hits something or bounces off the terrain. Now do it again with a small 1 pound bag of sand sitting in the front binding...the board will fly down the hill in a very stable/non wobbly manner and will not catch an edge....now do the same but with the bag of sand in the rear binding...well the tail will swing around and perhaps catch an edge. So riding flat is about slightly weighting the nose, having good form/alignment, trusting the board to do what it was designed for, and keeping your lower half loose and relaxed to absorb and ride over the little imperfections in the terrain. A good test to see how you are doing is to find a gentle bunny slope and ride one footed...if you can ride one footed, you can ride flat based.


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## Troskinatior (Nov 25, 2009)

yea when i started doing boxes i fell on my ass alot because i was so used to being on my edge.


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